College Station, TX Sign Regulations: Political Signs (2026)

Texas Election Code Sec. 003 takes most regulatory tools away from College Station when a sign contains primarily a political message and is located on private real property with the owner's consent. For such a sign, the city may not prohibit placement, may not require a permit or municipal approval, may not impose a fee, may not restrict the sign's size, and may not charge more to remove it than it charges to remove other signs regulated by ordinance. The bar applies whether the rule lives in an ordinance or in the city charter itself.

Subsection (d) lists the exits from this protection. A sign loses it if the sign has an effective area greater than 36 feet, is more than eight feet high, is illuminated, or has any moving elements. Any single one of those is enough, so an oversized or lighted campaign sign falls back under the city's ordinary sign ordinance. The statute also reaches only private property. Signs in public rights-of-way, on utility poles, and on public property are prohibited, and no sign may obstruct traffic sight lines or create a safety hazard.

Owner consent is part of the test too: planting a sign on someone else's lot without permission gets no protection. Beyond the statute, content based restrictions on political speech are unconstitutional under Reed v. Town of Gilbert (2015), so what the sign says cannot be singled out.