Presidio Independent School District v. Robert Scott, as Commissioner of Education, 53 Tex.S.Ct.J. 648, 650, n.3 (Tex. 2010)

See Brown v. Darden, 50 S.W.2d 261, 263 (Tex. 1932) (“Whenever a legislature has used a word in a statute in one sense and with one meaning, and subsequently uses the same word in legislating on the same subjectmatter, it will be understood as using it in the same sense, unless there be something in the context or the nature of things to indicate that it intended a different meaning thereby. The rule applies when the phrases are substantially the same.” (citation omitted)).

Id., at 651

Courts must not give the words used by the Legislature an “exaggerated, forced, or constrained meaning.” City of Austin v. Sw. Bell Tel. Co., 92 S.W.3d 434, 442 (Tex. 2002).  Disregarding twenty-one uses of “party” in the surrounding context, all of which do not include the Commissioner, in favor of the single use that does is precisely the sort of “exaggerated, forced, or constrained meaning” that we eschew. See supra note 3.