Yesterday, Texas voters in San Marcos, Denton, Killeen, Elgin and Harker Heights showed strong support for ballot propositions to decriminalize misdemeanor marijuana possession.
Each town had a over a 60% share of votes for the proposition, with San Marcos seeing the most favorable return. With over 15 thousand votes cast for it to pass, Prop A got a yes answer by 81.8% of the vote to win. Just over 3k voters voted against it.
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Denton, lead by Decriminalize Denton along with Ground Game Texas and TCC, passed Prob B with 71.35% of the vote. This area saw 32,610 people voting for the measure. Just over 13 thousand voted against the measure.
Killeen was a city that with its proximity to Fort Hood and local paper that was showing it was not in favor, was an election for advocates to closely pay attention to. In the end though Prop A saw 68% of the vote go to the yes side of the checkboxes. 11,662 people voted to pass the measure. 5,399 voted against it. Now to see how Ft. Hood responds to this as a whole, considering the still federally illegal status of the plant.
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Harker Heights was another town to pay close attention to for the same reason. Prop A saw 62% of the votes go in favor of the measure. 3,789 voters voted for it while 2,290 voted against it.
Elgin saw 74% of the voters approve their measure. 1,555 voted for it while 546 voted against it.
What do these propositions do? These propositions will establish city ordinances that end low-level marijuana possession enforcement. This means that citations and arrests for possessing less than four ounces of marijuana and related drug paraphernalia are to not be enforced. They also included bans on using city funds and staff to test for THC.
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So, how can these cities pass marijuana ordinances despite the state has laws making the plant illegal? The cities are known as home-rule cities. Texas as two types of cities, general law and home-rule cities. Home-rule authority means the jurisdiction may establish any law or ordinance it wants to unless it is expressly forbidden by state or federal law. All of the cities with these propositions are currently in the category of home-rule cities.
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This means that unless Texas changes the law in the next legislative session, the cities involved so far have the authority to change this on a local level for how enforcement works. That does not mean that DPS has to observe those measures, nor do the Sheriff’s in those counties where those cities sit.
Now advocates possibly wonder with the election results across the state, how will the legislature react to this monumental move for the cannabis community? How will the legislature in Texas react to this during the 2023 legislative session?
