marijuana

The national cannabis oversupply problem

Comments are off for this post

A fascinating look at a big problem in the cannabis market.

Along the West Coast, which dominated U.S. marijuana production long before states began to legalize it, producers face what many call the failed economics of legal pot.

There is vast supply, thanks to great growing conditions and a wealth of expertise, but any surplus remains officially trapped within each state’s borders due to the federal ban on marijuana. Prices have plunged and producers have struggled.

“I’m at rock bottom,” said Jeremy Moberg, who owns CannaSol Farms in north-central Washington and, like many licensed growers, complains that the state’s 37% cannabis tax leaves virtually no profit margin for producers. “I’m tired of running a failing business.”

No one in the industry expects a fractured Congress to help out anytime soon by legalizing the drug, allowing pot businesses to deduct expenses or even just easing banking restrictions that frequently cut them off from loans or credit.

Instead, some are pinning their hopes, however faint, on President Joe Biden’s administration clearing the way for marijuana trade among states that have legalized the drug. That would allow the West Coast — with its favorable climate and cheap, clean hydropower for indoor growing — to help supply the rest of the country, they argue.

[…]

Twenty-one states have now legalized the recreational use of cannabis by adults. Sales just began in Missouri, are expected to begin in July in Maryland and totaled $300 million in the first year of New Mexico’s program.

How states have set up their markets has implications for how their industries are doing now — and how they might fare should businesses be allowed to sell out of state.

Washington and Colorado were the first states to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012. Many of the early regulations Washington adopted to keep the Justice Department at bay — including restricting the size of growing facilities and banning out-of-state investment — remain in place.

That has helped some smaller growers thrive. But it could hamstring those hoping to compete in an interstate marketplace alongside larger, more efficient producers from Oregon or California, who operate under fewer limits.

In Oregon, where sales began in 2015, large growers have achieved some economy of scale that could give them a leg up in a broader market. But in the meantime, the state’s oversupply is considered the nation’s worst.

In February, the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission reported marijuana businesses were sitting on about 3 million pounds (1.36 million kilograms) of unused cannabis, as well as 75,000 pounds (34,000 kilograms) of concentrates and extracts.

Steve Marks, then the commission’s executive director, said Oregonians already buy as much weed as they can use. Federal inaction poses “an existential crisis” for Oregon’s industry, he warned.

“Cannabis in Oregon is like corn in Iowa,” said TJ Sheehy, an analyst for the commission. “If you put a box around Iowa and said you can only grow corn in Iowa to sell to Iowans, you’d have exactly the same dynamic.”

None of this has anything to do with Texas right now, of course, because we only allow a narrow medical use of cannabis. As you well know if you’ve read this blog for any length of time, it’s highly unlikely that situation will change in any meaningful way as long as Dan Patrick is in charge of the Senate. But nothing lasts forever, and things will eventually change, so it’s worth considering what the prospects for Texas-grown cannabis might look like some day. If the federal restrictions remain in place, then Texas growers would have sole access to the Texas market. Good for them in terms of limiting competition, not so good in terms of growth potential. If the federal restrictions are removed or at least weakened, then established suppliers will be racing in to meet the demand we’ll surely have. Not so good for the local growers, though being the “locally sourced” option can be an advantage, but potentially great for the consumers, who will have more choices and thus hopefully lower prices.

All this is theoretical, of course. At the rate we’re going, the rest of the country may be growing and selling cannabis before Texas ever gets around to allowing it here. I’ll leave it to you to decide how business friendly that would be.

A tale of two Propositions A

May 8th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

I usually write my own sentence or two to introduce the article I’m linking to and commenting on, but honestly I can’t do any better than the lede of this story.

Proposition A, the wide-ranging police reform measure also known as the Justice Charter, went down in flames Saturday night, with a wide margin of voters casting a ballot against the measure.

Opponents began celebrating just minutes after early vote totals posted.

“The defeat of Prop A is a victory for local families, for local businesses and our quality of life,” wrote San Antonio SAFE PAC Co-Chairs Eddie Aldrete and April Ancira in a statement. “San Antonio is one of America’s unique, great cities and today our citizens professed with a loud and unequivocally clear voice we want to keep it that way.”

Ananda Tomas, executive director of ACT 4 SA, which gathered more than 38,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot, said Saturday night she thought it would be a tighter contest — early vote totals came in with more than 75% against Prop A.

With all 251 vote centers reporting, election day voters had reduced that lead to just under 72%.

But the “grassroots effort” was no match for the police union’s money and political reach, Tomas said. “It’s just big, monied interest and misinformation that’s out there.”

The Current adds on.

In addition to decriminalizing abortion and low-level pot possession, Prop A would have codified cite-and-release for Class C misdemeanors such as petty shoplifting and vandalism. Additionally, it would have codified SAPD’s current ban on police choke holds and no-knock warrants.

Prop A’s backers were outspent 10-to-one by opponents including the powerful San Antonio Police Officers Association and deep-pocketed business interests.

Indeed, Prop A’s fatal flaw may have come down to the difficulty explaining exactly what it would do amid a barrage of ads depicting it as a step toward rampant crime and violence in the streets.

“We still have to do a lot of public education. We’ve been doing it for several years and we’re going to continue,” Ananda Tomas, executive director of police reform group Act 4 SA, told reporters at the Prop A watch party. “We know when we’re at the doors and we break all of these things down, that folks are with us.

High-profile leaders including San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and most of city council also declined to back Prop A. Proponents accused the mayor of backpeddling on his prior support of cite-and-release.

“The challenge with Proposition A is that I think it mischaracterizes what cite-and-release was about,” Nirenberg previously told the Current. “Cite and release has always had officer discretion. Prop A effectively removes officer discretion, and again, theft and property damage are not victimless crimes.”

Tomas said she was disappointed with the the mayor’s decision to campaign against Prop A. However, she said that she and fellow progressives aren’t giving up in their fight for criminal justice reform.

I had mostly described San Antonio’s Prop A as being about marijuana decriminalization, but it was a lot more than that, I think to its detriment. I get the appeal of trying to address these things systematically, but this is one of the downsides of that approach (see also: Obamacare and Build Back Better), in which the more controversial and less popular aspects of the package are weaponized against it. It also may be the case that the electorally successful marijuana reform referenda from 2022 benefitted from being more under the radar, while this effort was regularly topline news. I don’t think most of the individual components of Prop A are any less popular on their own – marijuana decriminalization, not pursuing abortion-related prosecutions, banning choke holds, that sort of thing. It’s just that proponents of them will need to strategize further in advancing them. (How many of them will be to a city or county’s discretion following this legislative session is another matter.)

Meanwhile, it was a different story in Austin.

The May 6 election made it clear: Austin is ready to dramatically expand civilian oversight of police.

With about 78,000 voters turning out for the May 6 election on two police oversight propositions with the same name (Austin Police Oversight Act), the progressive Prop A got approval from a resounding 70% of voters, per unofficial voting numbers. Prop B, which copy-pasted language from Prop A and then edited it to reduce oversight powers, received support from only 20% of voters.

As we observed from early voting numbers, turnout overall was not spectacular. In 2021, when a GOP-aligned PAC Save Austin Now was able to get a measure on the ballot to increase police staffing, roughly twice as many people cast a vote (and the police association-backed measure lost). A little more than 10% of Austin voters showed up this election, which is not atypical for a May election without high profile offices on the ballot.

Still, the passage of Prop A – which seeks to grant the Office of Police Oversight a whole lot of freedoms, including greater access to Austin Police Department’s internal affairs investigations – marks a huge stride for the city, and possibly the beginning of litigation over the legality of some of the measure’s language. If a court does eventually throw certain elements of the measure out, the undisputed parts of the ordinance will still stand.

I was vaguely aware of Austin’s referenda, but saw much less news of them than I did the props in San Antonio, for whatever that’s worth. I’m not saying this is the only way forward – indeed, as I have said before, what we really need is a better state government, because even this path forward is increasingly narrow and hostile – but what was tried in San Antonio didn’t work, and seem unlikely to be viable elsewhere. Let’s learn what we can from what happened and make the best of it going forward.

One more thing about abortion and polling

May 4th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

Just wanted to add one thing to my earlier post about abortion as a political/campaign issue in Texas in 2023-24. In addition to the question of support for or opposition to abortion, most polls also ask questions about what issues voters prioritize. Sometimes they give the respondents a list, sometimes they let the respondents volunteer their answers. You can see examples in the Texas Politics Project polls and in various national polls, among others. The idea here is to try to get a handle on the issues that are actually motivating people to vote, as well as understand which way they would go.

Generally speaking, abortion is not a top-cited issue in most polls. Even in 2022, even among Democrats and the voters Democrats were trying to reach, it wasn’t the top issue. Inflation, crime, the state of democracy, climate change, and abortion were among the top issues for Dems last year, while for Republicans it was inflation, crime, and immigration. There is of course a subset of voters for whom abortion as been The One Issue, but that’s a small group and they are the hardest of the hardcore forced-birth contingent.

Abortion is absolutely becoming a more salient issue for Democrats, where it fits into a panoply of related issues that we see as being genuinely threatened by radical far-right legislators and their enablers on the courts. Voting rights, democracy in general, LGBTQ+ rights, gun control, fights against book bans and “critical race theory” and “don’t say gay” laws and drag show bans and on and on, they’re all of a piece. Dems are increasingly (though still not entirely) unified on these issues, and they both poll better overall and tend to have appeal to a class of voter that used to be on the other team. There are still disagreements – there will always be disagreements – but the Bart Stupak contingent is now vanishingly small. I’d say a fair number of more recent converts, the post-2016 crowd in particular, which includes some of our more energetic activists, came on board in part over abortion rights and the fear of the Roe reversal that was to come.

What’s clear from the polling data we have is that support for abortion rights, even in a more-limited-than-we’d-like manner, significantly exceeds the vote share that pro-choice politicians get. Here in Texas, there are three issues on which public support is totally disconnected from legislative action: Expanded gambling, marijuana decriminalization, and abortion rights. The first two can largely be explained as “Dan Patrick opposes them”, but the third is entirely due to people who say they support abortion rights – again, even in the very limited “rape/incest/health of the mother” way – voting for Republican candidates that support making abortion 100% illegal.

How do we get these Republican voters who want to have at least some access to legal abortion in Texas to stop voting for forced-birth extremists? If I knew the answer to that, I’d be pelting Colin Allred and Roland Gutierrez with my resume to be their campaign manager. I can’t say with certainty that there’s a way to reach these people and change their minds, or at least their voting behavior, even in just one or two key races. But I believe there is, and I believe we can and must try to find it. I believe we did not try to take advantage of this change in the national mood last year – we did try to persuade people about the failures of the grid and our deadly gun laws, with which I have no quarrel other than they ultimately didn’t work – and we must try it next year. I believe we can learn from what activists did in states like Kansas and Michigan and Pennsylvania. I believe there is a risk both of going too far and pushing past the comfort levels of the “I support women who need abortions, but I’m icked out by the women who want them” voters, and also of angering and enervating the activists who want the politicians they support to be as bold and courageous as they are by trying to accommodate the former. I believe we have no choice but to try, whatever the risks are.

Like I said, I don’t know the answers. I’m just trying to frame the questions. I welcome your feedback.

Could we get an expansion of medical marijuana?

Apr 12th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Maybe, but I have my usual doubts for the usual reasons.

Rep. Stephanie Klick

Texans who suffer from chronic pain and potentially other debilitating conditions would be able to access the state’s medical marijuana program under a bill advanced by the Texas House on Tuesday.

The bipartisan legislation, sponsored by House Public Health chair Stephanie Klick, is an expansion on the state’s 2015 “Compassionate Use” law — which has, in a number of legislative changes since it was created, allowed a growing number of patients in Texas to legally use cannabis to treat debilitating symptoms of conditions such as epilepsy, autism, cancer and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

House Bill 1805 passed the chamber Tuesday on a preliminary vote of 121-23 and is expected to get final approval on Wednesday before heading to a Senate committee.

The bill would allow doctors to prescribe 10 milligram doses of cannabis for chronic pain cases that might normally call for an opioid pain management prescription. Some conditions that could cause such pain would include Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

The bill also authorizes the Texas Department of State Health Services to further expand the list of conditions that it could be used for in the future, without needing to change state law anymore.

Klick’s bill also changes the way the legal level of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — the active psychoactive agent in cannabis — is measured, from a concentration to a set volume of 10 milligrams per dose, which supporters say allows it to be delivered more efficiently and in a wider variety of ways. The THC found in cannabis has been found by some patients and doctors to be effective against pain, depression, anxiety, appetite problems and nausea.

There was no debate on the House floor, nor any vocal opposition in a committee hearing on the bill last month.

As research has expanded in the area of low-THC medical marijuana, currently delivered to patients in mostly tincture oils and gummies, Texas lawmakers have been in favor of expanding access to the program, Klick said.

“My intent then and still is to have a truly medical program that follows the scientific data,” said Klick, R-Fort Worth, who sponsored the legislation creating the original program.

The Compassionate Use Program in Texas has registered some 45,000 patients since it first began, with about 10,000 to 12,000 active participants, said Nico Richardson, the interim chief executive officer of Austin-based Texas Original, the state’s largest medical cannabis provider. By comparison, a similar but much more inclusive program in Florida has about 485,000 people currently enrolled in the program, Richardson said.

As noted before, I’m not following the Lege very closely this session, because it’s all a shitshow and I just don’t want to. But even in this cursed session there are a few good bills that will get real support, and so we may as well take note of it. Kudos to Rep. Klick, who as noted authored the original Compassionate Use bill, for getting this one this far.

The key question, as always, is what does Dan Patrick think. The story doesn’t say, and my default assumption in these matters is that he’s opposed to any increase in the allowable use of marijuana until proven otherwise. If he doesn’t support it, then this is as good as it gets. Even if he does support it, he could threaten to tank it if the House doesn’t play ball on his favorite things, like vouchers. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe this will be on a glide path to Greg Abbott’s desk. I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then, it’s Dan Patrick’s Senate and that’s how it will be until we are finally able to vote his ass out.

SCOTx rules for city on pay parity, for firefighters on collective bargaining

Apr 1st, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

I’m going to approach this one at first via dueling press releases. First, from the HPFFA:

The Supreme Court of Texas has ruled that the City of Houston violated the state constitution in refusing to honor voter-approved fair pay and benefits protections for Houston firefighters and all other first responders in Texas.

“This is a historic ruling, said Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association President Patrick M. “Marty” Lanction. “Never before has a local government refused to honor the will of the voters. The treatment our firefighters have endured over the last six years is unforgivable. They have stood strong and courageous in the face of overwhelming political odds. We remain grateful to the court and the voters for continuing to stand by us through this fight.”

In another ruling, the court struck down Houston’s Proposition B pay parity referendum as conflicting with the voter-approved state constitutional amendment guaranteeing firefighters and all other first responders the right to collective bargaining. Today’s court decision upholds the collective bargaining law, which is the only protection available to firefighters and police officers in a state that prohibits first responders from striking when denied fair pay, benefits and working conditions. The ruling compels the city to negotiate a contract with Houston firefighters who have been working without a contract for six years.

In the meantime, the Texas Legislature is considering a bill to require binding arbitration managed by an independent third party selected jointly by firefighters and the City when collective bargaining does not work. The bill, sponsored by State Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston), won approval from the Texas Senate earlier this week. It is designed to prevent the stalemate Houston firefighters have had to deal with under the current mayor from ever happening again. Mayor Sylvester Turner is the only mayor in Houston history to be unable to reach a contract agreement with firefighters.

“Houston firefighters and their families have been well-represented by their union leadership,” said International Association of Fire Fighters President Ed Kelly. “This is a victory for all of labor.”

And from the city, a little while later:

Today, the Texas Supreme Court struck down the so-called Pay-Parity Amendment [Proposition B] that would have required Houston to pay its firefighters the same compensation as its police officers receive even though the jobs, shift structure, training, education, pensions, and virtually all aspects of the two jobs are very different.

The Court held that Proposition B, approved by voters in 2018, was in conflict with Chapter 174 of the Local Government Code [collective bargaining], passed by the Texas Legislature and adopted in 2003 by Houston voters to govern their firefighters’ compensation.

In addition, the Court ruled on the firefighter union’s effort to force the courts to write the union’s contract with Houston under Chapter 174 based upon what they claimed was Houston’s failure to meet the statute’s compensation standards—the same standards the firefighter union sought to change through Prop B.

Although Houston challenged as unconstitutional the provision of Chapter 174 allowing courts essentially to write the parties’ contract, the Court disagreed and sent the case back to the trial court.

Contrary to false representations by the firefighters union today, the City has not been held to have violated the Texas Constitution or any statute, or to have thwarted the will of the people. The case has simply been sent back to the trial court for application of Chapter 174’s standards now that its judicial enforcement provision has been held constitutional.

“This is a huge victory for the City of Houston. I am grateful that the Court has clarified which of the directives the City received from the voters, in approving both Chapter 174 and Proposition B, the City must follow,” said Mayor Turner “It would simply not have been possible for the City to comply with both, and the Court recognized that irreconcilable conflict. Worse, the ruinous financial burden the 2018 amendment would have placed on the City would have resulted in lost programs, services, and in layoffs, including firefighters.

“My hope is that the firefighters union will now forego efforts to try to strong-arm the City into meeting its unreasonable demands and come to the bargaining table in good faith. City officials are still waiting there.”

See here for the background. Honestly, this is about as good a result as the city could have reasonably hoped for, given that their Prop B argument was the much stronger of the two. I don’t have a whole lot to say that I haven’t said before, but I do want to address one point from the Chron story.

The Prop B case centered on whether equal pay with police would conflict with the existing framework to pay firefighters, enshrined in state law and adopted by Houston voters in 2003.

Under that law, the city must pay firefighters substantially equal to their counterparts in the private sector, and the city and the union may collectively bargain to negotiate contracts. The law has a clause that says it “preempts all contrary local ordinances, executive orders, legislation, or rules.”

The police officers’ union and the city both challenged Prop B under that law, saying it conflicted the statute by providing another pay standard. The Supreme Court agreed.

“Finally, we hold that Chapter 174 pre-empts the pay-parity amendment,” Justice Jane Bland wrote in the ruling. “Local law may not supplant Chapter 174’s rule of decision by requiring an inconsistent compensation measurement.”

Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association Local 341 President Marty Lancton acknowledged the court’s rejection of Prop B, but praised the jurists for upholding collective bargaining, saying it compels the city to negotiate with the union. The union has not reached a new contract during Turner’s tenure.

“This is a historic ruling,” Lancton said. “Never before has a local government refused to honor the will of the voters. The treatment our firefighters have endured over the last six years is unforgivable. … We remain grateful to the court and the voters for continuing to stand by us through this fight.”

I mean sure, but the whole point here was that the local government argued that the voters wanted something illegal. This is basically the same quarrel we’re having now about all of those marijuana reform referenda, both the ones that were ratified in 2022 and the one that is now on the ballot in San Antonio. Local officials are saying that the voters are being asked to support something that cannot be enforced. One can certainly disagree with their interpretation of the law, and one can certainly disagree with their response to these referenda, but the arguments have been made in good faith, in my opinion. And in this case, the argument won the day. The firefighters took a big swing, and now five years later we can definitively say they missed. Better luck to them at the bargaining table.

More on the Denton experience with marijuana decriminalization

Mar 20th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

A long story from the Dallas Observer.

Nick Stevens stood before the Denton City Council looking equally frustrated and determined. The activist had helped to lead the grassroots charge to decriminalize marijuana in the North Texas college town. Now he was there to defend Proposition B, which more than 71% of the city’s voters had supported in a high-turnout November vote.

Stevens and other activists with the group Decriminalize Denton had fought hard to pass one of the state’s first ordinances to decriminalize low-level marijuana offenses, but they received bad news the day after the election. Denton officials announced in a Nov. 9 memo that the city “does not have the authority to implement” some of Prop B’s provisions.

Facing council members during the Feb. 21 meeting, Stevens emphasized that even if they didn’t personally like the ordinance, they should still respect the will of Denton voters.

“That’s what being a representative is all about,” Stevens said. “It’s about listening to your constituents.”

Decriminalize Denton blasted the ordeal over Prop B as an “attack on democracy” in a press release. Advocates point to other Texas cities such as Austin that have implemented near-identical measures. Voters in San Marcos, Elgin, Harker Heights and Killeen similarly approved decriminalization during the midterm elections. But others have argued that the merits of the ordinance aside, the city of Denton’s hands are tied.

Prop B would mean, in part, that police could no longer issue citations or execute arrests for misdemeanor quantities of marijuana, except under certain limited circumstances. It would also bar law enforcement from using the “smell test,” meaning the scent of weed couldn’t serve as an excuse for search or seizure.

City Manager Sara Hensley explained during the Feb. 21 work session that Denton doesn’t have the authority to implement the parts of Prop B that run afoul of state law. She noted in her presentation that from Nov. 1 to Jan. 17, local officers made 52 citations and/or arrests related to pot or paraphernalia. (Prop B advocates have asked to see the demographic makeup of this, as did the Observer, but the police department didn’t respond to the request.)

Hensley argued that the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, which mandates that police enforce state law, essentially supersedes the proposition. Denton’s police chief further vowed that the department would continue to make minor marijuana offenses a low priority.

To Deb Armintor of Decriminalize Denton, though, hearing the number of arrests and citations was “infuriating.”

“This is what they call ‘low priority’?” Armintor, a former Denton City Council member, told the Observer. “This is business as usual.”

Another local marijuana advocate spoke at the February meeting. Eva Grecco described how she went out day after day to gather enough signatures to place Prop B on the ballot. Many seniors can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars on medications each month, she said, and marijuana is a viable alternative.

“‘The times, they are a’changing.’ I am a mother. I am a grandmother. I am a great-grandmother,” Grecco said. “I myself do not smoke marijuana, but I fought very hard for this Proposition B to pass.

Grecco also tried to appeal to the council by noting that some members are themselves parents: “The more you fight the will of the people, these are the things your children will remember in the future.

“I’m just really angry — angry that all this time has gone by and certain members of this council and city manager have refused to listen or comply with the will of the people,” she continued. “Whether you like it or not, your personal choices do not matter. We do not vote for any of you for your personal choices.”

Grecco, Stevens, Armintor and the rest of Decriminalize Denton aren’t alone in their vexation. Some of the city’s voters have reported experiencing déjà vu. The battle over Prop B in uber-conservative Texas isn’t the first time that their voices have been muted following a landslide vote.

[…]

”The progressive group Ground Game Texas partnered with advocates in Denton and other cities to help lead the decriminalization campaign. Mike Siegel, the group’s co-founder and general counsel, agrees that Prop B is enforceable. City councils in Texas often adopt ordinances that may face legal challenges, he said, but they can press on until a judge tells them otherwise.

“You can see how the city manager is disrespecting the people as policymakers, even though the Texas Constitution and the city charter of Denton guarantees the people the policy-making rule,” he said. “Because the city manager is treating the people’s vote as something less than our regular city council vote, and that’s not how it should be under the law.”

The way Siegel sees it, voters should have been advised of legal risks prior to hitting the ballot box, but afterward? “Once they voted, that should be respected like any other ordinance in the city code.”

Denton City Council member Jesse Davis said the council has known for a long time that much of the measure is incompatible with state law. Davis told the Observer that parts of the ordinance, like the budgetary provisions, can’t be enacted by referendum. “Otherwise, you’d have people voting on referendums like: The tax rate is zero, the city budget only goes to fix the streets in my neighborhood,” he said.

City council members can’t simply ignore that Texas law exists and they can’t tell the police which rules to enforce, Davis said. But members are ready to focus on what they can do moving forward instead of what they can’t.

The democratic process isn’t just polls and referenda and headcounts; it includes representative democracy, Davis said. Each city council member was elected by the people, and each took an oath to uphold the laws of the U.S. and state constitutions.

Davis said a number of his constituents have contacted him about Prop B.

“I had to have some frank conversations with them about where we fall in the hierarchy of legislation,” he said. “And I’m very frustrated by some folks out there in the community who know better, or should know better, [who are] misleading people about our role in the scheme of laws and statutes in the state of Texas.”

Davis will face a recall on May 6, the same day he’s up for reelection, after detractors circulated a petition that partly claims he’d ignored “the will of over 32,000 Dentonites” when it comes to the ordinance. He contests that assertion as “factually inaccurate” and said he’s confident that voters will cast their ballot based on his record.

See here for the background. The story mentions that this isn’t the first time that Denton activists passed a ballot referendum that ran into resistance. This is a reference to the Denton fracking ban of 2014, which was challenged in court before it was implemented and subsequently nullified by the Legislature. This case is a little different in that the ordinance was implemented but not fully, with the argument being over how much of it can be done. There isn’t litigation yet (at least not in Denton) but there is a request for an AG opinion, and I have to believe that the Lege will weigh in, given their utter hostility to local control.

Anyway. I believe both sides here are arguing in good faith. I get everyone’s frustration. Ultimately, this is a state problem, both in terms of how marijuana is handled legally and in how much ability cities have to govern themselves. The solution has to be at the state level as well. I just don’t see any other way forward, given where we are. It will not be easy. There is no easy way. I wish there were.

SCOTx denies pre-election challenge to San Antonio marijuana reform referendum

Mar 18th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

First the voters will vote, then as needed the lawsuits will happen.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that any legal challenges to a proposed charter amendment on policing reforms must wait until after voters weigh in on the measure in the May municipal election.

While the court did not expressly deny the idea that the charter amendment could violate a state law prohibiting multi-subject charter amendments, Justice Jane Bland wrote that “voters injured by an election irregularity have remedies to address their injury after the election.”

The proposal brought forth by Act 4 SA and other progressive groups seeks to decriminalize marijuana and abortion, ban police chokeholds and no-knock warrants, expand the city’s cite-and-release program for nonviolent, low-level offenders, and create a city justice director to oversee the implementation of those changes.

The measure will be on the May 6 ballot as Proposition A.

Bland also suggested that an effort by three Northside councilmen to skip the City Council vote approving the measure for the ballot could have an impact on its future. Manny Pelaez (D8), John Courage (D9) and Clayton Perry (D10) left the dais shortly before the pro forma vote in February, viewing the measure as unenforceable.

“Sufficient post-election remedies exist that permit the voter to challenge any infirmity in the proposed amendment and its placement on the ballot — after the voters have had their say,” Bland wrote.

[…]

Council approved the ballot 7-0 in the absence of the three council members.

That move triggered a second challenge from TAL’s lawyers, which petitioned the court to remove the charter amendment from the May ballot on the grounds that the San Antonio City Charter prescribes a 10-day delay for ordinances that pass with fewer than eight votes to go into effect. That deadline was Feb. 17, a day after the council vote.

“Our role is to facilitate elections, not to stymie them, and to review the consequences of those elections as the Legislature prescribes,” Bland wrote. “We can readily do so in this instance through a post-election challenge.”

A dissenting opinion from Justice Evan Young pointed to the decision of the three councilmen who were absent from the vote as a pivotal move.

“None of the Court’s stated reasons apply here because they all depend on the same mistaken premise: the existence of a lawfully ordered special election,” Young wrote.

Young noted that in order to hold a special election, a city council must order it at least 78 days beforehand.

“The city council clearly failed to follow that binding legal requirement here,” wrote Young, who was joined by Justices John Devine and Jimmy Blacklock.

In a written response to TAL’s petition, outside lawyers for the San Antonio City Council argued that the city’s 10-day delay doesn’t apply to putting the Justice Charter on the ballot because Texas Election Code supersedes the city’s authority on the matter. The election code doesn’t stipulate the margin by which measures setting an election must be approved, the lawyers wrote.

See here and here for the background. I believe this was the correct ruling, and I agree with Justice Bland’s reasoning. I also think this proposition will face some significant legal headwinds if it does pass, but that’s a fight for another day. Until then, we’ll see how it goes in May. The Current has more.

Oklahoma rejects recreational marijuana

Mar 11th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Oh, well. At least you can still gamble there.

Oklahoma voters rejected a state question Tuesday to allow for the recreational use of marijuana, following a late blitz of opposition from faith leaders, law enforcement and prosecutors.

Oklahoma would have become the 22nd state to legalize adult use of cannabis and join conservative states like Montana and Missouri that have approved similar proposals in recent years. Many conservative states have also rejected the idea, including Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota last year.

Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and many of the state’s GOP legislators, including nearly every Republican senator, opposed the idea. Former Republican Gov. Frank Keating, an ex-FBI agent, and Terri White, the former head of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, led the “no” campaign.

“We’re pleased the voters have spoken,” said Pat McFerron, a Republican political strategist who ran the opposition campaign. “We think this sends a clear signal that voters are not happy with the recreational nature of our medicinal system. We also think it shows voters recognize the criminal aspects, as well as the need for addressing mental health needs of the state.”

The “no” side was outspent more than 20-to-1, with supporters of the initiative spending more than $4.9 million, compared to about $219,000 against, last-minute campaign finance reports show.

State Question 820, the result of a signature gathering drive last year, was the only item on the statewide ballot, and early results showed heavy opposition in rural areas.

“We don’t want a stoned society,” Keating said Monday, flanked by district attorneys and law enforcement officers from across the state.

The proposal, if passed, would have allowed anyone over the age of 21 to purchase and possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana, plus concentrates and marijuana-infused products. Recreational sales would have been subjected to a 15% excise tax on top of the standard sales tax. The excise tax would be used to help fund local municipalities, the court system, public schools, substance abuse treatment and the state’s general revenue fund.

As the story notes, Oklahoma allows medical marijuana and has had a pretty good experience with it, which was one of the catalysts for this effort. I saw an AP story on Monday that had hyped this vote, but obviously it didn’t turn out as supporters wanted it to. That’s unfortunate for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that it would make Texas even more of an outlier in its resistance to reforming its punitive old pot laws. Guess we’ll have to find some other motivation for that. Anyway, sorry Sooners. At least it’s a shorter drive from where you are to Colorado. CNN and the Dallas Observer have more.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, had this measure passed I had planned to title the post about it “Toke-lahoma”. It is everybody’s loss that I am not able to do this.)

The Denton experience with marijuana decriminalization

Feb 24th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

It’s been a challenge.

Four months after a majority of voters approved Proposition B, Denton’s misdemeanor marijuana decriminalization ordinance continues to be a difficult issue for city staff to implement completely, according to City Manager Sara Hensley on Tuesday.

Hensley, who gave a presentation to the Denton City Council, said that since Nov. 1 — about a week before Denton voters passed Prop B — 52 citations and/or arrests were made by Denton police for misdemeanor marijuana possession or paraphernalia related to marijuana.

Of those 52 cases, Hensley pointed out that 23 arrests were for primary violations other than marijuana possession. Those violations include issues such as warrants, criminal trespass or public intoxication.

Hensley said that certain parts of the ordinance simply couldn’t be implemented because it violates state and federal law.

“I recognize the voters have spoken,” Hensley told council members Tuesday afternoon. “I understand that, but we don’t have the authority.”

Nick Stevens, a board member of the advocacy group Decriminalize Denton, said later Tuesday evening at the City Council meeting that what some council members and city staff are saying publicly is different than what they claimed privately.

Stevens also said the ordinance has become a political issue instead of a nonpartisan one, as indicated by the overwhelming majority of voters who approved the measure in November. He wondered why the city didn’t provide the demographic breakdown of those citations during Hensley’s presentation because historically, minorities have been unfairly targeted by law enforcement.

“The disappointing part — outside of the breaking local law — is not giving the demographics,” Stevens told the Denton Record-Chronicle.

The Record-Chronicle requested demographic information on the citations from the Denton police Tuesday afternoon.

“All of the information the City has to provide will be included in the City Manager’s presentation today to City Council,” the Denton Police Department media relations team said in an email Tuesday. “We do not have any additional information prior to them receiving that work session report.”

[…]

At Tuesday’s Denton City Council work session, Police Chief Doug Shoemaker was also on hand during Hensley’s presentation to answer questions and reassured council members that misdemeanor amounts of marijuana would continue to be a low priority for police. He also reaffirmed that the odor of marijuana wasn’t initiating probable cause and search and seizure issues, though it was part of the process in some cases.

Denton Municipal Judge Tyler Atkinson discussed the deferred adjudication process that is available to people who receive misdemeanor marijuana charges and how the municipal court does its best to work with offenders by lowering fines, offering community service and other opportunities.

Atkinson also mentioned that the court sends text messages to people to let them know about the process and how to expunge their records. The videos are also posted on YouTube.

“We’re the only city in the whole state that sends them out and [posts them] online,” Atkinson said.

After Hensley’s presentation, council member Jesse Davis mentioned that it has been an all-or-nothing-type situation with the decriminalization issue and suggested finding a “middle ground” by implementing parts of the ordinance that doesn’t violate state law.

In Hensley’s presentation, she pointed out that the City Council does have the discretion to amend the budget in regards to how city funds are spent.

For example, the Proposition B ordinance states no city funds will be used for THC testing of misdemeanor amounts of marijuana. But, it requires a council approval and not a voter one under the city charter, as Mayor Pro Tem Brian Beck pointed out in early December when he tried to get his fellow council members to pass a duplicate ordinance of Proposition B to give it the budgetary teeth it needed.

“I’m willing to talk about what we have in our authority to do,” Davis said regarding the budget and which part of the ordinance can be implemented. “It is fair. It is not fair for the voters to tell us to break the law. That is nonsense and not our job.”

Beck and fellow council members Vicki Byrd and Brandon Chase McGee encouraged city staff and other council members to follow the will of the voters and allow the courts to decide what can and can’t be implemented.

“I think we need to fully implement it and if the state slaps our hands back, we know where we are,” McGee said. “We’re answerable to the people. None of us got 70% of the votes. None of us. How often do we see that 70% pass anywhere? There is no reason not to do it, so let’s do it.”

A video of how to expunge one’s record in Denton is embedded in the story. I found this to be fascinating, and quite different from the experiences in Bell County and Hays County, not to mention the pre-vote conflicts in San Antonio. All of that was discussed in the story as well, so go read the rest. There is a legitimate question about what a City Council is supposed to do with a voter-passed ordinance that one can reasonably read to be in violation of state law, at least in part. The bigger issue here remains the fact that state and federal law are much stricter about marijuana than the public wants them to be. Cities can only nibble around the edges of that, and at their own peril in a state like Texas. The problem needs to be resolved at a higher level, and that’s a much more difficult thing to do.

AG argues for separating that San Antonio criminal justice reform proposition into multiple questions

Feb 17th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Not a surprise, but an aggressive position to take.

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office is urging the Texas Supreme Court to side with opponents of a proposed charter amendment that seeks to decriminalize marijuana and abortion, as well as enact a host of other police reforms.

Solicitor General Judd Stone submitted a letter to the court Wednesday calling the proposal a “grab-bag of provisions” that “flagrantly violates” a state law prohibiting multi-subject charter amendments.

Stone urged the court to grant a petition filed by the anti-abortion group Texas Alliance for Life Inc. (TAL) requesting that the city reject the proposed ballot language, and instead require a vote on each provision individually.

“While the substance of this proposed charter amendment conflicts with multiple substantive provisions of state law, this mandamus proceeding concerns a procedural problem: the charter amendment plainly violates Texas law’s longstanding prohibition on municipal charter amendments that ‘contain more than one subject,’” Stone wrote.

[…]

City Attorney Andy Segovia told reporters last week he believed most of the charter amendments’ provisions were at odds with state law and therefore unenforceable by the city even if they’re approved by voters.

Stone’s letter agreed with that assessment and accused San Antonio officials of “abuse[ing] their discretion by certifying and including this charter amendment on the ballot.”

In a written response to TAL’s petition Tuesday, Segovia defended his decision to place the amendment on the ballot as written because city officials “plausibly read the proposed charter amendment language to encompass only ‘one subject’ as required by statute.”

Segovia added that opponents should challenge the validity of the amendment after the election, not before.

Stone’s letter disagreed, and asked the Texas Supreme Court to take swift action against the proposal in its entirety. He suggesting the court has long favored stopping such charter amendments before they’re voted on, something that’s still possible if it can prevent San Antonio from including it on the ballot this week.

“When there is an opportunity to correct a ballot before the election, waiting to address the issue through a post-election contest and, potentially another election, is not an adequate remedy,” Stone wrote. “Because respondents can correct the ballot now, [TAL’s] mandamus is appropriate.”

See here for the background. I still think, based on past history, that SCOTx would prefer to not get involved at this time, but I’m somewhat less confident of that now. Both sides of this argument are defensible, so it really is a question of whether SCOTx wants to step in now or just wait for the inevitable lawsuit later. For sure, if this passes it will be a quick matter before they have to rule on a temporary restraining order one way or the other about enforcement. Breaking it up into its components means there will be multiple lawsuits instead of one. I don’t know what they’ll do, but as I said before, we’ll surely find out quickly. San Antonio City Council approved it for the ballot as is, which was also as expected. Now we wait to see what if anything SCOTx does. The Current has more.

San Antonio marijuana decriminalization referendum already facing a legal challenge

Feb 14th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Don’t think this one will work, but after that who knows.

Opponents of the so-called Justice Charter have filed an emergency petition asking the Texas Supreme Court to require separate votes for each of its provisions, including decriminalizing marijuana and abortion and banning police chokeholds and no-knock warrants.

Progressive groups last month submitted roughly 38,000 petition signatures to get the proposed charter amendment included on the May municipal election ballot, a move San Antonio City Attorney Andy Segovia signed off on last week.

On Friday the anti-abortion group Texas Alliance for Life Inc. (TAL) filed a petition requesting that the city reject the proposed ballot language, which it says violates a state law prohibiting multi-subject charter amendments, and require each issue to be listed and voted on separately.

“Respondents have no discretion to force voters to approve or reject, all or nothing, charter provisions dealing with issues as varied as theft, graffiti, or prohibiting cooperation with state agencies regulating abortion providers,” wrote attorney Eric Opiela, a former executive director of the Republican Party of Texas.

City Council is expected to order that the ballot proposition appear on the May 6 ballot Thursday, a formality they don’t get to exercise judgment over. The deadline for setting the May ballot is Friday.

“Once Friday’s deadline passes, it is impossible for Respondent, San Antonio City Council to add additional measures to the May 6, 2023, ballot, preventing the separation of the proposed charter amendments into their separate subjects as required by law,” Opiela wrote.

“The tens of thousands of residents who signed this petition understood that each of these police reforms are part of a comprehensive approach to public safety, and we expect to vote on them in the same way they were presented — as one unified package,” Act 4 SA Executive Director Ananda Tomas said in a statement Sunday night.

Segovia said the city would defer to the amendment’s authors.

“We have until noon on Tuesday to respond to the Texas Supreme Court. Our position remains that the Council will put the petition on the ballot as one Justice Policy proposal because that was the way it was presented to those who signed the petition,” Segovia said in an email Sunday.

See here for the previous entry. I Am Not A Lawyer, but I don’t know offhand of any successful recent efforts to split up a ballot proposition like this. These are all criminal justice reform measures, and if the law is usually interpreted broadly then I don’t think there’s a leg to stand on. I also think that SCOTx would prefer to wait until the voters have their say, as then they have a chance to duck the question. If they’re going to act I’d expect it to happen before SA City Council votes to put the measure on the ballot on Thursday. So we’ll know soon enough. TPR has more.

Marijuana decriminalization and other police reform proposals get closer to the ballot in San Antonio

Feb 12th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

This will be the most interesting election on the May ballot.

A proposed City Charter amendment that seeks to ban police from using no-knock warrants and chokeholds, as well as expand the city’s cite-and-release policy for low-level, nonviolent crimes, has enough certified signatures supporting it to appear on the ballot in San Antonio’s May municipal election.

However, City Attorney Andy Segovia told reporters Wednesday the most of the provisions are inconsistent with state law and could not be enforced if even if they’re approved by voters.

Segovia said that if the amendment is approved, the city would not be able to make any other changes to its charter until the November 2025 election, thanks to a state law restricting the frequency of charter amendments. Mayor Ron Nirenberg had been assembling a charter review committee to explore other potential changes in the coming year.

As written the proposal, called the Justice Charter by its proponents, would ostensibly eliminate police enforcement of certain levels of marijuana possession, eliminate police enforcement of abortion-related crimes. It would also ostensibly ban the use of chokeholds by police, ban the use of no-knock warrants, create additional requirements to obtain a search warrant, and remove the officers’ discretion in whether to issue a citation or arrest for some low-level crimes.

With the exception of one provision calling for the creation of a city justice director, Segovia said the proposal’s elements “are all inconsistent with state law.”

“Therefore, even if the public does adopt the charter amendments, the charter amendments as written will not be enforceable,” he said.

See here and here for some background. The Current has a rebuttal to the “unenforceable” argument.

Mike Siegel — co-founder of progressive group Ground Game Texas, which backed the proposal — told the Express-News that the Texas Constitution grants municipalities the right to so-called “home-rule” authority.

Ground Game Texas championed a similar proposal approved by Austin voters last May that decriminalized weed in that city. Months later, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has yet to sue to stop it.

“We know that Ken Paxton loves to sue Austin, loves to make an example of Austin elected officials and has not done so,” Siegel told the daily. “And to me, that’s the strongest indication that the state attorney general himself has determined that cities do have this discretion, that it is firmly grounded in the home-rule authority that’s guaranteed by the Texas Constitution, and this is something that cities can decide for themselves.”

Well, sure, but the Republicans in the Lege, as well as the state courts, have not been shy about limiting cities’ authority in various matters, so I don’t know how confident I’d be in that position. For sure, if this passes, it will be litigated, and there is the possibility of a pre-emptive bill being passed against this even before then. Again, I want to stress, the goals that Act4SA and Ground Game Texas are advocating are good and laudable and I support them. I just don’t think this is going to work, and I have zero reason to believe that the Republicans will just let this slide if it passes. Restraint and tolerance for any kind of dissent are not in their playbook. I hope I’m wrong, and I’m confident we’ll find out if this does pass. SA’s City Council has to vote on it next week, and from there it’s off to the campaigns. If you’re in San Antonio, I’d love to hear from you about this, so please send an email or leave a comment.

San Antonio will vote on marijuana decriminalization

Jan 13th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

We’ll see how it goes.

Progressive groups celebrated on the steps of City Hall Tuesday afternoon before delivering the boxes of signed petitions needed to get a measure in front of voters that would decriminalize both cannabis possession and abortion.

Ananda Tomas, executive director of police reform group ACT 4 SA, told reporters that her group and its allies collected 38,200 signatures in favor of the San Antonio Justice Charter. That’s well above the roughly 20,000 required to put it on the ballot for May’s citywide election.

If passed, the charter also would codify the ban the San Antonio Police Department’s current leadership has placed on police chokeholds and no-knock warrants.

“I’ve been frustrated working within the system and working in City Hall to try to get things like this done,” District 2 City Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez told charter supporters. “I think this is a demonstration that when the people will it, it will happen.”

Although the petition garnered support from McKee-Rodriguez and an array of progressive groups from around the state, it’s likely to face stiff resistance from others. Danny Diaz, head of San Antonio’s powerful police union, said his organization will work to defeat the measure, which he said ties officers’ hands.

See here for some background and here for an earlier version of the story. The San Antonio Report adds some details.

The City Clerk’s office has 20 business days, until Feb. 8, to verify the signatures.

“We’re ready,” City Clerk Debbie Racca-Sittre said inside City Hall as she and a colleague sealed and time stamped four boxes filled with more than 5,000 pages of petition signatures.

City Council will call for the election, which will include council district seats and other local elections, during its Feb. 16 meeting.

Voters will likely see just one item on the May 6 ballot to make the batch of changes to the City’s Charter — but city officials could split them up into separate votes, Tomas said. “The intent is for it to be one single proposition. I think that that’s still going to be a conversation with City Council.”

[…]

The charter changes would essentially direct the police department not to spend resources pursuing most abortion and low-level marijuana possession cases.

A provision in the Texas Constitution states that “no charter or any ordinance passed under said charter shall contain any provision inconsistent with the Constitution of the State, or of the general laws enacted by the Legislature of this State.”

Whether the charter rules, if approved, violate that provision may ultimately be left up to legal challenges — but “this is entirely legal,” Mike Siegel, political director and co-founder of Ground Game Texas, told the San Antonio Report.

“Every day, police departments decide what they’re going to enforce and what they’re not going to enforce, and this represents the people of San Antonio saying: these are not our priorities for our scarce public dollars,” Siegel said. “The roots of the Texas Constitution are in local self control [and] self determination. So that’s why we have charter cities that have this authority to adopt their own charters and decide their own laws.”

It will be up to opponents of the charter changes to decide whether they want to challenge it, he said.

I would expect this to pass, as similar referenda has done in other cities. Whether it will get a similarly chilly reception from City Council or Commissioners Court remains to be seen. Unlike some other counties, the Bexar County District Attorney is on board with the idea, as noted in this Texas Public Radio story, so they have that going for them. On the other hand, the Lege is out there as well, with a giant hammer to wield against cities and counties that do things the Republicans don’t like. Sometimes I don’t necessarily mind Houston being a bit behind the activism curve. If six months or a year from now this ordinance is in place and being complied with, I’ll be delighted and looking to our city to follow suit. If not, I’ll be disappointed but not surprised. Stay tuned.

Bell County to sue over Killeen’s marijuana ordinance

Jan 5th, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Something like this was surely inevitable.

Bell County commissioners, along with the district attorney, are determined to settle the question of whether Killeen’s Proposition A is lawful, making the governing body the first in Texas to sue one of its own cities over decriminalization of misdemeanor possession of marijuana.

“Basically, the discussion was going on in consideration of the ordinance that had been passed by the City Council of Killeen and the actions of the result of that particular vote,” Bell County District Attorney Henry Garza told the Herald. “What you saw (on Thursday) was really the beginning of getting this particular question before a court: What is the effect of a local municipal ordinance when it comes into conflict with state law?”

In a unanimous vote on Thursday, Bell County commissioners agreed to file a lawsuit against Killeen over the city’s adoption of Proposition A, the ballot measure that was approved by voters in November to decriminalize marijuana in Killeen.

“The county commissioners voted to direct the county attorney and (me) to get involved in the beginning to get that question answered,” Garza said. “That is the only way to get it into court to begin a legal action.”

None of the other Texas cities where decriminalization initiatives have been approved — Elgin, Denton, San Marcos and Austin — has faced litigation. But in San Marcos, Hays County District Attorney Wes Mau has asked for the Texas attorney general’s opinion on that city’s decriminalization ordinance.

“The good news is the vast majority of the law has actually been researched not only by me and the county attorney, (but) the city attorney in Harker Heights had the opportunity to review the matter legally and so has the city attorney in Killeen,” Garza said.

Opponents of Prop A, including Garza, say it conflicts with state law — where low amounts marijuana is still a misdemeanor — and therefore should not be allowed in individual cities.

It is not clear when the lawsuit will be filed.

“We will plan accordingly,” Garza said.

He and County Attorney Jim Nichols met with Commissioners Bobby Whitson, John Driver, Bill Schumann and Russell Schneider in executive session for an hour on Thursday. County Judge David Blackburn joined the meeting remotely, and Schumann chaired the meeting.

After 10 people spoke and each commissioner offered their opinions on Proposition A, they voted 5-0 on an “authorization to litigate.”

“The Bell County attorney is authorized to file suit against the city of Killeen and its agents to enforce Texas Local Government Code section 370.003 by seeking declaratory relief in district court against the city of Killeen’s actions as unconstitutional; and seeking injunctive relief in district court against the city of Killeen from enforcing either the special order or ordinance; and seeking injunctive relief against the city of Killeen from punishing police officers for enforcing marijuana laws under the Health and Safety Code, Penal Code, and Code of Criminal Procedure,” according to the authorization.

The decision allows Nichols to seek declaratory relief “authorizing peace officers licensed by the state of Texas to fully enforce marijuana laws as it is their duty to prevent and suppress crime under Section 2.13 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.”

See here, here, and here for some background. Activists in Harker Heights, which is also in Bell County, are planning to force another vote on the issue, though that may wind up being moot, depending on how this goes. I don’t know how this will play out in the courts – I’m not optimistic for the Ground Game Texas folks, I’ll say that much – but even a favorable ruling may not help, as I would expect the Lege to weigh in as well, on the side of the opponents. I believe Ground Game Texas is on the right side of the issue and as noted I’d vote for one of their propositions if it were before me, but the power imbalance is what it is, and there’s not a clear way around it. You may have heard me say something like this in the past, but we’re going to have to change our state government if we want things like this to go differently in the future. Not much else to it, I’m afraid. The Current has more.

Trying again in Harker Heights

Jan 2nd, 2023

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

I admire the determination.

Cannabis reform advocates are pushing back against the city council of the Central Texas city of Harker Heights, which recently rejected a voter-approved ballot measure decriminalizing low levels of pot possession there.

Harker Heights was one of five Texas municipalities in which voters during the November midterms approved decriminalization initiatives. While at least two other of those votes received blowback from local officials, Harker Heights is so far the first to reject voters’ approval outright.

Voter mobilization group Ground Game Texas, which championed Harker Heights’ original ballot initiative, said it’s launched a new petition drive to override the council ordinance, which passed Nov. 22. Some 64% of voters in the city of 34,000 people approved the decriminalization initiative.

“By voting to repeal Prop A, the Harker Heights City Council sent a clear message to their constituents that they don’t respect the will of the voters or the democracy they participate in,” Ground Game Texas Executive Director Julie Oliver said in a news release. “These antidemocratic politicians are trying to throw away the votes of more than 5,000 Harker Heights residents — but we won’t let them. With this new referendum, Ground Game Texas will ensure the will of voters isn’t trampled on by their local elected officials.”

See here and here for the background. I consider what Harker Heights City Council did to be defensible, but I would not feel the same way if this effort succeeds and they override it again. At this point, the opponents of this proposal on City Council can make their case directly to the voters, so there’s no question about conflicting mandates. Whatever happens, this should be the last word, until and unless the state gets involved.

On a related note:

Organizers have gathered more than 26,000 signatures so far for a petition that would give San Antonio voters in May the opportunity to decriminalize marijuana possession, end enforcement of abortion laws, establish a city “justice director” position, ban police from using no-knock warrants and chokeholds and expand the city’s cite-and-release policy for low-level, nonviolent crimes.

The local police reform advocacy group ACT 4 SA aims to collect 35,000 signatures — anticipating that some won’t be verified — to submit to the City Clerk before the early January deadline.

But even if they miss that goal, voters can expect to see the slate of proposed changes, collectively known as the “Justice Charter,” to the city charter on the November 2023 ballot because the signatures collected are valid for six months.

“Two-thirds of the people I talked to sign [the petition],” said Ananda Tomas, executive director of ACT 4 SA, which launched the petition effort in October. “They’re either for the initiatives or they just want to put it up to a vote because they think that this is something we should vote on.”

San Antonio’s police union has criticized the Justice Charter as an overreach into police policies as well as violations of state and federal law. Union President Danny Diaz has pointed out that chokeholds and no-knock warrants already are prohibited, while enforcement policies for marijuana and abortion are determined at the state level.

San Antonio had previously passed an ordinance that “recommends that no local funds be used to investigate criminal charges related to abortions”. I assume this would go further than that, but it’s not clear to me exactly how the referendum differs from the existing ordinance. It’s clear that opinions differ about the legality and enforceability of the marijuana-related measures, and I’d say the same would be true for the abortion one. I strongly suspect we’ll be hearing from the Legislature on the latter, and quite possibly on the former as well. Be that as it may, I will be very interested to see how this turns out, and whether something similar happens in Houston.

Hays County DA questions San Marcos marijuana ordinance passed by voters

Dec 17th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Add this to the pile.

San Marcos voters passed a marijuana ordinance this November that would halt San Marcos police from arresting people for low-level marijuana offenses. Now, the Hays County district attorney is looking to Texas leaders for their opinion on the ordinance.

Hays County District Attorney Wes Mau sent a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton requesting his opinion on San Marcos’ marijuana ordinance on Thursday, December 8.

“I am asking for the opinion because San Marcos officials are justifiably concerned that if the ordinance is legally or constitutionally void, then if the city disciplines officers for enforcing the marijuana law, as the ordinance requires, the city could be liable,” Mau said to MySA in an email.

In the letter, Mau noted that the ordinance would attempt to stop officers from using the smell of marijuana as probable cause.

“It is inconsistent with state and federal law for an ordinance to declare that the odor of marijuana may never be used as probable cause for a search or seizure when, as a matter of law, there are certainly times when the odor of marijuana constitutes probable cause under state or federal law,” Mau said in the letter. “The determination of probable cause is to be made on a case-by-case basis by the judicial branch.”

[…]

The ordinance went into effect on November 17 and covers possession of up to four ounces, but doesn’t cover THC oil and only applies to the San Marcos Police Department.

Mau said in the email to MySA that the local government code and the Texas constitution appear to prohibit an ordinance like the one that got passed.

“The attorney general cannot overturn the referendum, nor am I asking him to, but an opinion as to whether the ordinance is enforceable may be helpful to the city moving forward,” Mau said in the email to MySA.

I think this is a slightly different case than what we saw in three other cities that passed similar referenda only to see their City Councils pass laws modifying or nullifying them. If this is a valid concern, then it makes sense to seek an opinion rather than let the situation play out and deal with the inevitable lawsuits later. I presume that if the AG opinion aligns with this concern, then San Marcos’ city council will have a decision to make about that ordinance. I’ll keep an eye on this, because the likelihood that there will be more of these referenda passed by voters around the state is very high, and the same question would apply in those places as well. Reform Austin has more.

The people may have spoken, but who’s listening?

Dec 3rd, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

20 comments

How much respect to city councils owe voter-approved referenda?

Voters in two Central Texas cities overwhelmingly passed propositions earlier this month that would stop citations and arrests for low-level marijuana offenses within city limits. But elected officials in Bell County are pushing back.

On Tuesday, Harker Heights City Council voted to repeal the measure, saying that decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana was inconsistent with state law, as marijuana possession remains illegal statewide and federally. The City Council in Killeen agreed to put its decriminalization measure on hold as elected officials there weigh whether to repeal, amend or green light the ordinance that passed on Election Day.

Neither ballot measure legalizes marijuana. Instead, they prevent people from being cited or arrested for having up to 4 ounces of the drug. The propositions also prohibit city police officers from stopping someone because they smelled marijuana.

David Bass, the founder of Texas Veterans for Medical Marijuana, told City Council on Tuesday that the people of Killeen have spoken. Regardless of the legality of marijuana, the ordinance was clear and he said the council should respect voters’ decision.

“What I know is that the people of Killeen voted overwhelmingly for our police to stop arresting people for small amounts of cannabis,” Bass said. “We should listen to the will of the people of Killeen.”

Shirley Fleming, a former Killeen city councilwoman, told the Harker Heights City Council that repealing the ordinance could make residents feel like their vote doesn’t matter.

“If you stomp on this, a lot of people will say, ‘My vote doesn’t count,’” Fleming said. “Let’s respect their vote.”

See here for some background. With all due respect to Ms. Fleming, and speaking as someone who supports these measures and would vote for a similar one if it were to be on my ballot someday, I don’t think it’s quite that simple. All of the city council members here were also elected by the people, and if they believe that the ordinances that were adopted without their input are bad policy, then it’s consistent with their mandate as elected officials to take action as they see fit. I wouldn’t have done it this way – some public hearings would have been a better way to begin – and if I were a dissenting council member I’d have approached it from the perspective of modification rather than repeal. But they can do this, and I don’t see it as necessarily ignoring the will of the people but as different mandates.

Look at it this way: A President gets elected, begins to implement a policy agenda, and then two years later the voters elect a Congressional majority from the opposing party. Both were duly elected with a valid mandate, it’s just that those mandates conflict with each other. This isn’t a perfect analogy – the opposition Congress and the incumbent President were surely campaigning directly against each other, and the new Congress or the existing President may well not reflect a true majority of voters for various reasons – but the idea is the same. The voters may now render a judgment on those city council members in the next election, and that may or may not provide clarity. That’s just the nature of our system.

To be clear, I think the city councils of Killeen and Harker Heights should have started from the position that the voters made a valid statement that they should engage with seriously. They do have the latitude to make changes, and if they want to put themselves on the line they can act in opposition. I can easily imagine scenarios where the voters might approve something unjust, where the moral imperative would be to undo the damage. I can also easily understand the frustration of any voter who worked to pass these referenda only to see their work bulldozed by the same government officials who had acted as the obstacle they sought to overcome. All I’m saying is that it’s more complex than “the voters have spoken”. I’ll try to remember that if it happens here.

Election 2022 miscellania: Marijuana, Austin Mayor, CRT

Nov 12th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Three items of interest for you. First up, several local initiatives to decriminalize marijuana were successful on Tuesday.

By the end of Election Day, five Texas cities have voted to decriminalize low-level marijuana possession.

After Austin voters overwhelmingly approved the proposition to decriminalize carrying small amounts of marijuana in May, Ground Game Texas — the progressive group behind that effort — successfully worked with local organizations and pushed for similar measures to appear on the ballots of Denton, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin and Harker Heights for the midterms cycle.

Voters in these cities have now shown strong support for the proposals at the polls.

The campaign saw the highest level of support in San Marcos — home to Texas State University — with nearly 82% of the votes. Denton, which has several university campuses, saw more than 70% of the votes backing the proposition.

In Killeen, known for its proximity to military base Fort Hood, close to 70% of voters approved the proposition. Elgin, just outside of Austin, saw almost 75% of votes in support of the reform. And on the low end, more than 60% of voters in Harker Heights in Bell County casted ballots in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.

“These meaningful reforms will keep people out of jail and save scarce public resources for more important public safety needs,” said Mike Siegel, political director of Ground Game Texas and a former Democrat congressional candidate. “We’re extremely happy with our results.”

Like Austin’s ordinance, the successful propositions establish city ordinances that end low-level enforcement, including citations and arrests for possessing less than four ounces of marijuana and related drug paraphernalia, in most cases. They also largely ban using city funds and staff to test substances for THC, the cannabis plant’s chemical that gets users high.

[…]

Ultimately, Ground Game Texas hoped to use the campaign to boost turnout, especially among young voters.

“We wanted to use workers, wages and weed to engage new voters,” Siegel said.

Looking ahead, Ground Game Texas will continue working with on-the-ground groups to place progressive measures on local ballots. They aim to put the measure along with several other propositions, including abortion decriminalization, in front of San Antonio voters in May 2023. And similar efforts are likely to pop up in other big cities like Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston in the 2024 elections, Siegel added.

“We’re hoping that we can prove not only that these issues are popular, but they also boosted turnout in the communities that are on the ballot,” he said. “And in the days following this election, we’re going to be having lots of conversations with folks about the next cycle.”

See here for some background. As noted there, I’m not sure what the practical effect of this will be, and I worry about legislative backlash just because that’s the world we live in now. I’ll be very interested to see if there is any evidence that this drove turnout, because Lord knows we could have used more of it if it did. And while I’m glad to see that there’s interest in bringing this to Houston, please remember that we already have several charter amendments on the ballot next year, which means either this would have to happen then or you’ll need to wait until at least 2025, since there’s a mandatory two-year wait after a successful charter amendment election. Hope y’all are already engaging with folks here about this, Ground Game Texas, so there are no unpleasant surprises for anyone.

Item two: There will be a runoff for Mayor of Austin between two familiar faces.

Austin’s next mayor was not decided Tuesday, as a tight race between Celia Israel and Kirk Watson will continue into a runoff in December.

To win the race outright, a candidate would have had to earn more than half of all votes as of Tuesday. Israel took 40% and Watson 35% of the vote, according to final but unofficial results. They were separated by more than 15,000 votes.

Jennifer Virden, the only other candidate who conducted a significant campaign, earned 18%.

Three other candidates received limited support. Phil Brual received 2%, and Gary Spellman and Anthony Bradshaw each received 1%.

In total, 304,000 votes were recorded.

Heading into the day, political insiders who analyzed the election said they expected the race to go to a runoff, as voters seemed split between Watson, the former Austin mayor and state senator, and Israel, a sitting state representative. Although Watson outraised Israel $1.3 million to $409,000, it was Israel who enjoyed momentum heading into Tuesday with recent endorsements from the American-Statesman and the Austin Chronicle.

I don’t have a dog in this fight. I like both of them and wish the eventual winner all the best.

And finally, a small bit of good news on the school board hysteria front:

The five “anti-CRT” candidates running as a slate in that wild school board race in Round Rock are getting routed in early vote results. (These are Williamson County results, similar margins in smaller Travis County portion of the district).

— Mike Hixenbaugh (@Mike_Hixenbaugh) 7:48 PM – 08 November 2022

It’s a similar story in nearby Leander ISD. Broadly speaking, based on early results, candidates who ran campaigns focused on CRT and explicit library books are trailing.

— Mike Hixenbaugh (@Mike_Hixenbaugh) 7:59 PM – 08 November 2022

A very welcome reversal from last year, in a different political climate. Well done, Round Rock and Leander.

The Biden marijuana pardons

Oct 7th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

A pretty big deal.

Calling the criminalization of marijuana a “failed approach,” President Joe Biden announced a pardon of all federal marijuana possession charges Thursday — and urged governors to follow suit with state-level convictions for marijuana possession.

The federal pardon will affect about 6,500 people, The New York Times reported, but the vast majority of marijuana possession crimes are charged on the state level, not in a federal case.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday about Biden’s announcement.

Abbott’s gubernatorial opponent, Democrat Beto O’Rourke, was quick to announce his support for the president’s action.

“When I’m governor, we will finally legalize marijuana in Texas and expunge the records of those arrested for marijuana possession,” O’Rourke said in a statement.

According to the Texas law, the governor can issue pardons only if a majority of Board of Pardons and Paroles members make such a recommendation in writing.

[…]

This year through August, Texas prosecutors filed more than 14,000 misdemeanor pot possession charges, so far leading to more than 5,000 convictions, according to statewide court data. Pot possession is a misdemeanor for up to 4 ounces, and a felony for quantities beyond that.

Marijuana prosecutions dropped dramatically after 2019, when Texas lawmakers legalized hemp and as a result complicated how law enforcement can determine if something is illegal cannabis. In 2018, for example, nearly 50,000 misdemeanor marijuana charges were filed.

I assume that a relatively large portion of the 6,500 people who will receive the federal pardon are in Texas; we’re a big state with a significant non-white population, so just on the numbers we’ll be home to a lot of the beneficiaries of this. I haven’t seen what that number might be, nor do I know how many people could be pardoned for state offenses, if Greg Abbott were so moved. We know that loosening marijuana laws polls well in Texas, though it’s not clear to me if these pardons would be as popular; my guess is they’d have significant support but maybe not as much as expanding medical marijuana access or decriminalizing pot for recreational use. This announcement may help charge up the youth vote, but again it’s hard to say by how much or what the net effect might be. We’re unlikely to get any insight from polling at this point.

The President’s actions were right on the merits and I daresay good on the politics. They were sufficiently long-awaited that I’d say some people had expected them to never happen. As is usually the case with federal action, Texas will get the smallest possible benefit from it because our state leaders won’t allow for any more than that. I assume I don’t need to tell you what we could do to affect that.

Marijuana and the Ag Commissioner race

Sep 17th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

It’s a clear choice, though to be fair on this one issue it’s not as clear as with some other offices. But really, anytime the choice includes “not Sid Miller”, it’s pretty damn clear.

Susan Hays

The first time Susan Hays tried marijuana, she was a “teenage hell-raiser” hanging out with a couple dozen friends, drinking beers and swimming until the early morning in Pecan Bayou, near Brownwood, her hometown.

It was “Mexican hell-weed,” Hays remembered in a recent phone interview of the 3 joints her friends bought for $5. She didn’t know then how to smoke properly — to inhale — so she didn’t get high. All it did was put her to sleep in the backseat of the car.

Now, Hays is a weed evangelist of sorts and the Democratic candidate for Texas agriculture commissioner. She has made medical marijuana expansion, decriminalization and legalization the centerpiece of her campaign as she seeks to become the first Democrat in 30 years to win statewide office.

The issue is a politically powerful one, and the winds of public opinion seem to be blowing in her direction. Although Texas is among the most restrictive states in the country for accessing marijuana, it’s available medicinally in all surrounding states, and it’s fully legal for adult recreational use in neighboring New Mexico and nearby Colorado. A recent UT/Tyler poll showed 55 percent of Texans support legalization and more than 70 percent supported medical marijuana.Incumbent Sid Miller, a Trump-endorsed Republican who Hays will face in the November election, has also advocated for expansion of medical marijuana in Texas.

In an op-ed over the summer, Miller said he wants the governor, the Legislature and others to “come together and set aside our political differences to have an honest conversation about cannabis,” without stating specifically what he’s in favor of or how he’d like to see the law changed.

“In terms of specifics on how to achieve this, I have said that I am willing to work with anyone on any idea that puts these products in the right hands — and keeps them out of the wrong hands. That will be the challenge in the next legislative session. I see part of my role as that of an advocate for those who are suffering; I’ll be urging all involved to not worry about who gets credit for what — let’s just get the job done,” Miller said in a statement sent via email from a spokesman.

[…]

Hays offers a very clear and detailed vision of her preferred policies.

Current Texas law is “bass-ackwards,” she likes to say, with a patchwork of different city and town regulations and confusing and anti-scientific state laws. Hays believes from studying the rollout in other states that marijuana policy is a “three-legged stool,” encompassing medicinal access, decriminalization and legalization. If any of the legs are neglected, the industry is unstable, she says.

Medical access needs to be handled carefully to ensure people with health needs are able to access carefully regulated marijuana products that cater to their specific needs, she said. If the crop was outright legalized without the medical infrastructure being developed, “stoner-bro culture” creates a system in which dispensaries try to out-do each other by making the strongest pot products they can, “like if you went in a liquor store and all you could buy was Everclear,” Hays said.

Decriminalization is important, she said, but if it isn’t accompanied by legalization, the black market is likely to grow. Many Texas counties, including most of the state’s largest, have taken steps to decriminalize marijuana, such as Harris, Dallas, Travis and Bexar counties.

Another important element is packaging, which Hays says should be child-safe and should include detailed information about the chemical makeup of the product. Different strains of marijuana (Hays’ favorite is called Acapulco Gold) can have different effects on people when ingested or smoked, for instance.

Requiring that information to be posted on the package allows people to find marijuana strains that cater to their specific needs, Hays argues, be it spurring the appetites of chemotherapy patients, helping veterans struggling with PTSD to overcome insomnia or helping elderly people with chronic arthritic pain.

Miller’s position, recently stated, is definitely more nuanced and aware of public opinion than the likes of Dan Patrick. It doesn’t have any substance to it, though. Hays, on the other hand, really knows what she’s talking about. She’d be a leader in implementing sound and compassionate public policy that would also give a hand to hemp farmers, who could really use a boost, instead of just someone spouting generalities. Also, too, and we cannot emphasize this enough, she’s not Sid Miller. We need 100% less Sid Miller in elected office. The fact that we can replace him with someone who would be objectively good at the job is a bonus. We should grab that.

Houston get a medical marijuana pick-up location

Jul 14th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

For those who will need it.

Houston’s first permanent pick-up location for medical marijuana opened Tuesday, giving patients another option for obtaining their prescription cannabis.

Texas Original, the state’s largest medical marijuana provider, opened a 1,776-square-foot facility on Houston Avenue in First Ward. The location offers a full range of cannabis products, including gummies, tinctures and lozenges.

The brick-and-mortar location offers another option to patients, Texas Original CEO Morris Denton said. Most patients get their prescription delivered to their homes, but they need to be present to sign for the delivery and verify their identity. At the new location, they can arrange to pick up their prescription when it’s convenient.

“From a patient’s perspective, it makes it a lot more convenient and a lot more flexible,” Denton said. “You can come by when it makes the most amount of sense for you.”

The pick-up process will be similar to home delivery. Patients will need to provide their prescription and ID and answer a few basic questions to verify their identity, Denton said. The process will take less than five minutes.

State regulations prohibit Texas Originals from storing medical marijuana at the new location, so the Houston location will not be able to take walk-in orders for same-day pick-up, Denton said. Any prescriptions that are scheduled for pick-up will need to be shipped each day from the company’s Austin dispensary.

Texas Original has 13 pick-up locations across the state, but many of them – including in Katy and North Houston – offer once-a-week pick-up at places, including doctor’s offices. The new Houston location is the company’s first permanent storefront, patients can also pick up from the Austin dispensary.

That was from late June. You can see from the picture in the story that it’s next to Cafe Brussels on Houston Avenue. This seems like as good a time as any to note that the Texas Republican Party’s scary and authoritarian-loving platform opposes recreational marijuana legalization, and as we have discussed as long as Dan Patrick has power we’re never going to get any real expansion of medical marijuana or any incremental reform of marijuana criminalization. Just so you know.

Legal pot may mean less driving while stoned

May 9th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

16 comments

So says one study.

A new study has determined that people in states where cannabis is legal are less likely to drive while stoned than people in states where weed remains criminalized.

The study, published this month in the journal Preventive Medicine Reports, analyzed self-reported data from a national survey on cannabis use. Respondents in states where cannabis has been legalized for medical or recreational use said they were less likely to get behind the wheel within three hours of consuming the substance than those in states where pot is legally prohibited.

The results appear to contradict claims that decriminalizing weed will lead to upswings in impaired driving, a criticism sometimes voiced by anti-reform lawmakers.

The study considered Texas a state where cannabis is illegal since researchers collected their survey data between August 2016 and May 2017, a time before the legislature expanded its medical marijuana program to include more than a narrow range of ailments.

Researchers said the results suggest that states with legalized cannabis have done a better job educating residents about potential dangers of driving while impaired. Labeling requirements on legal cannabis also may help by providing warnings that deter people from getting behind the wheel.

“In legal states, cannabis users may receive more information about the risks of cannabis use from sources like physicians who issue medical cannabis cards or dispensary staff than users living in neither states,” the study’s authors wrote.

One exception in the findings was that medical cannabis patients who report frequent use had driving behavior on par with pot users in states where pot is illegal.

The study is here, and it’s too wonky for me to try to evaluate. It is just one study, and it is of self-reported behavior, though as they note in the study that has statistical validity. But it’s still just one study, and there’s clearly a lot of room for more analysis. It’s a starting point for the inevitable claims that legalizing pot will unleash countless stoned drivers on the roads.

Not just Beto for marijuana legalization

Mar 21st, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

The two Democrats in the runoff for Attorney General are also on board.

As the May 24 runoff approaches, both Democrats in the runoff for Texas Attorney General have doubled down on their promises to legalize cannabis in the state.

Rochelle Garza and Joe Jaworski made it clear in the runup to the primary that they’re in favor of legalization, and in the past few days both have taken to Twitter make sure voters know where they stand.

Garza, a Brownsville lawyer and former staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas, finished first in the primary, but didn’t secure the majority needed to avoid a runoff with Jaworski, a former Galveston mayor and grandson of Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski.

“It’s time to legalize the sale and use of recreational cannabis in Texas,” Garza tweeted Saturday. “Nearly 70% of Texans support legalization, and they deserve an Attorney General who will work with them to advance our priorities.”

On Tuesday, Jaworksi tweeted that legalizing cannabis is an important element of criminal justice reform, throwing in the hashtag #legalizecannabis to leave no doubt where he stands.

“How many young lives, principally lives of color, are we going to put in private prisons so ppl can make a profit from their incarceration?” he asked. “We can’t have that — that is a sick society.”

See here for some background. The AG doesn’t play a direct role in the legislation process, so while their positions are appreciated they’re not necessarily needed. That said, Ken Paxton is another big opponent of marijuana – you know, because he’s such an upstanding and law-abiding citizen himself – and even in the absence of legalization I’m sure there are things that the state’s top law enforcement officer could do from an executive policy position to improve things. There’s only one way to find out, and while pot legalization has got to be pretty far down on the list of good reasons to vote Paxton’s sorry ass out of office, it is on there, and we should be sure to point it out.

Can Beto legalize pot?

Mar 16th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

He’s gonna try. It’s not entirely up to him, though.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke is making Texans a promise: If they elect him as governor, he’ll legalize marijuana.

Shortly after his resounding victory in Tuesday night’s primary, O’Rourke asked a crowd of supporters in Fort Worth: “Don’t you think it’s time we legalize marijuana in the state of Texas? I do too. We can get that done.”

He reiterated his position again on Twitter in the days following.

The issue could come up often on the campaign trail later this year, as O’Rourke prepares for a face-off against Gov. Greg Abbott in November. Abbott, a Republican, has only gone as far as to suggest the drug should be decriminalized.

[…]

The November general election is widely expected to benefit Republicans, and Abbott is the favorite in the gubernatorial contest. But if O’Rourke pulled off an upset, he’d still have to work with the conservative state Legislature — including [Lt. Gov. Dan] Patrick, potentially — on any proposals.

A June 2021 poll by the University of Texas at Austin found that 60 percent of Texans believe possession of small or large amounts of marijuana for any purpose should be legal.

Another 27 percent said the drug should only be allowed for medical purposes, and 13 percent said it should be outlawed entirely.

The story correctly notes that Dan Patrick is the main obstacle to any pot decriminalization/legalization bills passing, though in a world where Beto gets elected Governor, it seems likely to me that Patrick would also lose. (Pause for a moment to enjoy the thought.) He’d still definitely face a Republican Senate and very likely a Republican House, and it would be up to them to pass a bill that he could sign. Beto is correct to note that Republicans like weed too, but that is not the same as saying that a Republican legislature will be willing to give the first Democratic governor in almost 30 years a signature win on an item he campaigned on. I mean, I’m old enough to remember when Republicans liked the idea of a market-based private-insurance national health care law, and we know how that went.

I think if we get to that point Beto can certainly use the pot issue as a means of applying pressure on the Republicans, and it might serve as leverage for cutting a deal. I wouldn’t rule anything out now, but in the absence of a Dem trifecta, which we emphatically will not get, everything will be deeply politicized, and whatever people (especially Republicans) are for or against now doesn’t matter once Governor Beto makes an issue of it. Let’s hope we get to have that fight, but do keep some perspective about it. Reform Austin has more.

Oklahoma’s experience with medical marijuana

Mar 4th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

A good read.

Inside an old metal building off a quiet stretch of U.S. 77, Josh Blevins walked among rows of fragrant marijuana plants basking below carefully calibrated light. Blevins, a former construction engineer from Texas, bought this former scrap yard just north of the farming town of Lexington, population 2,200, after a statewide ballot initiative legalized medical marijuana about four years ago.

Since then, dispensaries have become as ubiquitous as gas stations and churches in much of Oklahoma, where state officials have licensed more than 12,000 marijuana-related businesses and about 1 in 10 people now own medical marijuana cards.

Blevins, 36, has capitalized on the boom, building another 10,000-square-foot warehouse and brand new office space just down the road from the former scrap yard. Like many commercial growers, he created his own supply chain from seed to sale, stocking the shelves of his two dispensaries — both named Twister Roo — in Moore and Noble. It has proven to be both profitable and a learning opportunity, Blevins said, as he eyes expansion to other states with upcoming marijuana ballot initiatives.

“What we’re doing here is kind of building the picture that we want to duplicate in other states,” Blevins said. “Just copy and paste.”

But while Oklahoma has become a kind of nirvana for growers and producers, who enjoy a relatively low startup cost in comparison to other states, it has some lawmakers leery because of lax regulation. Officials with the overwhelmed Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority said they’ve been able to inspect only a quarter of licensed marijuana businesses so far.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, said during his State of the State address on Tuesday that voters were misled by the language on the 2018 ballot initiative and it has “tied our hands as we regulate the industry.”

“This is causing major problems in our communities,” he added, “and we must get it under control.”

Stitt said the relatively low cost of getting a business license and the lack of a cap on the number of growers has fueled a black market in Oklahoma that may require legislation to reform.

“While we can’t change the past, we can learn from it and improve our future,” Stitt said. “We’re getting the right leaders in place and untying their hands to enforce the laws.”

[…]

The state presented a rare opportunity for legalization in 2018, when medical marijuana backers garnered enough signatures to put one of the most accessible medical marijuana initiatives in the country on the ballot, bypassing the conservative Legislature. The result: It costs $2,500 to apply for a business, cultivation or transportation license in Oklahoma — compared to $100,000 or more in neighboring Arkansas.

“This is a system that is set up to basically create opportunities for small businesses,” said Morgan Fox, the political director of NORML, a national cannabis advocacy organization. “There’s a lot of room for people to start up businesses without a tremendous amount of capital.”

Lured by the state’s low fees and relative lack of regulation, Paulie Wood, a former California grower and the CEO of Kannabiz Monkeeyz, said he decided to close his West Coast operations about two years ago because of the “insane overtaxation” hampering his business.

In California, he paid more than $100,000 a year in state and local taxes to operate two cultivation sites even after one outdoor crop was destroyed by smoke and ash following the Oak Fire in Mendocino County in September 2020. He pays a fraction of that cost in Oklahoma.

“In Oklahoma you can literally start a grow for under $10,000, where in California you’re going to be out hundreds of thousands of dollars to just get started,” Wood said. “They call it the wild, wild west of cannabis in a good way. As a whole, it’s the nicest, friendliest state we could ever want to be in.”

Oklahoma is also friendly toward people trying to get medical marijuana cards, which cost only $120 for the application fee, plus a doctor’s visit. While some states have very specific and restrictive lists of conditions that qualify for a card, such as AIDS and cancer, Oklahoma’s list is relatively expansive and includes less severe medical issues, including anxiety, insomnia and muscle spasms.

But now, a battle is brewing in Oklahoma between advocates who want to expand the industry and opponents who are trying to rein it in. In the legislative session starting next month, state lawmakers hope to play catch-up and introduce new restrictions on growers and processors amid renewed efforts by groups hoping to pass another ballot initiative, this time for full legalization.

Oklahoma’s growing medical marijuana market has been lucrative for the state, generating nearly $150 million in revenue in 2021, up from nearly $128 million in 2020, according to state data.

The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, which has almost doubled its staff in the past year, is still struggling to get inspectors to all of the licensees, said Adria Berry, the agency’s executive director. “We have not been able to keep up with the demand, but we are getting to the place where we’re able to get many more people out inspecting those places on a day-to-day basis.”

The Oklahoma law says medical card holders must be in-state residents, but Blevins and other growers said much of the demand for their product is coming from out of state, in places like Texas — where possession of marijuana largely remains illegal — and Kansas, another deeply conservative state that is in line to legalize medical marijuana. That high demand has driven down prices, Blevins said, to about a third of what they were when he started in 2018.

“Now they’re so much cheaper than the black market, and they can be bought and sold for profit,” he said.

A few thoughts…

1. The fact that the medical marijuana regime approved by Oklahoma’s voters is extremely appealing to both growers and users because of low costs and lax regulation, and also kind of a nightmare for the state government because of those lax regulations, is probably the most Oklahoma thing about this.

2. That $150 million in revenue generated for the state by the new marijuana industry may sound like a lot, but it would represent less than 0.1% of Texas’ annual revenue, which is to say a rounding error. Texas’ economy is a lot larger than Oklahoma’s, but even then that $150 million would represent about 1% of that state’s annual revenue. (Here’s a more recent number, which isn’t much different.) Adding legal pot to the economy may do a lot of beneficial things, but it’s not going to help fund the state government in any substantial way.

3. Along those lines, this is a reminder that Oklahoma also has casinos. Which also would not generate much revenue for the state of Texas if we had them, though legalizing them here would shift some funds that currently go out of state back to here. You can support or oppose casinos and marijuana as you see fit – I’m strongly for marijuana legalization, and at best ambivalent about casinos – the economic arguments just aren’t that compelling.

4. The article contains the standard bit of optimism about the future potential for expanding access to marijuana in Texas, citing public opinion polls and some recent mumblings by Greg Abbott that are sort of vaguely in favor of something. It therefore makes the classic error of completely ignoring (or being unaware of) Dan Patrick’s implacable opposition to loosening marijuana laws, which renders those two items useless. When Dan Patrick is no longer Lt. Governor, we can talk about how expanded access to marijuana might play out. Until then, it’s a dead letter.

That’s all I got. Link via the Current.

Austin aims for pot decriminalization

Jan 16th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

We’ll see how this goes. I suspect the measure will pass, but I’m not sure it will be allowed to take effect.

As greater numbers of Texas voters sour on harsh punishment for marijuana offenses, Austin voters will likely decide in May whether to effectively decriminalize the drug.

The ballot measure, pushed by the group Ground Game Texas, would forbid Austin police officers in most cases from ticketing or arresting people on low-level pot charges like possessing small amounts of the drug or related paraphernalia — unless the offenses are tied to more severe crimes. The city also would not pay to test substances suspected to be marijuana — a key step in substantiating drug charges.

Both practices have already been informally adopted in Austin, but advocates want to solidify them at the May ballot box.

“The primary effect is that it would make the decriminalization that exists in Austin today actually long term and would put the force of law behind it,” said Chris Harris, policy director at Austin Justice Coalition.

[…]

But the measure faces one big obstacle: Although marijuana laws in Texas have loosened somewhat in recent years, the drug remains illegal at the state level.

Public support for harsh marijuana laws and prosecutors’ willingness to bring charges for minor offenses has waned in recent years.

The number of new charges for misdemeanor marijuana possession fell by 59% from 2016 to 2020, according to figures from the Texas Office of Court Administration, as prosecutors in the state’s major urban areas have increasingly deprioritized marijuana prosecutions.

Most Texas voters support decriminalizing marijuana in some form. Three-fifths of Texas voters say at least a small amount of marijuana should be legal, according to a University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll last year.

That support cuts across partisan lines. Nearly three-fourths of Democrats and independents think marijuana should be legal. So do 43% of Republicans, a plurality of that group.

It’s against that backdrop that Ground Game Texas — a progressive group focused on issues of “workers, wages and weed” — plans to mount decriminalization campaigns in Killeen and Harker Heights.

As the story notes, there’s an effort by Ground Game Texas to put a similar measure on the ballot in San Marcos. The City Council in Denton recently voted down an ordinance to do the same there, a move that perhaps validates this approach. The Austin police union, which has been resistant to the earlier efforts to decriminalize pot, is staying out of this election, but who knows what they might do afterward.

So what happens if this passes, as I expect it will? One obvious possibility is legal action to require the enforcement of the state laws. I’m sure there’s someone who’d be willing to be the plaintiff in such a filing, and no one has to encourage Ken Paxton to swing a bat in Austin’s direction. Legislative action is also possible – again, there’s nothing a Republican likes more these days than filing a bill to stop a city from doing something that legislator doesn’t approve of. A complicating factor in all this is that Greg Abbott is mumbling a few words in favor of being less harsh about pot, likely in recognition of the polling on this issue and Beto’s stronger pro-pot stance. I don’t know how much that complicates things for the keep-pot-criminal crowd, but it’s another dimension. I don’t know which way this will go, but it all starts with the measure being passed, and I feel pretty confident about that.

Beto for legalizing weed

Jan 14th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

15 comments

I do think this is a winning campaign theme.

Beto O’Rourke

At a crowded rally in downtown Austin, Beto O’Rourke ticked off his usual laundry list of campaign promises: stabilizing the power grid, rolling back the state’s new permitless carry law and expanding health care access.

But the El Paso Democrat got some of the loudest cheers of the night when he promised to legalize marijuana in Texas, something he said “most of us, regardless of party, actually agree on.”

“I’ve been warned that this may or may not be a popular thing to say in Austin, Texas,” O’Rourke said to the crowd gathered in Republic Square Park in December. “But when I am governor, we are going to legalize marijuana.”

The support is nothing new for the gubernatorial candidate. O’Rourke has championed legalization efforts throughout his political career, ever since his time as a member of the El Paso city council. He also nodded at the policy throughout his failed campaigns for U.S. Senate and for president.

But in his early run for governor, O’Rourke, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has repeatedly mentioned legalizing marijuana on the campaign trail across Texas. Advocates hope the increased attention will give momentum to legalization efforts in a state with some of the harshest penalties and highest arrest rates for marijuana possession.

[…]

If O’Rourke becomes governor, his plans to legalize marijuana would face another set of hurdles in the form of the Texas Legislature, particularly Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who leads the state Senate.

After the House in April 2019 gave preliminary approval to a bill that would have reduced criminal penalties for Texans possessing small amounts of marijuana, Patrick declared the measure dead in the Senate.

There’s been some momentum for more progressive marijuana policies within Patrick’s party in recent sessions. In 2019, state Rep. Stephanie Klick, R-Fort Worth, and state Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, filed bills that would relax laws restricting medical cannabis access. Both of those reforms failed to become law. But Gov. Greg Abbott in May did sign a watered-down expansion of Texas’ medical marijuana program to include people with cancer and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Patrick did not comment for this story. In a previous statement to The Texas Tribune, a Patrick spokesperson said the lieutenant governor is “strongly opposed to weakening any laws against marijuana [and] remains wary of the various medicinal use proposals that could become a vehicle for expanding access to this drug.”

Abbott didn’t answer questions on his position regarding marijuana legalization.

Legalization advocates hope O’Rourke’s candidacy can move opinions among state leaders on relaxing marijuana restrictions.

“Hopefully with Beto O’Rourke presumably being the Democratic nominee, we can push the other candidates in the race to talk about this issue more, to come to the table and have a conversation about how these policies are having negative impacts on our state,” said Heather Fazio, director of Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy.

Marijuana legalization draws some broad support across the state. According to a June 2021 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, 60% of Texas voters say at least a small amount of marijuana should be legal. That figure includes 73% of Democrats, 74% of independents and 43% of Republicans.

Mike Siegel, the co-founder of Ground Game Texas, a nonprofit focused on supporting progressive policies around “workers, wages, and weed,” said the issue is an opportunity for O’Rourke to reach independent or nonaligned voters.

“[Marijuana policy] is a major opportunity for [O’Rourke] to reach out to middle of the road, independent or nonaligned voters and even some Republican voters,” Siegel said. “A governor’s race that’s high-profile like the one that is coming up, where it could be Beto O’Rourke versus Greg Abbott, that’s the best opportunity to push these populist wedge issues.”

But Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project at UT-Austin, said marijuana legalization isn’t a “terribly important issue” for voters on its own. Its political salience depends on the issues tied to the policy, he said, whether that is the economy, criminal justice system or health care.

As the story notes, this is a longstanding issue for Beto, going back to his days on El Paso City Council more than a decade ago as well as his time in Congress. I do think this is an issue that can move votes and motivate less reliable voters, though of course it has to be part of a bigger structure. I could see the overall message as being basically that Abbott is out of touch with what typical Texans want, with “not freezing to death because of massive power grid failures” being the first item on that list. Basically, how effective this will be as a campaign issue is largely what Beto can make of it. For now, I’m happy to see stories like this one.

Michelle Beckley files for Lt. Governor

Nov 17th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

And now there are three.

Michelle Beckley

Democratic state Rep. Michelle Beckley of Carrollton, who gained national attention for joining lawmakers who fled to Washington, D.C., to block a Republican election bill this summer, is running for lieutenant governor, expanding her party’s primary to three contenders.

In her campaign announcement on Tuesday, Beckley said she was running because Republican incumbent Dan Patrick is implementing policies that “hurt Texas business and make life harder for all Texans.”

“I’m running for Lieutenant Governor because politicians are putting ideology ahead of results that matter to Texans,” she said. “In the last legislative session alone, they worked to limit voters’ rights, put bounties on women, marginalize minorities, and make-up false boogeymen in our schools, and the health and wealth of Texans suffered. I’m running to stop them.”

Beckley joins a race that already includes political commentator Matthew Dowd and Houston accountant and auditor Mike Collier, who was the Democratic nominee for the position in 2018 and came within 5 percentage points of beating Patrick. She said she was recruited to run for the position but did not say by who.

Beckley said she joined the race to give Democratic voters another option and a candidate with more legislative experience.

“Neither one of those candidates has won an election,” she said. “I won an election in a hard district and improved my margins.”

[…]

Beckley said Republicans will have a fundraising advantage over her, but she plans to raise enough money to get her message out and win over voters.

“I was outspent 10-to-1 my first election. Nobody thought I was gonna win that either,” she said. “I’ve done it before. So I’m confident I could do it again. I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t think that.”

Beckley said her top priorities as lieutenant governor would be expanding Medicaid, fixing shortcomings in the state’s power grid and fully funding public education. Those issues are in line with the priorities of the other candidates in the Democratic primary.

But Beckley, one of the most liberal members of the Texas House, is also known for her support for marijuana legalization, abortion rights and her call for more gun control after the 2019 mass shootings in El Paso and Midland-Odessa.

Beckley said she is a candidate who can bring “balance” to the position of lieutenant governor. Issues like marijuana legalization and Medicaid expansion would benefit rural communities whose farmers could benefit from growing marijuana for business and whose struggling hospitals would be helped by a change in the health care system, she said.

But she does not back down from the positions she’s taken on immigration, abortion rights and guns, saying she’s portrayed as a liberal when she believes her actions are in step with the majority of Texas voters.

“Our state has gone to the extreme and I am the values of the moderate,” she said. “In many other states I would not be considered liberal at all.”

I don’t know about that last statement, but as we know there’s been consistent polling in recent years showing popular support for marijuana legalization and Medicaid expansion, with at worst modest support Roe v Wade and not making abortion more illegal in Texas. Whether any of that can flip her some votes in East Texas is another question – and I say this as someone who advocates for the Medicaid and marijuana issues as a way to appeal to rural constituencies – but she will hardly be out on a limb campaigning for them.

As the story notes, Beckley had announced a candidacy for CD24 before the map was redrawn to make it a Trump +12 district. Her HD65 was also made to lean Republican, though it would not surprise me to see it flip in a cycle or two. If she can win the nomination, it’s likely that she has at least as good a shot at beating Dan Patrick as she would have had in either of those races.

She does have to win the primary first. As a two-term State Rep, her name ID will not be very high – I’d say Mike Collier is much better known, at least among Dem primary voters, thanks to his past candidacies – but being the only woman on the ballot (if no others join in) will help her. She had $25K on hand as of July, so fundraising is going to be a high priority for her – there’s only one way to get your name out there in a statewide race, and it doesn’t come cheap. I welcome her to the race and look forward to seeing what she has to say. The more people out there telling everyone what a lousy Lite Guv we now have, the better.

UT/Trib: More polls that say permitless carry is not popular

Jun 27th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The UT/Texas Tribune polling machine did a whole bunch of issue polls following the end of the legislative session. That’s a long article that gives the highlights on each question – they covered a wide range of topics, some of which the respondents knew more about than others – and I will focus on three of them.

Texans had split reactions to the state’s actions on abortion policy, with 42% disagreeing with the state’s policies and 32% agreeing. Those sentiments fell largely along party lines, with 78% of Democrats disapproving and 56% of Republicans agreeing.

Voters were sharply divided over whether to ban most abortions after six weeks except in medical emergencies. Lawmakers passed a bill to implement that policy in Texas, creating one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation.

Forty-four percent of voters supported such a policy, while 46% opposed it. The policy fell predictably along party lines, but independents broke against it with 34% supporting the ban and 46% opposing it.

A majority of Texans opposed automatically banning all abortions if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark abortions case Roe v. Wade, an idea which lawmakers passed into law this session. Fifty-three percent of voters said they opposed the move, while 37% supported it. Again, independents broke against the policy, with 58% saying they strongly opposed the automatic ban and 20% saying they supported it.

“It’s a very small minority of voters who would ever ban abortion outright in all circumstances,” Blank said. “Generally speaking, Texans are open to some limited restrictions on abortion. You start to see pushback when you get to the point of restricting access outright.”

Voters disapproved of the Legislature’s handling of gun violence, with 43% saying they disapproved of legislative actions on the subject, while 32% said they approved.

Voters showed particular disapproval for allowing legal gun owners over the age of 21 to carry handguns in most places without a license or training, a policy conservatives call “constitutional carry.” Fifty-seven percent of voters said they disapproved of that policy, which lawmakers passed into law during the session. Thirty-six percent said they supported it.

That policy had 59% support among Republicans and a disapproval rate of 86% among Democrats.

Conversely, voters showed strong support for requiring criminal and mental health background checks for all gun purchases. Seventy-one percent of voters supported the policy, while only 21% opposed. Bills on that subject were not passed by the Legislature despite bipartisan support from 88% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans.

This is the seventh time the poll asked about background checks and it has received support from more than 70% of voters each time, Blank said.

Among Republicans there was majority support for both background checks and allowing legal gun owners over the age of 21 to carry handguns without a license or training.

“You can be a Republican who is happy with the way the Legislature addressed protecting Second Amendment rights but also think that maybe they could have done more to address gun violence, and those two things are not necessarily inconsistent,” Blank said.

Sixty-seven percent of Texans support Medicaid expansion, giving overwhelming support to an issue that’s been soundly rejected by Republican state leaders since the passage of the Affordable Care Act during Barack Obama’s presidency. Only 22% of voters opposed the policy.

Supporters included 50% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats.

“As long as it’s not directly tied to Barack Obama, generally people are more open to it than you think,” Blank said. “It just requires us to update our thinking about Republican orientations towards health care.”

Only 13% of voters think marijuana should not be legal under any circumstances. Twenty-seven percent believe it should be legal for medical purposes, 31% believe small amounts should be legal for any purpose and 29% believe any amounts should be legal for any purpose.

Support for some sort of marijuana legalization spans across party lines. Younger people between 18 and 29 are the most supportive of its legalization with only 4% saying it should not be legal under any circumstance. Fifty-one percent of those in that age group said any amount of marijuana should be legal for any reason.

Not sure why Medicaid expansion and marijuana reform were lumped together in that last section, but whatever. The point is that all of these results are consistent with other polls done in the past, though there is some range in the outcomes, as the much stronger opposition to permitless carry from that Quinnipiac poll shows. The campaign themes for 2022 couldn’t be clearer. The Republicans prioritized their own little hot-button issues over more important business like fixing the electric grid. Democrats support the things that voters actually want. The ads truly write themselves.

The poll also included questions about the voter suppression bill, and that got its own separate story.

Despite ceaseless Republican assertions that Texas’ voting rules must be tightened to prevent electoral fraud, only a small slice of the state’s registered voters believe ineligible voters often cast ballots in Texas elections, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

In a June UT/TT poll, just 19% of voters indicated they think ineligible people frequently cast ballots. A bulk of voters — 42% — believe ineligible votes are rarely or never cast. Even among Republicans, a minority of voters — 31% — believe ineligible votes are frequently cast.

[…]

During the regular legislative session that wrapped up in May, Republican lawmakers attempted to reframe their legislative proposals by offering that even one instance of fraud undermines the voice of a legitimate voter.

“At some point, I think Republicans have run into the lack of evidence … and so they have gone to this ‘anything is a taint’,” said James Henson, co-director of the poll and head of the Texas Politics Project at UT-Austin. With 25% of voters believing ineligible people sometimes vote in elections, he said Republican leaders have “something to work with” as they adjust their messaging.

“The Republican argument has had to make adjustments as they run into, frankly, evidentiary problems and dissonance caused by a lack of evidence for some of their response, so that may be part of the explanation here,” Henson said.

[…]

Heading into that special legislative session, 35% of registered voters say they would make voting rules more strict, while 29% would leave them as is and 26% would loosen them. Among Republicans, a large majority of voters (60%) want the rules to be more strict. A majority of Democrats (54%) want less strict rules. Almost the same share of both Republicans (30%) and Democrats (29%) would maintain the status quo.

Couple things here. One is that apparently there are some limits to lying your ass off. Who knew? Doesn’t mean that will be enough to stop the bullshit legislation said lies are built on, but at least it’s a rougher road. Two, the stricter/easier/same numbers on voter restrictions are pretty close to the numbers we have seen in previous polls about abortion. There may be a slight plurality for “stricter”, but a far larger number opposes that. Again, that is an issue you can run on.

Finally, while there is a partisan divide in all of these issues, there is also a difference in intensity in many of them. For some, Republicans are far more unanimous in their position while Dems are more diffuse, and for others it is the reverse. Whether there is an overall majority for one position, and if so which one, is usually determined by this difference in intensity. Sometimes, the level of intensity is about the same each way (and that may mean that neither side is all that worked up about it), and when that happens you have an even split, with at best a small plurality for one position. I find this to be the most useful way of thinking about this sort of poll. It’s still not clear how much any of these results translate into voter persuasion or enthusiasm, but it does at least give you some idea of where you are or are not out of step, and how much resistance you may get on a particular subject. As I said, on these issues (and some of the others that I didn’t comment on), the arrow is pointing clearly in the direction Dems should want to go.

Ground Game Texas

Jun 11th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

This is good, too.

Julie Oliver

Some of Democrats’ biggest regrets about the 2020 election in Texas had to do with organizing. It was not consistent throughout the cycle — and usually isn’t in any cycle. It was supplanted by TV ads at the end. And it was hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, with the backing of the state’s most prominent Democrats, two former congressional candidates are trying to turn those regrets into action.

The candidates, Julie Oliver and Mike Siegel, are launching a new nonprofit called Ground Game Texas that will focus on year-round organizing on progressive issues, aiming to fill what they see as a statewide void for their party. The group starts off with a $1 million investment from Register2Vote, a national nonprofit that the two already help lead.

“There’s no off years and there’s no off cycles, and folks need to stay engaged year-round,” Siegel said in an interview, adding there is “kind of a tendency among Democratic activists” to get involved only in presidential-election years or high-profile down-ballot contests like the 2018 U.S. Senate race. “The Republican Party doesn’t do that. They never stop.”

Ground Game Texas will organize Texans around issues rather than candidates, with a focus on what Siegel and Oliver are calling “workers, wages and weed” — issues like raising the minimum wage and legalizing marijuana that poll well but are not reflected by Republican policymakers in the state. A February University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll found that 60% of registered voters in Texas support legalizing some amount of marijuana for any use. A similar number in April expressed support for increasing the federal minimum wage.

The group expects to throw its weight behind local ballot initiatives, which often involve a lot of ground work such as collecting signatures for petitions to put the issues on a ballot. Siegel said he has already had conversations about proposals in 10 cities — places like Mission, Bedford and Elgin. The leading ideas there, he said, are decriminalizing marijuana and creating funding for climate jobs.

[…]

Ground Game Texas is launching with the support of three of the best-known Texas Democrats: Julián Castro, Wendy Davis and Beto O’Rourke, who said in a statement that the new group “is going to meet Texans where they are at to listen to them about the issues that matter most.” And it starts with an advisory board that includes Davis; rising-star state Reps. James Talarico of Round Rock and Jasmine Crockett of Dallas; and longtime party stalwarts such as former Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower and Texas AFL-CIO president Rick Levy.

The advisory board additionally features Democrats who ran in nationally targeted districts last year and suffered some of the toughest losses, like Candace Valenzuela, who narrowly lost to now-U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving.

Both Oliver and Siegel have firsthand experience with the challenges Democrats faced last election cycle. They both performed surprisingly well when they ran against Republican incumbents in 2018 — Oliver against U.S. Rep. Roger Williams of Austin and Siegel against Rep. Michael McCaul of Austin. In 2020, both ran again, only to lose by larger margins.

In 2020, both gained the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which named them to its Red to Blue program for promising challengers. But they remain skeptical of the committee’s priorities.

“[The DCCC] doesn’t really invest in this sort of infrastructure building that Mike and I did in our campaigns,” Oliver said. “That strategy is so different between the DC strategy and the Texas strategy. … The DC strategy doesn’t really work here in Texas, so we want to do year-round organizing.”

The DCCC announced Monday that it was including Texas in an initial seven-figure investment nationally in on-the-ground organizing, calling it the “earliest ever organizing investment of this scale and scope in DCCC’s history.” The committee said it would target areas in Texas such as Dallas, Houston and the Rio Grande Valley, where Democrats notably underperformed last year.

As I’m sure you can guess, I approve of the issues they are focusing on. I very much think there’s ground to be gained by pushing real marijuana reform, and by “reform” I mean decriminalization, if not legalization. People across the board want it, and the single biggest impediment to it is Dan Patrick. I’m more skeptical of raising the minimum wage as a winning issue – note that the polling question is about whether one supports raising the federal minimum wage, not whether one supports raising the minimum wage in Texas – but am happy to push the idea. I trust that the focus on local ballot initiatives is a starting point, because that’s not going to get very far and any success they have is certain to wind up in court, if not in legislative pushback.

Putting emphasis on organizing when three’s not an actual election going on is a good and long-needed idea as well. Lots of people complain that no one talks to them about issues and what’s important to them outside of a “please vote for me” context, so this addresses that gap. We may find out that a lot of these people prefer being left alone most of the time, but there’s no way to know until you try. The bigger point here is that by having this kind of campaign infrastructure be year-round, you’re not having to rebuild from scratch every other year.

We’ve certainly seen various initiatives, promising various kinds of new engagement, come and go over the years. I’m sure that no matter what happens in 2022, in two years’ time I’ll be reading about yet another new effort to organize and engage and register. That’s fine, and it doesn’t mean that what came (and possibly went) before now was wasted or useless. We’ve had to try a lot of things, and to see what works and what doesn’t, we’ve learned from past experiences, and we have made a lot of progress even if the statewide breakthrough hasn’t happened yet. It would be much more concerning to me if we weren’t seeing new efforts like this, spearheaded in part by new additions to the political team, popping up and making news. We all have options for how we want to get involved now. Find the one that works best for you and get into it.

Small revisions to medical marijuana law passed

May 31st, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

You know what I’m going to say about this, right?

A watered-down expansion of Texas’ medical marijuana program is headed to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott after the state House voted to accept significant changes to the bill made in the Senate.

House Bill 1535 expands eligibility for the Texas Compassionate Use Program to people with cancer and post-traumatic stress disorder. The Senate stripped out a provision that would’ve allowed any Texan with chronic pain to access medical marijuana.

The bill also caps the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive ingredient that produces a high, at 1%. That’s only a nominal increase from the 0.5% allowed under current law. The bill as passed by the House capped the amount of THC at 5%, still far lower than most states that have authorized the plant for medicinal use.

The measure falls short of what many advocates had hoped for. Its sponsor, state Rep. Stephanie Klick, R-Fort Worth, said on the House floor that her counterparts in the Senate were unwilling to budge. She begrudgingly asked the House to concur with the overhaul, rather than reject amendments tacked on in the upper chamber and send the bill to a conference committee.

[…]

Fewer than 6,000 Texans have enrolled in the Compassionate Use Program. About 2 million people are eligible under current law.

Heather Fazio, director of Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy, lamented that the proposal in its final form was “unreasonably restrictive,” despite wide bipartisan support for legalizing cannabis. A February poll from the University of Texas at Austin and The Texas Tribune found that 60% of Texans said small or large amounts of marijuana for any purpose should be legal.

“While we are glad to see the Compassionate Use Program being expanded, it’s disappointing to see Texas inching forward while other states, like Alamaba for example, are moving forward with real medical cannabis programs,” Fazio said. “It’s doing so little and we wish [lawmakers] were doing more.”

See here for the previous entry and a clear explanation of my position, if for some reason that was a mystery to you. The problem is super simple to state: Dan Patrick will not allow any significant loosening of the state’s restrictive marijuana laws, even for medical marijuana, as long as he is Lt. Governor. The solution is obvious. Making that happen is harder, but that’s really all there is to it. The Chron has more.

News flash: Dan Patrick does not support loosening marijuana laws

May 22nd, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

16 comments

In other news, summer is hot and it sometimes floods in Houston.

With less than two weeks left in Texas’ legislative session, medical marijuana advocates are ratcheting up pressure on Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who they say is blocking an effort to expand the state’s Compassionate Use Program.

House Bill 1535, by state Rep. Stephanie Klick, R-Fort Worth, would expand the state’s medical cannabis program to include those with chronic pain, all cancer patients and Texans with post-traumatic stress disorder. It would also authorize the Department of State Health Services to add additional qualifying conditions through administrative rulemaking. Current law requires the Legislature to pass a bill to expand eligibility.

The Texas House voted 134-12 last month to send the proposal to the state Senate, where it has languished in a legislative purgatory. The upper chamber received the bill May 3, but it has not yet been referred to a committee, let alone voted on and sent to the floor. Wednesday is the last day the Senate can take up bills.

Patrick, who leads the Senate, has the final say on which bills are considered and to which committees they’ll be referred. His office did not respond to a request for comment.

“It’s difficult to come up with any explanation that makes sense as to why the lieutenant governor would block this legislation,” said Heather Fazio, director of Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy. She added that the legislation is a “carefully crafted and moderate expansion” with wide bipartisan backing. Fazio said state Sens. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, and Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, who are both doctors, have voiced support for HB 1535.

[…]

Earlier this week, a Texas Senate committee advanced a proposal to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of cannabis. House Bill 2593 would reduce the penalty for possessing up to an ounce of marijuana to a class C misdemeanor with no possibility of jail time. That measure is poised for a vote on the Senate floor.

This is not the first time Patrick has exercised his power to effectively kill cannabis-related proposals. In 2019, he likewise refused to give a hearing to a medical marijuana expansion measure. A Patrick spokesperson told The Texas Tribune at the time that the lieutenant governor is “strongly opposed to weakening any laws against marijuana [and] remains wary of the various medicinal use proposals that could become a vehicle for expanding access to this drug.”

With all due respect to Heather Fazio, Dan Patrick has always been clear about why he blocks bills like these: He thinks marijuana is bad and he thinks that efforts to decriminalize it are dangerous. The mystery to me is why we get so many optimistic stories about reducing penalties and promoting cannabis without any reckoning of this fact. He has a long track record of this behavior, and he has never said anything to indicate that his position is softening. I understand why anyone would not want to take Dan Patrick at his word, but this is one of those places where you should, because his actions speak very clearly and consistently. I will say this again: The only path to real reform of our state’s marijuana laws requires getting rid of Dan Patrick. As long as he holds power, pro-pot bills (with a few very limited exceptions) will wither and die in the Legislature. I really don’t know why this is so hard to understand.

UPDATE: The Trib story now reflects the fact that HB1535 was finally referred to a committee on Thursday, giving it a chance to pass out of the Senate. Time is short, and as noted it took more than two weeks for the bill to even be assigned to a committee. More progressive marijuana reform bills, ones that would reduce criminal penalties, never stood a chance. In other words, Dan Patrick may have given a bit under pressure, but the basic point remains. Marijuana reform doesn’t go any farther than he will allow, and he won’t allow much.

Once again, bills to allow more gambling in Texas are dead

May 16th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Same as it ever was.

Photo by Joel Kramer via Flickr creative commons

A high-profile push by the gaming empire Las Vegas Sands to bring casinos to Texas appears doomed at the state Capitol as this year’s legislative session begins to wind down.

Monday was the deadline for House committees to advance that chamber’s bills and joint resolutions, and the deadline passed without the State Affairs Committee voting out the Las Vegas Sands-backed House Joint Resolution 133. The legislation, which got a hearing last month, would let Texas voters decide whether to build “destination resorts” with casinos in the state’s four biggest metropolitan areas.

Identical legislation in the Senate has not even received a committee hearing, though its chances there were always slimmer given the resistance of the presiding officer, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

“We have said from the beginning that we’re committed to Texas for the long haul,” Andy Abboud, Las Vegas Sands’ senior vice president of government relations, said in a statement given to The Texas Tribune on Monday evening. “We have made great strides this session and have enjoyed meeting with lawmakers about our vision for destination resorts and answering all the questions they have.”

Abboud added that the feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive,” promising the company “will continue to build on this progress over the final days of the legislation session, and over the coming months, we will continue to build community support across the state to ultimately turn this vision into a reality.”

See here and here for the background. Similar bills to allow betting on sports, which is now a thing that can happen, are also dead. (Yes, yes, I know, nothing is All Dead in the Legislature until sine die, but trust me – there’s no Miracle Max chocolate-coated pill for these bills.)

I’ve been following legislative sessions for almost 20 years now, and I’m pretty sure that in every one, we’ve had an organized and often highly publicized push for some form of gambling legalization. Horse racing, slot machines, poker, casinos, and now sports betting, every session without fail. Sometimes economic misfortune has been cited as a reason why This Time It’s Different, sometimes some other economic reason is given. Lamentations about people going to Louisiana or Oklahoma to get their gamble on are always a part of the ritual, as is the dredging up of a poll showing popular support for whatever form of gambling is being touted. We used to have a Republican Speaker whose family money came from horse racing. This time, we had an investment from Sheldon Adelson, gambling mogul and Republican super-duper-donor. Each was supposed to be a way to crack open the door. And without fail, every session it all ends with an unceremonious thud.

I am as you know ambivalent about expanded gambling. I don’t have any philosophical opposition to it, but I also don’t believe it to be all that good for the state, as it comes with a truckload of externalities. I do think that much like expanded access to marijuana, it’s coming to Texas sooner or later, if only because enough people want them. In both cases, the simple reason why these measures (the pro-pot ones are also highly touted and written about in breathless fashion) don’t get anywhere is that Dan Patrick opposes them. For reasons unclear to me, that usually merits little more than a one-paragraph acknowledgement towards the end of the stories. Dan Patrick won’t be in charge forever – if we’re lucky, this will be his last regular session to lord over – and that’s one reason why I expect things to eventually change. Until then, the smart money will always be to completely disregard the puff pieces about the hot new gambling advocacy alliance and bet on nothing happening. If there’d been a line on that and I’d been smart enough to play it I could put both my kids through college on that by now.

marijuana

Calendar

Search

Categories

Archives

My linkage

Polling Texas 2020

Polling Texas 2018

Polling Texas 2016

Polling Texas 2014

Polling Texas 2012

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Tags

Blogroll

Utilities

Categories

Archives

Calendar

Pages

Meta