City Decriminalization Patchwork

Last verified: April 2026

Ground Game Texas: The Organization Behind the Movement

The city-level decriminalization movement in Texas is largely the work of Ground Game Texas, a nonprofit founded in 2021 by Julie Oliver and Mike Siegel, both former congressional candidates. The organization, currently led by Executive Director Catina Voellinger, uses Texas's citizen-initiated ordinance process to place decriminalization measures on local ballots.

The strategy is built on a simple premise: while Texas has no statewide ballot initiative process, cities do allow citizens to petition for local ordinance changes. Ground Game Texas organizes petition drives, qualifies measures for local ballots, and campaigns for passage. The approach has produced a string of decisive voter victories — and an equally aggressive response from state officials.

City-by-City Status

The following table tracks the current status of every major decriminalization measure in Texas:

The Key Campaigns

Austin — Proposition A (May 2022)

Austin was Ground Game Texas's first and most decisive victory. Proposition A passed with approximately 85% voter approval in May 2022, directing the Austin Police Department to stop issuing citations and making arrests for Class A and Class B misdemeanor marijuana offenses. The measure also prohibited the use of city funds to test marijuana samples and banned no-knock warrants for cannabis-only investigations.

The measure's implementation was blocked by the 15th Court of Appeals in April 2025. This court, newly created in 2023 with judges appointed by Governor Abbott to hear cases involving the state, ruled that the ordinance conflicted with state drug enforcement powers. The case remains in litigation.

San Marcos (November 2022)

San Marcos voters approved decriminalization with approximately 82% support. Like Austin, the measure directed police to make marijuana enforcement the lowest priority. It was similarly blocked by the 15th Court of Appeals in the April 2025 round of rulings.

Killeen (November 2022)

Killeen voters approved decriminalization with approximately 70% support. The measure is currently pending in litigation. Killeen is notably home to Fort Cavazos (formerly Fort Hood), one of the largest U.S. military installations, where federal drug law applies independently of any local ordinance.

Denton (November 2022)

Denton voters approved decriminalization with approximately 70% support. However, unlike other cities where the legal challenge came from the attorney general, the Denton City Council voted to repeal the ordinance before it could take effect. This made Denton the first city where elected officials overturned a voter-approved cannabis measure, sparking significant backlash from residents who felt their votes had been disregarded.

Dallas — Proposition R (November 2024)

Dallas became the largest city to pass a decriminalization measure when voters approved Proposition R with approximately 67% support in November 2024. The measure would have directed Dallas police to stop arresting and citing people for small amounts of marijuana. Attorney General Paxton sued the City of Dallas shortly after the election, and the city agreed to a stay — meaning the ordinance would not be enforced while the legal challenge played out. As of April 2026, the Dallas ordinance has never been implemented.

Harker Heights (November 2022)

Harker Heights voters approved decriminalization with approximately 64% support. The city council subsequently repealed the measure, following Denton's precedent of local officials overriding voter will.

Lubbock (May 2024)

Lubbock is the only city where a decriminalization measure was rejected by voters. The measure failed at the ballot box, making Lubbock an outlier in a campaign that otherwise produced consistent supermajority wins.

The Legal Battle: Attorney General vs. Cities

Attorney General Ken Paxton has led the state's campaign against city-level decriminalization, filing lawsuits against multiple cities. His core legal argument rests on Local Government Code §370.003, which he interprets as prohibiting cities from passing ordinances that effectively nullify state criminal law.

A municipality or county may not adopt or enforce a local law that decriminalizes conduct that is an offense under state law.

Texas Local Government Code §370.003 (as interpreted by AG Paxton)

Ground Game Texas and the defending cities counter that the ordinances do not technically decriminalize marijuana — they direct local police departments on enforcement priorities, which is within the traditional authority of cities to manage their own police forces. This distinction between decriminalizing a substance and directing police not to prioritize certain offenses is at the heart of the legal dispute.

The 15th Court of Appeals

The legal picture has been complicated by the 15th Court of Appeals, a new intermediate appellate court created by the Texas Legislature in 2023 with exclusive jurisdiction over cases involving the state. All judges on this court were appointed by Governor Abbott. In April 2025, the court issued rulings blocking the Austin and San Marcos ordinances, a result that reform advocates have argued was predetermined by the court's design.

SB 1870: The Legislative Preemption Attempt

In the 2025 legislative session, SB 1870 sought to explicitly ban all future local decriminalization measures across Texas. The bill passed the Texas Senate but died in the House, leaving the legal landscape unresolved. Had it passed, it would have ended the local ballot initiative strategy entirely.

What This Means Going Forward

As of April 2026, no Texas city is actively enforcing a voter-approved decriminalization ordinance. The measures are either blocked by courts, stayed pending litigation, or repealed by city councils. The legal question of whether Texas cities have the authority to direct their police not to enforce certain state laws remains unresolved at the Texas Supreme Court level.

The decriminalization campaigns have nevertheless demonstrated one fact clearly: when Texas voters are asked directly, they support marijuana reform by wide margins. In every city where the question reached the ballot (except Lubbock), it passed with supermajority support. The disconnect between voter sentiment and state policy remains one of the defining tensions in Texas cannabis politics.