Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed lawsuits against five cities – Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Denton and Elgin – ordinances that aim to eliminate enforcement of low-level marijuana possession offenses.
Paxton alleges the cities’ actions violate state law and the Texas constitution. The lawsuits ask the courts to declare the ordinances void and order the cities to fully enforce state drug laws.
The ordinances were passed after being approved by voters in local ballot propositions. They prohibit police from making arrests or issuing citations for misdemeanor marijuana possession in most cases.
However, Paxton argues the Texas Local Government Code forbids cities from adopting policies not to fully enforce drug laws. He also says the ordinances violate a section of the Texas Constitution stating that city ordinances cannot conflict with state law.
Something that’s really important to understand about Republicans in Texas is they believe in small government so long as it’s their government. In theory, city and county governments should supersede state policy in the same way state policy should supersede federal policy per their defenses. However, that only works so long as city and county policy are in lockstep with state policy. Travis County and Austin almost always have some suit coming from Paxton. All of their was made super evident during 2020 COVID when the state wanted cities to decide things unless you were in Bexar (San Antonio), Travis (Austin), and a few others because those counties took COVID seriously based on their data. Here’s an early escalation where Paxton makes it very clear that the only authority cities have comes from the state executive.
They believe they should be able to do whatever they want, and the law should protect them. They make small government or large government arguments as necessary to achieve that goal. There is no integrity here, so we shouldn’t look for it. And we shouldn’t act like pointing out their hypocrisy is productive or will persuade them - they’re aware of their contradictions and they don’t care
what a huge waste of taxpayer money
Yep, and the lawsuits are as well.
Good one
Texas is the shithole country Donald Trump was talking about back in the day, he just didn’t know it.
Can’t let the disproportionately-PoC, vote-stripped, prison slave population drop after all.
How else are they supposed to compete with Chinese sweatshops if they DON’T have their own workforce they can legally pay pennies per day!?
That there is just good ol’ 'murican ingenuity.
/s
OK, but here’s what I don’t get. I understand the whole prison-industrial complex thing, but Texas is run by straight up fascists. They’d always be able to come up with something else to put people in prison for. Why weed particularly?
Minorities go to jail for it people like me we at most get some kinda rehab probation deal.
Because they’re lazy and risk-adverse, and they want to stick with what’s been working for them, probably.
If it ain’t broke no need to fix it? Weed was never harmful except to authoritarian bottom lines
The cynical-but-statistically-true answer is that this law targets the people that they want to put in jail / don’t want to vote. It’s a historical, systemically racist piece of law that benefits the incumbents and status quo.
Otherwise they’d have to consider putting people like themselves in prison, or prosecute white collar crime, and that just won’t stand for the GOP.
Also the historically accurate answer according to the men in the room!
“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?
We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon
Great quote. God that was such a damning interview.
I see where you’re coming from, and maybe that even is how they’re thinking, but I’m reminded of a joke by John Mulaney where, after marijuana was legalized in his state, he asked white people to stop clapping: “It was ALWAYS legal for us.” So yes, they do indeed prosecute black people and other PoC more frequently for weed use, but only because they chose to. So, to me, this just emphasizes that they could make any law they wanted work that way. It doesn’t matter if it’s disproportionately committed by PoC or not, they’ll just prosecute that way anyway.
What a cool party of freedom and personal responsibility
Shouldn’t Paxton be in jail right now…🤔🤔
He should. And then corruption happened, and he got away with it.
Reminding everyone that a record number of democrats crossed the aisle to acquit him on the biggest smoking gun issue they could have impeached him with. Every progressive in Texas should know their names and remember them when it’s time to vote.
You can read all about it here, and article 4 is the smoking gun: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/09/16/ken-paxton-impeachment-vote/
This is so fucking weird. Weed is a no-brainer win, even among conservatives. Why double/triple/quadruple down on this stupid policy
They would look weak. It’s not about policy it’s about being tough on “insert any issue that”
Career criminals shouldn’t be able to file lawsuits.
Ah yes. The criminal Ken Paxton always fighting the good fight! Thanks Ken for again showing how out of touch you are with the modern world.
Grow the fuck up Paxton!
Seriously someone save some of that razor wire for this idiot. He’s finally going to have his day in court come April 🙏
Texas gets to ignore the federal government, so why should the cities listen to the state government?
Exactly, someone should make shirts with a bud that says come and take it.
Rules for thee.
I mean if a atf agent walked into any legal state they can make all the arrests they want to my knowledge at least if I’m wrong please correct me
You may not have seen the recent drama with Texas refusing to allow the feds to patrol the border.
Yes, but they are correct. Cannabis is a schedule 1 drug at the federal level, same as heroin.
There is nothing legally preventing the federal government from arresting everyone in every state who possesses or sells cannabis. It isn’t relevant that cannabis is legal recreationally or medically at the state level in most of the country
We’re just hoping that the federal government continues its discretionary policy of looking the other way. But, much like Roe, uncodified rights have a recent habit of disappearing overnight
The feds gave nothing to do with this. This is about local police
Despite Abbott’s treasonous mewling, they aren’t preventing the Feds from cutting down razor wire & that was all the SCotUS judgement declared.
Yes they are
I haven’t seen that reporting, and that is counter to Beau of the 5th Column’s reporting. Please provide a link.
Ah yes, the very credible random YouTube video: Excellent choice of source!
Just gonna point out that at least he provided sum sort of substantiation for his claims, which is more than most do. Even if you don’t agree with the viability of the reporting of the source, and I admit you might have a point as I did not watch the video, but he did provide something. You want to counter him, counter him. Tearing down someone’s source is an invalid argument, it doesn’t illustrate that you are correct, only that, in your opinion, they are wrong. Those two things are not the same.
Citing a shitty source isn’t really much better than providing no source.
“I know for a fact that Bat Boy is carrying Hillary Clinton’s lovechild! Source: The National Inquirer”
See?
Opinions I guess. For me, it shows some sort of effort. Enough care to actually attempt to support themselves and make an actual argument. It doesn’t mean they are right, never said it did. It is about the art of crafting a well-formed argument. If the only thing you can do is attack their source, you have forfeited the argument because it is a bad-faith retort. He says that it hasn’t happened, then provides what he considers to be a credible enough source. You want to retort him, find a source that is at least equally credible, and provide it. It is discourse and proper form. Everyone needs to learn a bit about it and become better citizens to each other. Maybe if we did we could avoid so many messes.
“Rule for thee but not for me”
It really is that simple
The real crime is this bullshit when trying to opt out of the fucking cookies…
Gotta keep that jazz cabbage off the streets or baby Jesus will cry.
But joe rogan said Texas was a paradise!
