Can’t Texans just vote on legalizing marijuana? Not so fast – By Brooke Kushwaha (Houston Chronicle) / May 11, 2024
Texas, like many other Southern states, has barred direct democratic action since the Reconstruction era. The consequences affect issues from weed legalization to abortion law.
As states from New York to Colorado to Kansas hold voter referendums on issues ranging from weed legalization to abortion protections, some Texans may press their face to the windowpane and ask: Why can’t Texas do the same?
It seems simple in theory. If Texans can agree on an issue, why not hold a statewide vote to decide things once and for all? The short answer is that Texas is one of 24 states that do not allow statewide voter referendums or ballot initiatives, part of a Reconstruction-era measure to keep pure, unadulterated democracy filtered through elected representatives. The long answer is that local fights like Texas cities’ push to decriminalize marijuana expose what experts describe as an intensifying trend in recent years: as Texas’ urban centers skew more liberal, the state has pushed back more and more against local control.
Since 1876, Texas’ state constitution requires any amendments to go through the legislature before ending up on Texans’ ballots. Specifically, a lawmaker must introduce the amendment, it must receive a 2/3 majority vote from the legislature, and then it can go to the public, where it could still be voted down. What constitutional amendments do pass are usually minor and technical, University of Houston political professor Brandon Rottinghaus said, and substantive change rarely happens.
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