Dallas City Council may consider weed legalization amendment for voter approval

Dallas is making a new push to include marijuana legalization on the ballot this fall.

This coincides with the Dallas City Council’s plan to present several city operation changes to voters this week. While other Texas cities have moved to legalize possession of misdemeanor amounts of pot, Dallas has not joined them until now.

Catina Voellinger is the executive director of Ground Game Texas, an organization that pushes for marijuana legalization.

“Dallas is by far the biggest city we’ve taken on,” Voellinger said. “I think this is something we can take and put into our community’s hands.”

Volunteers showed up to Dallas City Hall on Monday with five boxes of signed petitions to turn in, to place a measure on the ballot this fall.  Voellinger says the group turned in 50,000 signatures but needs 20,000 verified signatures to qualify for the ballot.

She said that on Tuesday, the group verified 22,000 signatures before turning them into the city secretary’s office.

Ground Game Texas has been behind similar pot legalization efforts in cities like Austin and Denton, even though Texas has not legalized the recreational use of marijuana.

In January, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued three municipalities, including Denton, saying each violated state law by “adopting amnesty and non-prosecution policies.”

The pot petition is one of four citizen-led initiatives handed in to the city secretary’s office over the last week. It comes as the city council is set to consider several charter amendments this week.

The city council has an opportunity once every ten years to send charter amendments to voters for approval in the fall. The proposed amendments relate to council pay, the length of council terms, and moving City Council elections to rank-choice voting.

Dallas councilmember Chad West on Tuesday said he’s unsure if he supports the citizen-led pot measure, but if the group already has the required number of signatures, it could save city staff time if the council approves a charter amendment related to pot.

“It’s going to be on there anyway. We might as well save the resources and put it on ourselves,” West said.

Late Tuesday, it was unclear if all the proposed charter amendments would be considered in the Wednesday meeting or if amendment votes could be delayed until August after the council returns from its July break.

Voellinger says Ground Game Texas’s work in collecting petition signatures should allow their measure to appear on the November 5 general election ballot, regardless of any potential city council votes.

“It’s up to the city to verify our signatures and hopefully we can get this on the ballot in November so people can make their voice heard,” Voellinger said.