Still a crook any way you look
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the city of Dallas over the newly approved Proposition R — which decriminalizes up to four ounces of marijuana in the city.
The filing names the entire Dallas City Council, Mayor Eric Johnson, Interim Police Chief Michael Igo and Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert.
Dallas voters approved the charter amendment on election night with almost 67% of the vote. Regardless, Paxton said in a Thursday press release that “cities cannot pick and choose which State laws they follow.”
“The City of Dallas has no authority to override Texas drug laws or prohibit the police from enforcing them. This is a backdoor attempt to violate the Texas Constitution, and any city that tries to constrain police in this fashion will be met swiftly with a lawsuit by my office,” the press release said.
Paxton has already sued multiple cities including Austin and Denton for passing similar ordinances.
“I will not stand idly by as cities run by pro-crime extremists deliberately violate Texas law and promote the use of illicit drugs that harm our communities,” Paxton wrote in a press release earlier this year.
Part of the new charter amendment directs the Dallas Police Department to “stop issuing citations or making arrests for Class A or Class B misdemeanor marijuana possession.” Another section prohibits city funds or personnel from being used to conduct testing on “any cannabis-related substance” to figure out if it meets the legal definition of marijuana under state and federal laws.
The amendment language also says that police officers can’t consider the smell of marijuana as probable cause for search and seizure — “except in the limited circumstances of a police investigation.” And the proposal says officers can be punished if they are found to be violating the policy.
See here for some background. The city of Dallas certified the result on Tuesday, which I presume was the catalyst for the lawsuit being filed at this time. I presume there will also be lawsuits against Bastrop and Lockhart at some point as well.
The Trib reviews the status of the previous lawsuits that Paxton has filed over this issue. As of this writing, none of them have been successful.
In July, Hays County District Judge Sherri Tibbe dismissed Paxton’s lawsuit against San Marcos, saying the state was not injured when San Marcos reduced arrests for misdemeanor marijuana possession and that the measure allowed for resources to be used for higher priority public safety needs.
In June, Travis County District Judge Jan Soifer also dismissed Paxton’s lawsuit against Austin ruling there was no legal justification to try the case.
Ground Game Texas — the progressive group that first launched the proposition in Austin and worked with local organizations in other cities — expects Paxton to appeal the decisions to dismiss the lawsuits at some point.
Paxton’s lawsuit against Elgin was resolved in June via consent decree, meaning neither side claims guilt or liability but reached an agreement in court. The decision did not impact Elgin because at no time did the Elgin Police Department implement or enforce the ordinance due to conflicting state laws.
In the North Texas suburb of Denton, where voters approved decriminalization by more than 70%, implementation has stalled after City Manager Sara Hensley argued it couldn’t be enforced since it conflicted with state law.
The case against Killeen filed in Bell County a year ago is still pending.
As I’ve said before, all of this will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court and/or the Legislature – I will be surprised if there isn’t an effort to ban this kind of exception to state law in the next session. Until then, we wait and see what happens in the courts. WFAA and the Dallas Observer have more.
“I will not stand idly by as cities run by pro-crime extremists deliberately violate Texas law and promote the use of illicit drugs that harm our communities…”
Where can I get a list of Texas Cities run by pro-crime extremists who also promote the use of illicit drugs ?