WeedVoter

Jessi Cowart Libertarian

Texas House, District 15

About this race: A district in the Houston suburbs. No candidate on this ballot holds Texas legislative office, so none appears in a 2025 cannabis or hemp roll call. What each candidate has said or answered is listed below in date order, each with its own source.

Jessi CowartLibertarian
100/100 support for legal access — top band, 67 to 100 thin — one or two records produced this number · 2 of 2 records scored
How this score is worked out

Seven kinds of act move this number, and they do not count equally. A recorded vote counts 3, and so does authoring a bill or signing an executive action; signing on to somebody else’s bill counts 2. A statement or a questionnaire answer counts 2 as well, and an organisational endorsement counts 1. A vote takes its direction from the bill, whose effect is set out in advance; the rest take it from our reading of what was said, and each one below shows that reading and the reason for it. Acts shown with no number were examined and deliberately left out of the arithmetic, with a reason given.

  • 2026-09-25 statement — Stated she would oppose any legislation codifying the ban on the hemp industry, which is a position against the ban rather than a description of it. Scored the same as other candidates in this guide who stated opposition to the hemp ban on small-business grounds. It is a statement about hemp-derived THC, not about marijuana law generally, and she has no voting record because she has not held this office, counted as +2 at weight 2
  • 2026-09-23 questionnaire — Answered "Strongly Support" on maintaining a legal, regulated hemp marketplace, wrote that she opposes unnecessary government prohibition of lawful products, and said she prefers regulation addressing demonstrable safety risks to prohibition because government disapproves of a product, counted as +2 at weight 2

Average on the −2 to +2 scale: 2. Full method and the bill table.

  • Questionnaire2026-09-23

    Said Texas should have a hemp industry "built on free markets, consumer choice, and reasonable/minimal regulation", in the Texas Hemp Business Council’s 2026 candidate questionnaire. The council is a hemp industry trade association; it put twenty questions to 223 candidates for the Texas Legislature and statewide office and publishes the answers it receives in full, without editing. These are the candidate’s own words, submitted by the candidate.

    Asked about the future of hemp in Texas, the answer was, in full: "Texas should have a hemp industry built on free markets, consumer choice, and reasonable/minimal regulation. I support a clear, statewide framework that allows qualified businesses to compete while protecting consumers through age restrictions, testing, accurate labeling, dosage standards, child-resistant packaging, and meaningful enforcement against contaminated, mislabeled, or unlawful products.

    Regulation should be consistent, transparent, and proportionate to the actual risks involved. Licensing and fees should be reasonable/minimal and tied to the cost of administration. Texas farmers and businesses should be free to participate in this legitimate agricultural and commercial market without unnecessary government interference." Asked who should be permitted to sell THC, to whom, at what dose, in what form and subject to what safeguards: "Qualified, licensed retailers should be permitted to sell regulated THC products to adults 21 and older, subject to reasonable safeguards.

    Products should be clearly labeled, independently tested for potency and contaminants, sold in standardized doses and child-resistant packaging, and prohibited from being marketed to minors. The goal should be consumer safety and accountability without unnecessary government restrictions on lawful adult choices." On keeping a legal, regulated hemp marketplace, the comments read: "Yes. I support a legal, regulated marketplace for hemp and hemp-derived products and oppose unnecessary government prohibition of lawful products."

    Asked why regulation is or is not preferable to prohibition: "I prefer regulation to address demonstrable safety risks versus prohibition simply because the government disapproves of a product." On the questionnaire’s fixed-choice questions: on maintaining a legal, regulated hemp marketplace, "Strongly Support"; on whether regulation is preferable to prohibition where a product can be made and sold safely, "Yes"; on hemp agriculture, "Strongly Support"; on retail regulation, "Reasonable statewide licensing/registration"; on tax policy, "Depends on the proposed tax"; on consumer choice, "Yes".

    The date is the date the council recorded the submission, in Central time.

    texashempbusinesscouncil.com, texashempbusinesscouncil.com, texashempbusinesscouncil.com, texashempbusinesscouncil.com

  • Said2026-09-25

    Said she would oppose writing the hemp ban into law, in a candidate questionnaire published by Community Impact. The paper asked her what she would do to support small businesses and promote economic growth; cannabis was not the question, and the hemp sentence is how she chose to end the answer. She answered in full: "Texas should foster an environment where entrepreneurs can succeed without unnecessary government interference.

    I’ll support legislation to reduce taxes, eliminate burdensome regulations, and protect property rights. Small businesses thrive when government gets out of their way. I will oppose any legislation aimed at codifying the ban on the hemp industry." The paper put the same questions to all three candidates in this race and printed the answers it received; neither of her opponents mentioned hemp, THC or cannabis anywhere in it.

    communityimpact.com, cowartfortexas.com

See the whole Texas House, District 15 race, including every opponent →

Who is paying for this campaign

Campaign finance — Texas Ethics Commission

Texas Ethics Commission filer 90091, filed as “Cowart, Jessi N.”, treasurer appointment for State Representative, District 15, dated 2025-09-23. The name on the filing is not word-for-word the name on the ballot — both are printed above so you can check the pairing yourself before you rely on it.

Why there are no figures and no industry breakdown here. Texas does not require a candidate to report a contributor’s employer or occupation — the Commission’s own 2026 guide asks for the amount, the contributor’s name and address, and the date, and that is all. So there is nothing in these filings to group into industries, and we have built no such grouping rather than imply one. Separately, the Commission’s bulk filing archive tells automated readers to stay out of it, and we honour that, so we have read no individual Texas contribution record. Treat the itemised question as unchecked by us, not as checked and found empty.

Read this filer’s own reports at the Texas Ethics Commission (ethics.state.tx.us) → — choose Transaction Type “Contributions”, then Search By “Filer ID” and enter 90091. The Commission’s search posts its results, so there is no direct link to one filer’s page; the number above is what makes it one step instead of a hunt.

Any grouping of contributors into an industry is weedvoter’s own classification, applied to employer and committee names exactly as filed. The Commission publishes employers and committees; it never publishes industries. OpenSecrets discontinued its public interface in April 2025, so nothing here is an OpenSecrets classification.

Money received is not a position. Everything on this card is money that changed hands. It is not evidence that any contribution influenced any decision, nothing on it is placed beside a roll call, and we make no claim about anyone’s motive. For what Jessi Cowart has actually done about cannabis, read the record above on this page — the roll calls, the bills that carry their name, and the date of each one, every entry linked to the document it came from. That is the part of this page built to be judged, and it is the part the score is calculated from. No contribution on this card moves that score by a cent.