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.
- 2024-11-21 executive action — Sued to overturn a voter-approved charter amendment barring arrests and citations for marijuana possession, counted as -2 at weight 3
- 2024-07-03 executive action — Formal opinion concluding that neither the Compassionate-Use Act nor its rules prohibit a licensed dispenser moving low-THC cannabis between approved locations before a prescription is filled, which eases operation of the programme. It stays at +1 rather than +2 because the answer is hedged — "likely do not prohibit" — and conditioned on the delivery-offence exemption in subsection 481.111(e)(2), counted as +1 at weight 1.8
- 2024-01-31 executive action — Sued five cities to overturn voter-approved ordinances that limited police enforcement of marijuana possession laws, counted as -2 at weight 1.8
- 2023-03-17 executive action — The office he led took the side of keeping a ballot measure off the ballot, one subject of which was local marijuana decriminalisation, and suggested a route to break the measure apart. It is scored -1 rather than -2 because the State's suggestion was procedural and the single-subject objection covered several unrelated subjects, not marijuana alone, counted as -1 at weight 1.8
Average on the −2 to +2 scale: -1.143. Full method and the bill table.
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Official act2023-03-17
The State of Texas appeared as amicus curiae in the Supreme Court of Texas in No. 23-0111, In re Maria Teresa Ramirez Morris, and Texas Alliance for Life, Inc., a mandamus proceeding brought by private relators who asked the court to keep San Antonio's citizen-initiated "Justice Policy" charter amendment off the May 2023 ballot, or to split it up, under the single-subject rule in Local Government Code section 9.004(d) and (e).
The court's opinion records that the proposed amendment "would amend the City Charter, purportedly to prohibit local enforcement of certain state laws related to marijuana possession, theft offenses, and abortion", and that "The State, as amicus, suggests that the City Council may divide the Justice Policy into single subjects". The court rejected that route, holding it was unclear whether the council had any such authority, and concluded: "Accordingly, without hearing oral argument, we deny Relators' petition for writ of mandamus."
The opinion was delivered 2023-03-17.
⚠️What this entry does not establish: the State was an amicus, not a party, and the one-subject argument was the relators'. The amicus letter brief itself, reported elsewhere as filed 2023-02-15 and signed for the State by the Solicitor General, could not be read for this entry - its only known copies sit on search.txcourts.gov and on the Attorney General's own site, and both hosts now refuse automated reading. So the filing date, the signer, and the exact words of the State's filing are not established here.
Everything above is taken from the court's own published opinion.
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Official act2024-01-31
As Attorney General, sued five cities — Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin and Denton — over voter-approved ordinances limiting police enforcement of marijuana possession laws. His stated reason, in the office’s own release: "I will not stand idly by as cities ... deliberately violate Texas law and promote the use of illicit drugs that harm our communities." The release adds: "we don’t allow cities the ability to create anarchy by picking and choosing the laws they enforce", and describes marijuana as "an illicit substance that psychologists have increasingly linked to psychosis and other negative consequences."
The ellipsis omits a phrase characterising the city governments, which this site does not reproduce; the full sentence is in the linked release.
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Official act2024-07-03
Issued formal Attorney General Opinion KP-0469, answering a request from Senator Charles Schwertner, Chair of the Senate Committee on Business & Commerce (request RQ-0525-KP, dated 2023-12-15), about the Texas Compassionate-Use Act, the state medical cannabis programme. Its summary reads, in full: "The Texas Compassionate-Use Act in chapter 487 of the Health and Safety Code provides a regulatory structure administered by the Department of Public Safety for the medical use of low-THC cannabis in conjunction with chapter 169 of the Occupations Code.
Neither the Compassionate-Use Act nor its associated regulations prohibit a licensed dispensing organization from transporting its low-THC cannabis inventory between Department-approved locations prior to a prescription being issued and filled. Department rules generally contemplate the transportation of low-THC cannabis and likely do not prohibit the proposed scenario so long as any transportation of low-THC cannabis comports with the statutory exemption to the offense of delivery of marihuana provided by subsection 481.111(e)(2) of the Controlled Substances Act."
⚠️This entry previously quoted only the middle sentence, which reads as a flat permission. The opinion’s own answer is weaker in two ways: on the Department’s rules it says "likely do not prohibit" rather than do not prohibit, and it conditions the whole answer on the transportation fitting the delivery-offence exemption in subsection 481.111(e)(2).
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Official act2024-11-21
Sued the City of Dallas over Proposition R, approved by Dallas voters, which the office’s release describes as prohibiting "the Dallas Police Department from making arrests or issuing citations for marijuana possession or considering the odor of marijuana as probable cause for search or seizure." His stated reason: "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."
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Official act2025-04-24
As Attorney General, won the two appeals over the Austin and San Marcos marijuana ordinances in the Texas Fifteenth Court of Appeals. They are two separate decisions, a week apart: San Marcos on 2025-04-17 (No. 15-24-00084-CV, 714 S.W.3d 224) and Austin on 2025-04-24 (No. 15-24-00077-CV, 714 S.W.3d 247).
⚠️Neither was a final ruling that the ordinances are void, and this entry previously said they were. In each case the court reversed the dismissal and the refusal to block the ordinance and sent the case back with an instruction to enter, in the Austin court’s words, "a temporary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of the Ordinance pending a final trial on the merits". The Texas Supreme Court declined to review San Marcos on 2025-09-12 and denied rehearing on 2026-02-27; it declined Austin on 2025-12-19.
On 2026-07-30, in No. 15-26-00125-CV, the same court conditionally granted him mandamus relief holding that the Austin injunction must cover the whole ordinance, including the section barring the city from spending money on THC testing.
WeedVoter’s note — shown here, but deliberately left out of the score: A court ruling on suits already recorded here. It is the outcome of his act rather than a further act of his own, so it is shown but not scored again.
txcourts.gov, txcourts.gov, txcourts.gov, cases.justia.com, cases.justia.com, cases.justia.com, texasstandard.org, universitystar.com
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Official act2025-07-29
The State's appeal in its Dallas marijuana-ordinance case ended at the State's own request. The Fifteenth Court of Appeals opinion in No. 15-25-00062-CV, The State of Texas v. City of Dallas and city officials, on appeal from the 134th District Court of Dallas County, Trial Court Cause No. DC-24-20503, is headed "Motion Granted; Appeal Dismissed and Memorandum Opinion filed July 29, 2025." Its text reads in full: "This is an appeal from an order signed February 28, 2025.
On July 11, 2025, the State filed a motion to dismiss the appeal. See Tex. R. App. P. 42.1. The motion is granted." and "We dismiss the appeal." The panel was Chief Justice Brister and Justices Field and Farris, per curiam.
⚠️Three things this entry does not say. The court does not say the motion was unopposed, and this entry does not claim it was. The court does not mention an agreed temporary injunction in the trial court, so no such order is established here. And the court dates the order appealed from to 2025-02-28; the State's own motion is reported to give two different and later dates for it, but that motion could not be read - it is filed only on search.txcourts.gov, a host that refuses automated reading - so this entry follows the court's date and leaves the discrepancy unresolved.
WeedVoter’s note — shown here, but deliberately left out of the score: Ending an appeal is a procedural step whose direction is not readable from the order. The court gives no reason for the State's motion, the ordinance's own fate in the trial court is not stated in it, and guessing at a reason would be exactly the inference this site refuses to make.
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Said2026-08-15
Asked on camera by a member of the public for his view on the state THC restrictions while campaigning for the United States Senate, said "I don’t know the details of it" and did not discuss it further.
⚠️This quote is transcribed from a short Bystander recording rather than read from a page, and two published transcriptions of the same clip differ on the words either side of it — so only the phrase both versions agree on is quoted here.
WeedVoter’s note — shown here, but deliberately left out of the score: Declining to discuss the subject is not a position in either direction.
- Bystander clip of the exchange, posted by a journalist 0:00-0:10 (the whole clip)transcribed from video