Ground Game Texas held a press event on May 25, announcing that the group has collected enough signatures to qualify for the November 2022 ballot. Only 1,000 valid signatures were necessary, but the group collected over 2,400 signatures for submission.
Ground Game Texas was founded in 2021 and seeks to organize and educate Texas communities to fight for issues such as increased minimum wages, Medicaid expansion plans, and cannabis legalization, to name a few. A part of their mission is to consistently inform voters of these issues year-round, and to avoid taking “off-years.”
Executive Director and Co-founder of Ground Game Texas, Julie Oliver, released a statement about the initiative, which is called the Killeen Freedom Act of 2022. “In a quickly growing and thriving community like Killeen, there’s no excuse for the continued over-policing and incarceration of community members for marijuana use,” Oliver said. “On the heels of voters approving our similar initiative in Austin last week, we’re proud to give Killeen voters the same opportunity to end enforcement of marijuana offenses–which disproportionally hurts diverse communities like Killeen.” If passed, this particular initiative would decriminalize cannabis in Killeen, a central Texas town located north of Austin, which no longer allows police to issue class A or class B misdemeanors for cannabis possession.
On May 9, the organization shared that voters in Austin passed Proposition A (also called the Austin Freedom Act) with 85.80% “yes” vote, which decriminalizes cannabis and also prohibits no-knock warrants. “I want to stress that this *would not have happened* if volunteers working in an ‘off year’ hadn’t grabbed clipboards and hit the pavement to gather the 20,000 signatures it took to put this up for a vote,” Oliver stated about