Houston posted the Proposition A ballot language. It bans a warrant HPD says it stopped serving, and it carries a 15 second rule nobody has reported

On October 6 this desk asked whether anyone would publish Houston’s Proposition A ballot language before early voting opened. The City of Houston has now posted it. It is one question covering two policies, and it carries a number no news coverage of the measure has reported: 15 seconds.

Early voting opens Monday. Proposition A is the only measure on the City of Houston ballot this fall, and the official language asks voters to amend the charter to require the police department to make enforcement of Class A and Class B misdemeanor marijuana possession its lowest law-enforcement priority, with related reporting requirements, and to prohibit Houston police officers from requesting or executing no-knock search warrants.

Why it matters

Voters who have only read news coverage have been told what Proposition A is about. The charter text tells them what it would do, and the two are not the same length. The proposed article defines the warrants it bans, sets the audit it requires, and binds exactly one agency.

By the numbers

15 seconds is the wait the amendment would require. The proposed charter language defines a no-knock warrant as one that does not require officers to knock, announce and wait at least that long before execution.
5 years of misdemeanor marijuana enforcement would be audited once, then reported annually: arrests, citations, demographics and the police resources spent on them.
1 vote covers both halves. There is no separate question.
About 440 misdemeanor marijuana arrests a year now, up from about 35 a year across 2021 to 2023, from HPD records Houston Public Media obtained by records request, as this desk reported on September 27.
November 3 is Election Day, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Early voting runs October 19 to October 30.

What the coverage buried

ABC13 opened its Proposition A story with a Kingwood homeowner, Russ Gundrum, whose house was raided in August under a no-knock warrant while he slept. Further down, the same story reports that the Gulf Coast Violent Offender Task Force carried out that raid, not HPD.

Proposition A prohibits Houston police officers from requesting or executing these warrants. It would not have reached the raid the story leads with. Gundrum says so himself, telling ABC13 he would like the same rule to apply to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. A reader who stops after four paragraphs comes away thinking this measure would have protected him.

That is the same gap the police union has been pointing at from the other side, and it is the strongest practical objection anyone has raised to the no-knock half.

The other side

Tom Hogan, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston, told FOX 26 he would rather keep no-knock warrants available in narrow, high-risk cases with a judge as the check: “It is much better to make sure that the judges are a check on the police doing this only when it’s necessary.” That has force in a hostage or armed-barricade case, and it is an argument about who decides, not about whether the raids are dangerous.

The answer is that a judicial check and a charter rule are not substitutes. A judge reviews one warrant. The charter sets whether the department may ask at all, and unlike an executive order it survives the administration that wrote it. What the answer does not do is extend the rule past the city line, because the text cannot.

What to watch

October 19 to October 30: early voting. November 3: Election Day.
If it passes, whether the state attorney general sues. Attorney Cordt Akers told ABC13 he expects a challenge, pointing to similar measures contested in Austin and San Antonio.
The one-time five-year audit and the first annual report, which would make Houston’s misdemeanor marijuana enforcement figures public on a schedule rather than by records request.
Whether Commissioners Court takes up anything comparable for the Sheriff’s Office, which this measure cannot touch.

Bottom line

The ballot language is now public, three days before early voting, and it is more specific than the coverage of it. It bans a category of warrant HPD says it already does not serve, it stops at the city line, and it requires five years of marijuana enforcement data the city has never published on its own. Voters get one yes or no on all of it.

Sources

City of Houston, 2026 Charter Amendment Election Information, the official ballot language, the proposed charter article and the election date
ABC13 Houston, on the Kingwood raid, the task force that served it and the litigation outlook
FOX 26 Houston, on the audit requirement, the single ballot line and Tom Hogan
KPRC 2, on the petition drive and the police union’s jurisdiction objection

Editorial