A coalition of local and state organizations announced a new city charter amendment on the steps of City Hall on Tuesday — the San Antonio Justice Charter.
If passed, the amendment would decriminalize low-level marijuana possession and abortions, expand cite-and-release for nonviolent misdemeanors, ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants and appoint a justice director to oversee city policy.
The push for the San Antonio Justice Charter is being led by ACT 4 SA, a local organization dedicated to pushing for police accountability through community action and policies, and Ground Game Texas, a statewide progressive organizing group.
Ananda Tomas, the founder and executive director of ACT 4 SA, said the reforms proposed in the amendment need to be passed for moral and fiscal reasons.
“This initiative will amend the city charter of San Antonio to adopt a justice policy that will reduce unnecessary arrests and save scarce public resources,” she added.
Tomas explained that the amendment is what members of the community want and need.
“This sweeping reform will save thousands from being jailed for nonviolent, low-level offenses, keeping families together, fighting deportations and keeping the community out of systems that ruin lives that do little to rehabilitate or help folks,” she said.
Julie Oliver, the co-founder of Ground Game Texas, emphasized the need for the city charter to explicitly decriminalize abortions, despite the fact that city leaders including District Attorney Joe Gonzales and Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar have said they won’t prosecute over abortions.
“I keep saying, a doctor should not have to call his criminal defense attorney before providing lifesaving care to somebody who’s pregnant,” Oliver said.
The piece of the amendment to decriminalize low-level marijuana possession would eliminate citations and arrests for Class A and Class B possession misdemeanors, with few exceptions.
Chokeholds and no-knock warrants — the practice of entering people’s homes using a warrant without first notifying them, which played a role in Breonna Taylor’s death in 2020 — are already effectively prohibited by the San Antonio Police Department, though there are some caveats for both. This amendment would codify the bans into the city charter.
The charter amendment also creates the position of Justice Director, appointed by the City Council and mayor, to fulfill the policies contained in the amendment and to oversee all city policies related to “the City’s contribution to mass incarceration, mitigating racist and discriminatory law enforcement practices, and saving scarce public resources for greater public needs.”
The Justice Director would provide the council with a justice impact statement before council votes that affect these issues, including the annual budget and contract negotiations related to the San Antonio Police Department. They would also publish an annual justice impact statement for city activities and hold quarterly meetings for public stakeholders, SAPD, and the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.
The petition for the amendment requires 20,000 verified signatures by January to make it on the May municipal ballot.
Aaron Arguello, a San Antonio Advocacy Organizer with MOVE Texas, said his organization was feeling a grassroots push for these types of reforms.
“We’re seeing and hearing first-hand that young people overwhelmingly want to see an end to mass incarceration,” he said.
Tomas formerly served as the deputy director of Fix SAPD, the organization that pushed for a municipal proposition in 2021 called Prop B. It would have eliminated the police department’s ability to collectively bargain. Prop B fell short by two points.
She said that experience has given her and coalition members confidence that they can get another amendment on the ballot.
Yes! Yes! YES!
— Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (@theloserteacher) October 18, 2022
If you are a registered voter in San Antonio, let’s get you signed on to the petition 👌🏽https://t.co/4Kd6LkXty2
“Based on past initiatives I’ve seen, this is probably far more popularly supported, so I really think that we’re going to get on the ballot and get on the ballot more quickly than we think, and we’re gonna see a positive response from the community once we’re on the ballot and win this thing,” Tomas said.
Organizers said they felt they needed to propose a city charter because the city council had failed to make the changes they saw as necessary.
“Our leadership, our bureaucracy is no longer going to be a blockade,” Tomas said. “We are legislating ourselves and pushing through something that we’ve been asking for years.”
District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez was quick to voice his support for the initiative on Twitter and encouraged constituents to sign the petition.
Tomas and Oliver were joined by representatives from the San Antonio AFL-CIO, MOVE Texas, S.A. Stands, Bexar County Young Dems, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the San Antonio Immigrants Legal Resource Center, Radical Registrars, Black Freedom Factory and the Working Parties Family Texas for the announcement.
People may read a copy of the charter amendment language or sign the petition on Ground Game Texas’ website.
