What we are asking
Sign a position. Support, oppose, or undecided. All three are answers. Silence is the only one that tells voters nothing.
These four bills came out of the ten line items Texans told us are hurting them. We advocate for all four openly, and we never ask a candidate to agree with us to be treated fairly here. Every candidate in a race gets the same invitation, the same wording, and the same space on the page.
A position is posted exactly as the candidate writes it, with the date they sent it. Nobody is moved into a column because of a press clipping, a rumor, or a vote from a past session.
Bill one. Joint resolution, a constitutional amendment
Trust Texans Initiative
In one sentence. Texans could put a law or a constitutional amendment on the ballot by petition, and could repeal a law the Legislature passed.
What it does.
- To propose a law, a petition needs signatures equal to 5 percent of the votes cast for governor in the last election, both statewide and in every one of the 31 Senate districts. A constitutional amendment needs 6 percent on the same basis.
- A proposed law goes to the Legislature first. If lawmakers do not pass it by the end of the regular session, the Secretary of State puts it on the ballot at the next general election.
- A proposed law passes with a simple majority of the people voting on it. A constitutional amendment needs 60 percent.
- A law the people pass can be changed or repealed within its first five years only by a two-thirds vote of each house.
- Texans could also repeal a bill the Legislature passed, using a petition signed by 5 percent in every Senate district. That petition cannot be filed during the session the bill passed, and it has to be filed within five years of the bill taking effect.
- A measure costs $1,000 to file, refunded once it is certified for circulation, and it can cover only one subject.
- The Legislative Budget Board writes a fiscal note on any measure that costs money. A State Bar panel of election and constitutional lawyers reviews the wording and suggests fixes. Its advice is not binding, and it has no power to approve, deny, or delay anything.
- Anyone spending or taking in more than $1,000 on a petition drive or on ballot advocacy registers with the Texas Ethics Commission, and contributions over $1,000 are made public.
What a Yes meansYou will vote to send this to Texans, who decide it at the ballot box on November 2, 2027.
Bill two. Companion House and Senate bills
Data Center Moratorium and Local Impact Study Act
In one sentence. No large data center gets a permit, a grid hookup, a water right, or a tax break in a town or county until that community's own impact study is finished and certified.
What it does.
- Pauses every state and local approval for a large data center until a study is certified for that municipality or county.
- The study has to look at water, grid reliability, electric rates, emissions, noise, emergency services, the local tax base, and land use, and it has to include public hearings.
- No grid connection and no energizing, including on-site generation and power built behind the meter, and including areas outside ERCOT.
- Pauses surface water rights, groundwater permits, and air permits for on-site generation, and penalizes data centers that ignore the state water board's water use surveys.
- Suspends the data center sales tax exemption, Chapter 312 tax abatements, and state incentive agreements until a study is certified.
- Lets cities and counties adopt their own pause and their own siting rules, and shields those local rules from state preemption.
- Sets a deadline for the studies so the pause cannot run forever, ends the whole act on a sunset date, and lets residents go to court to enforce it.
What a Yes meansYou will vote to have a community studied before a data center is built in it.
Some numbers are left open on purpose. The size that triggers the pause is written as 75 megawatts with the figure open, the daily water figure is blank, and the deadline and sunset date are marked for a decision. Projects already under construction have two options in the draft: stop work, or finish building but stay dark until the study is done. Those are the sponsor's calls to make, and the drafting notes at the front of the PDF explain each one.
Bill three. Companion House and Senate bills
Hemp and Hemp-Derived Cannabinoid Act
In one sentence. Hemp and hemp products stay legal under state law, the state health department notice that reclassified them in July 2026 is void, and people charged under it get their cases dropped and their records cleared.
What it does.
- Writes into the Texas Controlled Substances Act that hemp and hemp-derived cannabinoids are not controlled substances, so long as the finished product stays under the state hemp limit for THC.
- Says plainly that how a cannabinoid was extracted or converted does not matter, which is the argument the reclassification rested on.
- Blocks the health commissioner from putting hemp back on a schedule by rule. Any rule that tries has no legal effect, including in a criminal case.
- Repeals the notice published in the Texas Register on July 10, 2026 and made effective July 31, 2026.
- Dismisses pending prosecutions that rest on that reclassification, whenever the conduct happened.
- Clears the records, with no filing fee, for felonies and misdemeanors alike. Within 180 days the state has to find the people who qualify and write to them.
- Changes nothing about marijuana law or the Texas Compassionate Use Program.
What a Yes meansYou will vote to keep legal hemp legal, and to clear the records of people charged under a rule the Legislature never passed.
Bill four. Senate bill
Education Savings Account Repeal Act
In one sentence. Ends the education savings account program the Legislature created in 2025, pays the families who already ran up approved expenses, and sends the rest of the money back to the state.
What it does.
- Repeals the education savings account program added to the Education Code by S.B. 2 in the 2025 session, along with the parts of other laws written only to run it.
- Within 30 days the comptroller has to write to every participating family, every certified assistance organization, and every participating school.
- Approved expenses a family ran up before the repeal still get paid, exactly as they would have been.
- No new applications, no payments for anything bought after the repeal date, and no account renewals.
- Within 180 days every account closes and the unspent money goes to the state general revenue fund.
- The comptroller reports to the Legislature by January 1, 2028 on where the money ended up.
- Anything already done under the program, and any right that already accrued, still stands.
What a Yes meansYou will vote to end the program and return the unspent money to the state.
How these become law
None of this happens in secret, and none of it happens quickly.
- November 2026. Prefiling opens for the 90th Legislature. A member can file a bill the day it opens.
- January 2027. The Legislature convenes. The three ordinary bills need a majority in each house. Taking effect right away instead of months later takes a two-thirds vote.
- Two-thirds for the amendment. The Trust Texans joint resolution needs two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate. The governor does not sign it and cannot veto it.
- November 2, 2027. If the Legislature sends it, Texans vote the amendment up or down.
Every draft here goes to the Texas Legislative Council before filing, which is the office that puts a bill into the right form and the right code sections. Text may change there. When it does, we post the new version and say what changed.
Where they stand
Every candidate on the 2026 ballot starts at No response yet. A position changes only when that candidate sends us a signed or recorded statement, and we post the date and the statement alongside it.