In Episode 47 of Politics with Pan, Pan welcomes Angel Carrol, criminal justice advocate, content creator, and Ground Game TX board member, for a wide-ranging conversation that starts with her story and ends with a ballot measure Houston voters are deciding right now.

Angel opens up about her life in the system: arrested for the first time at 10 and put in a youth prison without ever being convicted, and at 15 or 16 certified as an adult facing two to four years after a school incident spiraled. An attorney and a diversion program changed her path, and she explains how that experience fuels everything she does, including Raise the Age, her work on adultification bias and the school-to-prison pipeline, and helping pass the CROWN Act in Austin and then statewide with Representative Rhetta Bowers.

From there, the conversation turns to the Houston Freedom Act (Prop A) and the campaign behind it. Angel walks through Ground Game, the nonprofit and PAC founded in 2021 in Austin, and how its 40,000-signature petition made it to Houston's November 4 ballot. She breaks down what the act actually does: making Class A and B misdemeanor marijuana possession the lowest enforcement priority so simple possession means a ticket instead of jail, favoring diversion over arrest, ordering a one-time audit of five years of marijuana enforcement with annual public reports, and banning no-knock warrants by requiring officers to announce themselves and wait at least 15 seconds, a direct response to the Harding Street raid.

The two dig into why it's needed: low-level marijuana arrests have reportedly gone up by more than 1000% under Mayor Whitmire despite claims that it's not a priority, it costs about $400 a day to jail someone, and existing diversion programs are limited, discretionary, and don't reach everyone. Angel is blunt about what the act is not, it does not legalize marijuana, and about where she wants Texas to go next, from prison air conditioning to ending slave labor behind the walls.

Personal stories anchor the whole episode. Pan shares his own experience being roughed up by police at 16 in California, and Angel tells the story of a late-night traffic stop outside a coffee shop where officers pointed guns at her over a rolling stop and assumed she was a Black man, a moment she says still haunts her, and one that shapes how she sees policing, community policing done right in Precinct 7, and the police union. They also touch on Black misleadership, education and school vouchers, the politics of weed and why the community's fear of it is misplaced, who actually supports the Houston Freedom Act including Lt. Gov. nominee Vikki Goodwin, and why Dan Patrick's anti-THC policies matter in this election.

It closes the way the episode does: go vote before early voting ends, "vote like your life depends on it, because it does", and remember that our electeds work for us.

📅 Early Voting: Oct. 19–30

🗳️ Election Day: Nov. 3

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