Regarding the referendum, we call them ballot initiatives here. After a couple minutes of looking around I found this:
“Texas is one of only 3 western states where the state legislature denies citizens the right of initiative.”
So we’re basically screwed unless we can convince out progressively liberal legislature to place an initiative on the ballot, and I think it may be too late for that already. Guess I’ll make some phone calls to my local reps tomorrow and hope.
Thank you, both.