Amarillo’s Win Against SCFTU

When SCFTU first appeared in Amarillo, it showed up quietly: in a single Facebook post. Mark Lee Dickson shared on Facebook that he was hosting an interest meeting at a local megachurch. We caught wind, and a small group of us protested the event just to let them know we were paying attention. We were accosted and threatened, but that only fueled our fight. From there, ARFA was born.

We knew that in order to know what we were up against, we needed information. We used every tool at our disposal: reading Reddit forums, infiltrating right-wing Facebook groups, and PIA requests (The Public Information Act allows individuals to request government records). These PIAs allowed us to see which city council members were in contact with Mark Lee Dickson and where they stood on enacting the SCFTU ordinance. We also were able to get our hands on a copy of the proposed ordinance - all 19 pages of it. We began reaching out to experts and attorneys to better understand exactly how this ordinance works and what it meant for our community. We read the ordinance language line by line, over and over again. We compared it to versions passed in other towns. We studied the legal risks. And we started publishing breakdowns so everyone understood exactly what is at risk.

Before an ordinance was formally introduced, we started organizing. We met with local leaders, healthcare professionals, faith voices who rejected Christian nationalism, business owners, community and statewide advocates. We wanted civic engagement to be fun and accessible, so we hosted all types of events from sex trivia to movie nights all to get the word out about what was heading to city council.

By late fall, public awareness was growing. People were asking harder questions. The ordinance was no longer operating in obscurity. And that changed the tone.

As the proposal gained traction and moved closer to formal consideration, the pressure intensified.Public comment sessions grew more heated, many lasting for 6+ hours. Misinformation increased.
The $10,000 lawsuit provision became a central talking point.

We hosted educational forums. We wrote deep-dive explainers and hosted speech-writing sessions. We showed up at meetings. We spoke to press. We connected with statewide partners who had seen this playbook before. We even hosted tailgates prior to city council meetings to get more people engaged.

What had started as a small “interest meeting” was now a full community debate. And more people were realizing: this wasn’t symbolic. This would affect real lives, and Amarillo City Council refused to act on it.

Rather than taking the L, Mark Lee Dickson recruited eleven local residents to form a petition committee. Under Amarillo’s charter, they needed signatures from 5% of the city’s electorate to force the City Council to formally vote on the ordinance.

What followed was not a quiet signature drive. It was a full-scale misinformation campaign. Doorbell camera footage and firsthand accounts began circulating. Door knockers were telling voters the ordinance would “stop abortion in Amarillo” — a claim that was legally inaccurate. Others reported that canvassers couldn’t explain the ordinance at all. (Multiple residents later spoke at City Council meetings, stating publicly that they had been misled about what they were signing.)

Many door-knockers had been brought in from East Texas canvass; people who were unfamiliar with not only the ordinance, but were unfamiliar with Amarillo.

The goal was simple: get enough signatures before the fine print caught up. And they succeeded. The required threshold was met and the ordinance was headed for a formal vote before Amarillo City Council.

After the petition met the signature requirement, the ordinance was forced onto the City Council agenda for a formal vote. In spring 2024, the Amarillo City Council voted the ordinance down by 4-1.

But, unfortunately, Mark Lee Dickson refused to accept defeat again. Because the petition committee had successfully met the threshold, the ordinance was advanced to a citywide ballot measure (Prop A) to be voted on during the 2024 presidential election.

The stakes had just multiplied. This was no longer a council chamber fight. It was a full political campaign, happening alongside one of the most polarizing national elections in recent history.

And we knew what that meant: more outside money, more misinformation, higher voter turnout (in Amarillo, this meant mostly Republicans), and a long road ahead.

ARFA shifted gears. We were no longer just educating — we were preparing to run a coordinated, disciplined, citywide effort to defeat it at the ballot box.

The weeks leading up to the election were exhausting. Days packed with door-knocking, phone banking, community forums, and countering online misinformation.

We spoke directly with voters who told us they had signed the petition thinking it was symbolic — only to later learn about the $10,000 lawsuit provision.

The narrative was shifting. The ordinance’s supporters were louder, but they were also facing more scrutiny. Business leaders were speaking up. Faith voices were pushing back. Residents were publicly sharing how they felt misled. What started as moral panic was turning into a debate about local autonomy, financial risk, and whether Amarillo wanted to become a legal experiment.

After nearly a year of organizing, educating, pushing back, and refusing to let misinformation go unanswered, Amarillo voters rejected Prop A.

It was not easy. It was not fast. And it was not guaranteed. But it was decisive.

An abortion travel ban ordinance template designed to divide communities and weaponize civil lawsuits was defeated by local organizing, coalition building, and voter education, in one of the reddest cities in America.

Amarillo said no, defeated SCFTU by nearly 20 points, and became the first city to defeat a travel ban at the ballot since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

-The New Yorker

-Mother Jones

-Ms. Magazine

-The Guardian

-Truth Out

-Jezebel