— For more than a year, progressive organizers in Texas have been waging a concerted — and largely successful — effort to convince voters to reform policing laws in their cities, pushing the envelope of what state law could allow.

But now they are facing their biggest test yet in San Antonio, the state’s second-largest city and home to a May ballot proposition that could spark the biggest showdown yet with the Republican-dominated state government.

Proposition A would decriminalize abortion and low-level marijuana possession, ban no-knock warrants and chokeholds by law enforcement, create a “justice director” job at City Hall and require police to issue citations for certain low-level, nonviolent offenses instead of making arrests......

In the Legislature, Republicans are advancing legislation that would prevent local governments from regulating in a broad range of policy areas unless explicitly permitted to do so by the state. The bill, which Abbott has endorsed, received final approval from the House on Wednesday, sending it to the Senate.