The Senate trio dead set on ending “reefer madness”
With the latest rollout of their bill to decriminalize weed, Sens. Booker, Wyden and Schumer hope to ride the momentum of a related Biden-era proposal and strike a blow against the War on Drugs.
First Things First
Sen. Cory Booker had high hopes.
The New Jersey Democrat thought that by now Black and brown communities would’ve reaped the benefits of marijuana legalization in the dozen years since Colorado and Washington became the first states to pass legislation permitting the recreational use of the drug.
Instead, what he’s seen is several mostly white multi-state operators buying up cannabis shops and other marijuana-related businesses across the country at the expense of minority entrepreneurs who have been unable to capitalize through the industry.
“I fear that a lot of the hope for this being an industry that’s reflective of the American people are gone now,” Booker told me last week. “And you’re seeing a lot of women entrepreneurs, minority entrepreneurs just being decimated by this period of inaction by Congress.”
Last week, the Justice Department announced the Drug Enforcement Agency initiated the process to recategorize weed under federal law. A day later, Booker, along with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, a bill that would remove marijuana from the list of controlled substances altogether.
The CAOA would also expunge the criminal records of Americans convicted of low-level marijuana offenses and empower states to create their own laws to reverse the generational harms of the racist War on Drugs. Additionally, it would mandate new federal guidelines for how marijuana products are labeled and require the Department of Health and Human Services and National Institutes of Health to support research into cannabis’s health impacts.
“I’ve been to expungement hearings and I’ve seen the tears in people’s eyes, that it’s like economic anchors being released and they can breathe again,” Booker told me. “They can have freedom again. That’s the urgency for millions of Americans that have been affected by the enforcement of marijuana laws.”
Wyden, the chair of the Senate Finance Committee and the chamber’s chief tax policymaker, said Booker emphasized to him that tax reform is necessary to achieve equity in the cannabis industry.
“Those small independents are having problems getting a plumber and all the other kinds of things because they’re getting clobbered by inequitable taxes. The big guys always figure out a way to take care of themselves,” he said. “What Sen. Booker talked to me about was let’s make sure that a small mom-and-pop and women-owned [businesses] get a fair shake. And that's my obligation as Chairman of the Finance Committee. I'm gonna deliver on it. And now we've got some new momentum to get into those issues.”
Schumer said in a floor speech last week that the bill has 18 sponsors, the most since it was first introduced in 2021.
“We’ll keep working to build more support because when liberals and conservatives and activists and entrepreneurs and veterans groups can all come together on one issue, that’s a clear sign that the momentum is real.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told me the CAOA is an opportunity to collapse the prison industrial complex and end mass incarceration in America.
He added that it also could build on the progress started with the passage of the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice bill he championed in the House and former President Donald Trump signed into law in late 2018, that created a program for incarcerated people to earn time credits towards early release.
The top House Democrat added he supported the DEA rescheduling cannabis.
“The effort taken by the Biden administration was impactful and another step in the right direction that we should build upon legislatively.”
In addition to Colorado and Washington, 22 states plus the District of Columbia have approved marijuana for recreational use. Another 14 allow the drug for medical use only. Depending on the poll, between seven and almost nine in 10 Americans support legalizing marijuana. And most Americans already live in a legal marijuana state.
But under the Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is a Schedule I drug—in the same class as heroin, LSD, molly and several other drugs the federal government says possess a high potential for abuse and has no currently accepted medical use in the US. The proposed DEA rule would move cannabis to Schedule III, which includes FDA-approved drugs that are legal when prescribed by a doctor and received from a licensed pharmacy.
Once the Office of Management and Budget approves the DEA rule, it will enter a public comment period of an expected 60 days when stakeholders can argue for or against the proposal. DEA will then schedule a hearing to review the public comments before issuing a final decision.
Without legislation to address some of the inequities though, the DEA will do little to level the economic playing field for Americans who have already been criminalized for weed offenses.
“I’m happy we’re making progress, but there are again, millions of people—the individuals that have been arrested, their families, their children—this is not relief for,” Booker said. “We’re putting out a comprehensive bill that would address the ongoing cancerous injustices that are going on with the war on drugs, of the millions of people that are yearning to put justice back in their justice system and end their financial nightmare.”
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WILL SHE OR WON’T SHE? All eyes will be on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tonight to see if the Georgia Republican will trigger a vote on her motion to remove Mike Johnson (R-La.) as speaker.
House Democratic leadership announced last week it will vote to quash MTG’s gambit if she moves forward, rendering it ineffective since most Republicans are opposed as well. For deeper context on why Greene failed where Rep. Matt Gaetz succeeded in ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last fall, read my COURIER column I wrote in early April.
ICYMI: Speaking of COURIER, in my most recent column, I interviewed several congressional Democrats to suss out the salience of democracy as a key campaign issue six months out from the general election.
SAVE THE DATE: Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey announced last week that he will call a special primary election on July 16 and special general election on September 18 to fill the seat of the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. The filing deadline for the primary is this Friday. Joey Fox and David Wildstein have all the details for the New Jersey Globe
Payne, a beloved House Democrat known for his near-daily one-minute floor speeches and dashing personal style, passed away late last month following a heart attack related to complications from diabetes. Payne was re-elected five times to the seat he won following the death of his father in late 2012.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters the day before the younger Payne’s funeral last week that the caucus hadn’t given any thought to if and when his seat would be filled.
“We’re still in the process of both mourning the loss of a great member of Congress and a classmate of mine representative Donald Payne Jr. as well as celebrating his life,” Jeffries said. “We’ve given zero thought to what comes next in the 10th congressional district of New Jersey.”
HAPPY MET GALA! If you need a distraction from the mess on the Hill, it’s the first Monday in May, which means that anyone who’s someone in fashion, media and pop culture will descend upon The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City ahead of fashion’s biggest night.
The theme of this year’s gala is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Time” in celebration of the Costume Institute’s new exhibition and the dress code is “The Garden of Time.” The hosts for the charity event and fundraiser are Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny and Chris Hemsworth.
No phones are allowed inside the event but you can watch the live stream of red carpet arrivals starting at 6 p.m. Personally, the nostalgia from my fashion journalist days will be thick and hopefully the VIPs won’t disappoint. BTW, can you believe it’s been ten years since Jay-Z and Solange’s infamous elevator fight?
FYi: “A complete track-by-track timeline of Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s feud” by Tom Smyth
Happenings
All times Eastern
On Capitol Hill
12 p.m. The House will meet with a fly-in votes scheduled at 6:30 p.m.
The Senate is out.
At the White House
9 a.m. President Biden will receive his daily intelligence briefing.
10:05 a.m. The president will travel from Wilmington, Delaware to the White House, arriving at 11 a.m.
12 p.m. President Biden will present the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy to the US Military Academy Black Nights.
1 p.m. The president will have lunch with King Abdullah II of Jordan.
5:15 p.m. President Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden will host a Cinco de Mayo reception.
10:30 a.m. Vice President Kamala Harris will travel from Washington, DC to Detroit, arriving at 12 p.m.
1:55 p.m. The vice president will announce more than $100 million to support American autoworkers and small auto suppliers during the second stop of her nationwide Economic Opportunity Tour.
5:30 p.m. Vice President Harris will leave Detroit to return to Washington, arriving at 6:45 p.m.
Biden’s week ahead:
Tuesday: President Biden will deliver the keynote address at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony at the US Capitol.
Wednesday: The president will travel to Wisconsin to speak about his economic agenda before participating in a campaign event. He’ll also travel to Chicago to speak at a campaign reception.
Thursday: President Biden, Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Emhoff will welcome the Las Vegas Aces to the White House to celebrate their 2023 WNBA championship.
Harris’s week ahead:
Tuesday: The vice president will travel to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania to participate in a political event on reproductive health with actress Sheryl Lee Ralph. She will also speak at the EMILYs List annual national gala in Washington.
Thursday: Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will host a Night Market at the Naval Observatory to celebrate AANHPI Heritage Month.
Friday: The vice president will host a reception at the Naval Observatory for the Democratic Mayors Association’s Leadership Summit.
Read All About It
“When failure is the only Senate option” by Carl Hulse: “Members of the upper chamber are regularly holding votes on amendments that, by design, have no chance whatsoever of passing.”
“A failure of imagination about Trump” by Tom Nichols: “American minds are not ready to think about how fast democracy could disintegrate.”
“Colleges have a new source of protest on their hands: Irate parents” by Clare Ansberry, Oyin Adedoyin and Katherine Hamilton: “Frustrated parents are pushing back against university responses to the Gaza protests.”
“It’s not 1968 to Joe Biden” by Gabriel Debenedetti: “The president isn’t worried about campus protests sinking the youth vote. Should he be?”
“How lip gloss became the answer to Gen Z’s problems” by Kyndall Cunningham: “In times of uncertainty, small luxuries reign supreme.”