A United States executive branch official evading answering questions at a congressional hearing is not a new thing. But, on February 11, Attorney General Pam Bondi took the evasion to a new level.
Tag: Judiciary Committee
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is now a subcommittee chairman in the new Congress.
A year ago, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) was pointing out that the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act being used by Democratic leadership in the United States House of Representatives as the vehicle for marijuana legalization was actually delaying progress toward marijuana legalization on the national level. If the Democratic leadership really wants to end the US government’s marijuana prohibition, Massie argued, it should ditch the MORE Act with its extraneous provisions that turn off most Republican House members and even some Democrat House members and instead bring to the House floor a “straight up clean” bill eliminating the US government’s criminalization of activities related to marijuana.
The Democratic leadership did not follow Massie’s advice last year. Instead, it kept pushing the MORE Act, resulting in the bill passing in the Democratic-majority House in a very partisan vote but going nowhere in the then-Republican-majority Senate. In the new Congress begun this year, the House’s Democratic leadership is again pushing the virtually Democrats only MORE Act, designated as HR 3617 this Congress. It makes one wonder if the power behind the scenes either thinks the new razor-thin Democratic majority in the Senate will deliver approval of the bill or, it seems more likely, thinks it is fine to score political points with the very partisan bill while ensuring the US government’s marijuana prohibition stays in place.
Following up on his previous call for caution in the effort in the United States House of Representatives to impeach President Donald Trump, George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley on Wednesday presented to the House Judiciary Committee oral testimony and an extensive written statement regarding the case as it now stands for impeaching the president. Unlike other witnesses at the hearing, Turley did not give the deed his blessing.
People say there is too little bipartisanship in Washington, DC. But, when it comes to protecting the United States government’s mass surveillance program, there is plenty of bipartisan action by Democratic and Republican leaders. This was on display Wednesday morning in the opening comments of US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-GA) during a hearing at which the committee debated and voted on the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act.
New Pew Research Center poll results indicate Americans’ support for marijuana legalization continues to grow, with support reaching two-thirds among those questioned and maintaining majorities among Democrats, Republicans, and independents. This state of popular opinion, along with marijuana law liberalization continuing to move forward at state and local levels, are among the factors suggesting the time is ripe for legalization on the national level.
However, the United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee is not moving forward with a clean bill to repeal marijuana prohibition that would garner widespread public support and have a good chance of both passing in the Republican-controlled Senate and receiving President Donald Trump’s signature. Instead, the committee is scheduled to consider on Wednesday legislation that, in addition to national legalization, contains marijuana business subsidies and race-based provisions that likely mean the bill will have zero chance of passing in the Senate or receiving Trump’s support.
A United States House of Representatives subcommittee held a hearing on Wednesday at which countrywide marijuana legalization was considered. The hearing of the Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee appears designed to start off deliberative action in the House out of which the advancement of legalization legislation to the House floor will arise. However, the focus by Democratic majority House members on racial issues in the hearing titled “Marijuana Laws in America: Racial Justice and the Need for Reform” suggests the move toward legalization is off to a rocky start.