District of Columbia Sees Loophole in Congress’s Move to Halt Marijuana Law.

[elleng]

Last fall, voters in the District of Columbia chose to join a handful of states in legalizing the growth and possession of small amounts of marijuana. But unlike in the states, the free will of district voters — no matter how overwhelmingly expressed — is never the end of the story.

Congressional Republicans believe they have successfully nullified the law. But officials here, seizing on a single word in the congressional legislation designed to scuttle the policy, beg to differ, setting up one of the most closely watched collisions between the two Washingtons in years.

A few weeks after the marijuana ballot initiative passed, House Republicans inserted a last-minute provision into a large federal spending bill prohibiting the city, which is overwhelmingly Democratic, from spending tax dollars to enact that initiative.

Usually that is the last word. But district officials believe they have identified a loophole in the provision’s language. The marijuana law, lawyers here argue, had already been enacted and certified by the Board of Elections before Congress passed the spending bill, so there was no “enacting” for the House to prevent.

“The issue becomes: What does enactment mean?” . . .

“Their language was either careless or hasty,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and the district’s nonvoting delegate to the House. “If you are working on an amendment to an appropriation bill, you better be really careful. They say we shan’t enact. Well, we don’t have to enact anything.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/us/politics/district-of-columbia-sees-loophole-in-congresss-move-to-halt-marijuana-law.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Ah yes, we lawyers love these word games!!!

[Thor_MN]

1. And my brother who lives in DC complains of 'No Representation"....

I keep telling him, "Hell, you have ALL of them. Good Luck with that."

[elleng]

2. We (I lived in DC for 20+ years, now in MD suburb)

had no VOTING representation, but 300 or so reliable interferers. BAD luck with that!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Congress Poised To Harsh D.C.'s Mellow On Marijuana Legalization

Congress Poised To Harsh D.C.'s Mellow On Marijuana Legalization

For a brief moment, it seemed as though this would all go down fairly easy.

Yesterday, Mayor Muriel Bowser and local officials outlined how they're going to enforce marijuana legalization in the District, allowing for D.C. residents to possess, consume, and grow small amounts of pot in their own homes. With the clock ticking for Congress to intervene—the law is scheduled to take effect tomorrow at 12:01 a.m.—pot legalization in D.C. was poised to take effect with little trouble.

But two Republican leaders in the House of Representatives say that it would be illegal for the District to move forward with marijuana legalization. In a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser, first reported by the Post, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) warn that she will be arrested if she moves forward with legalization.

[elleng]

4. NOTHING NEW HERE!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. Jason Chaffetz Is Powerless to Stop DC’s Marijuana Legalization

Jason Chaffetz Is Powerless to Stop DC’s Marijuana Legalization

Despite threats from Congress of jail time, Mayor Muriel Bowser and other District leaders say Initiative 71 is going into effect tomorrow.

By Benjamin Freed
@brfreed

Published February 25, 2015

DC Council member Jack Evans was asked, somewhat jokingly, if he would be willing to share a jail cell with Mayor Muriel Bowser if a high-ranking House Republican made good on his threat to lock up District officials who carry out the city’s impending legalization of marijuana.

“I don’t get arrested,” Evans said before darting into a meeting with Metro officials instead of heading to a press conference Bowser and most of the Council staged Wednesday afternoon to defend Initiative 71, which takes effect tomorrow at 12:01 AM. He should have taken the question less seriously: the member of Congress doing the threatening, Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, is actually Washington’s most powerless wannabe drug cop. No city officials are going to see the inside of a jail cell over the legalization of small-time pot possession, now matter how much nasty correspondence Chaffetz sends their way.

“We are prepared to enforce and enact Initiative 71,” Bowser said. “Our government is prepared to implement and enforce Initiative 71 in the District of Columbia.” ... Bowser’s statement was a clear shot at Chaffetz, who as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is DC’s de facto boss on Capitol Hill. Chaffetz, who tried to stall the District’s medical marijuana program during his back-bencher days, sent Bowser a highly charged letter Tuesday night, warning the still-green mayor that if she or any other city employee could be charged with violating the Anti-Deficiency Act, a hoary federal statute that prohibits government agencies—and in DC’s case, jurisdictions whose budgets are subjected to congressional review—from spending funds that have not been appropriated.

Chaffetz can send all the letters he want, but he’s unlikely ever to get his pound of flesh. Besides the fact that since the law’s 1884 passage, nobody has ever been prosecuted under the Anti-Deficiency Act, it would take a highly improbable sequence of events for Chaffetz to throw charges at Bowser. He’d have to convince the Justice Department to open an investigation into Bowser and the rest of the DC government. Besides the fact that there’s no documented legal precedent, it seems just as implausable that Chaffetz would succeed in getting a Democratic attorney general to open an inquiry of a Democratic mayor carrying out a ballot referendum that passed with 69 percent support.

[elleng]

6. Good.

Thanks.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. At CPAC, support for DC’s marijuana laws

Hat tip, DCist: Morning Roundup: Underground Edition

At CPAC, support for DC’s marijuana laws

The conference’s libertarian streak favors the District.
By Kristen Doerer
Published March 2, 2015

Marijuana became legal in DC last week, despite threatening talk from the head of the House Oversight Committee and impediments thrown into place by other conservatives in Congress. But at CPAC, the annual gathering of conservatives at National Harbor that ended Saturday, views on pot were more attenuated.

I spoke on Thursday with a group of students from the University of North Florida who had no qualms about marijuana legalization. When I told them that DC had legalized marijuana that day, one of them began clapping while the other two nodded in approval.

It was in this group of students that I found a self-proclaimed libertarian. “I’m definitely for state power, and DC isn’t necessarily a state, but it should have the power to enforce its own laws,” said UNF student Dylan Lowe, who is from Miami.

Among the students I spoke with, none thought states had no right to legalize marijuana. But a debate Thursday onstage in the Potomac ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center showed a divide among attendees on the issue. ... “Having a debate on whether or not to legalize marijuana is like debating whether the sun is going to come up tomorrow. It’s going to come up,” Gary Johnson, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, libertarian presidential candidate, and current CEO of Cannabis Sativa Inc said.

[elleng]

8. Good, the sun will come up!

YAY!!!