Tag: elections

Ohio Lawmaker Warns Colleagues They Risk Losing Reelection For Undermining Voter-Approved Marijuana Legalization Law

An Ohio lawmaker is warning colleagues that passing legislation to undermine voters’ decision to legalize marijuana in the state will jeopardize their reelection prospects—specifically cautioning against proposals to redirect tax revenue to law enforcement.

Rep. Juanita Brent (D)—who has previously emphasized the need to involve people who’ve been disproportionately impacted by cannabis criminalization in the legalization implementation process—spoke about the politics of marijuana policy in the legislature during a panel organized by the Ohio State University Drug Enforcement and Policy Center last week.

With a primary election in Ohio coming up next month, Brent said that “if we go against the people in the state of Ohio, I don’t expect any of us to get reelected because we are not going for what the people want.”

“I know sometimes people feel like they know best when it comes to people, but the people who know best is the people who got me here elected and the people who who voted” for legalization, she said.

Fifty-seven percent of Ohio voters passed a legalization measure at the ballot in November, but the Republican governor and GOP leadership has insisted that further changes to the law are needed, particularly as it concerns the timeline for legal sales.

Other proposed changes have proved more controversial, including a push from Gov. Mike DeWine (R) to use cannabis tax dollars to support law enforcement.

Brent said that “what we can do is we allocate this money and make sure that people have access to it, instead of giving all this money to police training.”

“It blows my mind—particularly how much money they want to put towards police training within the state—but particularly for hospital agencies which came out of the Senate. It to me is ridiculous,” she said. “People have told us time and time again when Issue 2 was passed what they want. All we’re doing right now is going against the people’s will.”

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Tennessee Says Residents Can’t Vote If They Have Lost Their Gun Rights

Tennessee, which imposes notoriously demanding requirements on residents with felony records seeking restoration of their voting rights, recently added a new wrinkle: Before supplicants who have not managed to obtain a pardon are allowed to vote again, they have to successfully seek restoration of their gun rights, a task that is complicated by the interaction between state and federal law. Given the difficulty of obtaining relief from the federal gun ban for people convicted of crimes punishable by more than a year of incarceration, this requirement would be prohibitive in practice.

If it is upheld by Tennessee courts, the new policy would essentially mean “there’s no way to vote” for people who were disenfranchised based on their criminal records, says Adam Ginsburg, a spokesman for the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), which has challenged Tennessee’s voting requirements in federal court. Even without the problem created by federal gun laws, CLC attorney Blair Bowie says, people convicted of drug felonies or violent crimes “will not be able to restore their gun rights” under Tennessee law. “It’s beyond the pale,” she says. But she adds that “it’s still an open question, because the Elections Division, which governs who can register to vote in Tennessee, clearly hasn’t really thought that through.”

The new requirement would further complicate a process that is already hard to navigate. “Tennessee has the most convoluted, harsh and poorly managed rights restoration process of any state in the country,” the CLC reported in 2022. Among other things, “Tennessee is one of only a handful of states that conditions the right to vote on payment of legal debt and the only state that requires a person to be current on child support to restore their voting rights.”

Tennessee’s obstacles to re-enfranchisement have had the sort of impact you might expect. “Over 450,000 citizens—accounting for more than 9% of the voting age population—are denied the right to vote because of past felony convictions,” the CLC noted. “Since 2016, less than 1% of post-sentence Tennesseans have gotten their voting rights back due to modern-day poll taxes and issues with obtaining a Certificate of Restoration,” which requires a court order.

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Bridgeport Democrat Mayor Wins Race After His Associate Is Caught Stuffing the Local Ballot Drop Boxes with Bags of Ballots

Mayor Joe Ganim won another victory on Tuesday in the Bridgeport, Connecticut special election for the Democratic primary for mayor. Ganim quickly claimed victory after winning the in-person tally by 274 votes.

In November a local judge overturned the initial primary election after Wanda Geter-Pataky, the Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic Town Clerk and a vocal supporter of incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim,  was caught on video stuffing the ballot drop boxes with dozens if not hundreds of absentee ballots.

So Mayor Ganim won again on Tuesday against John Gomes in the Democrat primary.

Superior Court Judge William Clark ordered a new election to be held, citing bombshell video evidence of election fraud as the basis for his decision. The ruling has far-reaching implications, not just for Bridgeport but for the entire country, as it sets a precedent for ongoing and future cases involving mail-in ballot fraud.

The Gateway Pundit reported in September that mayoral candidate John Gomes’ campaign released a damning video showing evidence of election fraud in the Bridgeport Democratic primary. The video has prompted an investigation by the Bridgeport Police Department for “possible misconduct.”

The video on the Gomes campaign’s Facebook page shows a woman dropping stacks of ‘illegal’ ballots into an absentee ballot box outside the Bridgeport government center, where the city’s Registrar of Voters office is located.

The Gomes campaign was able to identify the woman in the footage as Wanda Geter-Pataky, the Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic Town Clerk and a vocal supporter of incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim, who is seeking reelection. Gomes’ campaign claims that the video shows Geter-Pataky dropping off stacks of absentee ballots ahead of the September 12th primary.

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Voter Fraud Convictions Challenge Narrative Of Secure Elections

Superior Court Judge William Clark nullified the results of a Democrat mayoral primary in November 2023 and ordered a new election. The ruling was based on hours of video evidence showing hundreds of illegally harvested absentee ballots being stuffed into drop boxes in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

“The videos are shocking to the court and should be shocking to all the parties,” Judge Clark wrote in his ruling.

A California judge overturned the result in a 2021 Compton City Council run-off race that was initially decided by one vote.

The judge tossed four fraudulent ballots cast by people not legally registered in the jurisdiction. Five people pleaded either guilty or no contest to conspiring to commit election fraud.

After discovering that 66 of the 84 absentee ballots cast in a 2021 Democrat primary for alderman in Aberdeen, Mississippi, were invalid and shouldn’t have been counted, a judge ordered a new runoff election.

 Police arrested a notary for notarizing ballots without watching voters sign them or checking their identification.

The court also found evidence of intimidation at the polls involving candidate Nicholas Holliday, Mayor Maurice Howard, and Henry Randal, the town’s police chief.

The above examples of election fraud have occurred since the contentious 2020 presidential election that President Donald Trump alleged was marred with fraud.

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Boston Boondoggle: Sanctuary City May Grant Voting Rights To Noncitizens For Local Elections

In a controversy-sparking move, Boston, a self-proclaimed sanctuary city, is weighing a resolution to allow immigrants with “legal status” to vote in local elections. This proposal, which has reportedly gained the backing of the majority of Boston city councilors, was a central topic in a council meeting last week.

The resolution, introduced by Councilor Kendra Lara, would allow immigrants who have “worked, sacrificed, and invested in their neighborhoods,” to provide these residents a voice in local governance, despite their lack of citizenship.

The Boston debate echoes a similar policy shift in Takoma Park, Maryland, where city clerk Jessie Carpenter gave Boston lawmakers insights from her experience. Takoma Park, which has allowed noncitizens to vote for 30 years “regardless of their legal status.”

In Takoma Park, “nearly one-third of the residents are foreign-born,” according to Fox News, which adds that a significant portion of registered noncitizen voters actively engage in the electoral process.

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Ohio House Lawmakers Take Up GOP Bill To Amend Voter-Approved Marijuana Law As Alternative To Senate Overhaul

Ohio House lawmakers held another committee hearing on a bill to revise the state’s newly enacted marijuana legalization law, hearing additional testimony ahead of an expected vote on Wednesday.

After taking public input on the legislation from Rep. Jamie Callender (R) last week, the House Finance Committee met again on Tuesday to hear from additional advocates and stakeholders as Senate Republicans work to advance a separate revision package that’s sparked significant pushback.

The House bill is considered more palatable to reform supporters, as it’d make less sweeping changes to what voters approved on the November ballot—especially compared to the Senate legislation that initially called for the elimination of home cultivation and an indefinite delay on basic legalization provisions. That latter measure was significantly altered amid criticism last week, but it’s still facing sizable opposition.

Senate President Matt Huffman (R) originally aimed to pass the bill under an emergency prior to legalization taking effect last week, but that didn’t happen according to his timeline. House Speaker Jason Stephens (R), meanwhile, has said he doesn’t see the need to rush amending the initiated statute given that sales won’t begin until later in 2024.

The GOP House and Senate leaders have disagreed on certain procedural issues related to amending the marijuana law such as the timeline for enactment, but they’ve both generally expressed support for the idea of making changes such as revising the tax structure, preventing public consumption and deterring impaired driving.

In the House Finance Committee, members took additional public testimony on Tuesday, hearing from interested parties who expressed concern about issues such as the bill’s continued criminalization of sharing marijuana between adults and the redirection of tax revenue away from equity and toward law enforcement.

“My concern is that, through some of the reforms that I’m seeing being introduced in this legislature, we would be moving from puff-puff-pass to puff-puff-police and that is in total contradiction to what Ohio voters voted in support of,” Cat Packer, vice chair of Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC) and director of drug markets and legal regulation at the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), said in testimony to the committee.

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Marijuana Is Now Legal In Ohio As Voter-Approved Law Takes Effect, But Lawmakers Are Considering Some Changes

Ohio’s voter-approved marijuana legalization initiative took effect on Thursday, and despite ongoing wrangling by state lawmakers to modify significant portions of the law, some provisions—including legal use, possession and home cultivation of cannabis—have immediate impacts.

Voters solidly approved the legalization ballot measure, Issue 2, on a 57–42 margin last month. But soon after, Republicans in the state Senate indicated their plans to gut the bill by eliminating home grow, reducing legal possession and allowable THC limits, raising sales tax, criminalizing the use and possession of marijuana obtained outside of a licensed retailer and steering funding away from social equity programs and toward law enforcement. Stakeholders said the overhaul would devastate the market, with ACLU of Ohio calling the measure a “demolition of Issue 2.”

As of Wednesday, however, the GOP-controlled Senate abruptly reversed course, and the full chamber instead approved a revised bill that in some ways would expand the voter-approved law. Among other changes, it would allow all adults 21 and older to buy cannabis from existing medical dispensaries in as soon as 90 days, maintain home cultivation rights and provide for automatic expungements of prior convictions.

The bill now goes to the House, where an alternative measure has been introduced. But regardless of how the proposed changes pan out, some reforms have already taken effect with Issue 2 kicking in on Thursday. Here’s a brief rundown of what’s new and what’s still to come in the months ahead.

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Ohio Senators Take Testimony On Controversial Marijuana Legalization Overhaul As House Republican Files Alternative Bill

Ohio senators held a second meeting on a bill to significantly change the state’s marijuana legalization law that’s set to take effect this week, hearing public testimony amid sharp criticism of the GOP-led effort. In other chamber, meanwhile, a Republican representative has filed alternative legislation that would largely preserve what voters approved at the ballot, with certain exceptions such as a proposed ban on sharing cannabis between adults.

One day after the Senate General Government Committee gave initial approval to the cannabis overhaul measure, voting to attach it to an unrelated House-passed bill, the panel reconvened on Tuesday to take testimony, hearing from business owners, advocates and legalization opponents.

The legislation—which Senate President Matt Huffman (R) hopes to advance to the floor as early as Wednesday, before legalization takes effect on Thursday—would make fundamental alternations of the voter-passed initiated statute.

For example, it would eliminate a home grow option for adults, criminalize the use and possession of marijuana obtained outside of a licensed retailer, reduce the possession limit, raise the sales tax on cannabis and steer funding away from social equity programs and toward law enforcement. The bill also contains substantive amendments related to THC limits, public consumption and changes to hemp-related rules that stakeholders say would “devastate” the market.

Advocates have sharply criticized the GOP-controlled chamber over the proposal, arguing that it disrespects the will of voters, especially as it concerns the elimination of home cultivation and changes to possession rules.

Top Republicans, including Gov. Mike DeWine (R), have insisted that voters were only supportive of the fundamental principle of legalizing marijuana without necessarily backing specific policies around issues such as tax revenue.

The committee chairman, Sen. Michael Rulli (R), told the packed room of testifiers on Tuesday that he “strongly” suggested they “lower the temperature,” offering his assurances that lawmakers “understand the problems with homegrown and with taxes and how do we fix that and how do we get the people’s wishes.”

Rulli and other members asked several witnesses about how to most effectively mitigate the illicit market, including the possibility of allowing existing medical cannabis dispensaries to start selling to adult consumers before recreational retailers are licensed.

The chairman also expressed interest in addressing the lack of regulations around hemp-based intoxicating products, though he said it was unlikely to be tackled under the bill at hand given the expedited timeline they’re working with.

The panel heard testimony from several representatives of advertising companies who expressed opposition to the bill’s outright ban on billboard media for cannabis businesses, saying the industry should be subject to the same rules as alcohol.

“Discounting that the voters know about things I think is always a bad decision,” Sen. Bill DeMora (D) said at the hearing, pushing back on his colleagues pushing for major changes. “Voters spoke—and in my district voters [there was a] 70 percent approval rating—and for me to say that ‘voters be damned because they didn’t know what they’re talking about’ is a bit egotistical on my part.”

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Ohio ACLU Slams GOP Plan To Gut Voter-Approved Marijuana Law

Less than a month ago, Ohio voters approved marijuana use, possession, and sales for adults. It was a 57 percent to 43 percent vote, a considerable landslide in voting terms. The margin was not a surprise. Legalization is popular across numerous demographics and, apparently, across the state.

Issue 2 also passed as an initiated statute, not a constitutional amendment. The difference is the initiated statute process, by design, invites some level of input from state legislators. In fact, because it was state law—not the Ohio Constitution—that was changed, legislators have the power to tinker with, improve or entirely scrap all of Issue 2 anytime they want.

No one expects legal sales to start when Issue 2 is officially enacted this week, 30 days after its passage. Understandably, there is a regulatory framework that takes a little time to put together. This is true even if Statehouse politicians were 100 percent on board with every word of Issue 2.

However, “on board” is the opposite of what Senate Republicans have in mind. Before this week, House Bill 86 was a non-controversial bill tweaking state liquor laws. It passed the House 85–6. On Monday, with very little notice, it became the vehicle for the Senate GOP’s planned demolition of Issue 2.

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