Tag: republicans

Ohio Senate Marijuana Bill Keeps Criminalization And Undermines Equity, Despite Expungements And Home Grow, Advocates Warn

Ohio’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law took effect on Thursday—but as lawmakers continue to push changes, advocates are calling attention to key provisions of a Senate-passed proposal that they say threatens to perpetuate criminalization and undermine social equity even while it walks back other significant alterations that were initially proposed such as a removal home cultivation rights.

At the same time, House lawmakers held a second hearing on Thursday about a separate measure to amend the legalization law.

After weeks of discussing revisions to the initiated statute, Republicans first unveiled legislation this week that would have done away with home grow, hiked marijuana taxes and re-criminalized possession of cannabis that wasn’t obtained from licensed retailers, which couldn’t open for at least one year. Some advocates were tentatively encouraged, therefore, when a significantly revised version with seeming improvements, including the restoration of home grow rights and addition of expungements provisions, was released and quickly advanced through the Senate with near-unanimous support on Wednesday.

But the brief discussion of the bill in committee prior to the full chamber vote—which also came amid House consideration of a separate GOP-led measure—did not adequately reflect the substantive changes that would be made to the law voters passed with 57 percent support, equity advocates say.

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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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‘Tell you a secret’: Speaker compares himself to Moses at event he thought was media free

Mike Johnson’s calling to serve as House Speaker reportedly came from the heavens.

Appearing as the keynote speaker during Tuesday night’s award fete for the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) at the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C., the newly appointed speaker from Louisiana opened up about his direct channel to God and how he was directed to become the next speaker after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was unceremoniously sacked.

“Look, I’m a Southern Baptist, I don’t wanna get too spooky on you,” he told attendees who apparently chuckled, according to Rolling Stone. “But, you know, the Lord speaks to your heart.”

Johnson explained how he was readying to prepare for his “Red Sea moment”.

Apparently he assumed that he was talking in an intimate, media-free setting at the NACL, an organization said to be aiming to push for right-wing fundamentalism to be adopted into law.

As Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson points out, he may have been oblivious that his speech was being recorded and streamed on the NACL Facebook page.

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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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Former Ohio public utilities chairman indicted on federal bribery charge

The former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has been indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery and embezzlement charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio announced in a news release Monday.

Sam Randazzo, 74, of Columbus, self-surrendered at U.S. District Court in Cincinnati Monday morning, the release said. Randazzo is charged in an 11-count indictment that was returned on Nov. 29 and he was scheduled for an initial appearance later Monday.

The charges stem from an ongoing investigation into what federal prosecutors have called the biggest political bribery scandal in state history, where Akron-based FirstEnergy paid more than $60 million in 2018 and 2019 to get the legislature to pass and protect a $1.3 billion bailout that was mostly intended to benefit FirstEnergy.

Former House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, in June was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after a jury found him guilty of racketeering for his role in the scheme. Former Ohio GOP Chairman Matt Borges was sentenced to five years in the same case.

FirstEnergy fired two of its top executives, CEO Chuck Jones and Vice President Michael Dowling. And it signed a deferred prosecution agreement admitting wrongdoing and committing to pay a $230 million fine.

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Ohio Senate Committee Advances Bill To Eliminate Marijuana Home Grow, Reduce Possession Limits And Raise Taxes—Days Before Legalization Takes Effect

An Ohio Senate committee has given initial approval to a newly unveiled proposal to fundamentally alter the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law that’s set to take effect later this week.

The legislation being advanced in the GOP-controlled chamber would eliminate a home grow option for adults, reduce the possession limit, raise the sales tax on cannabis and steer funding away from social equity programs and toward law enforcement—along with other amendments concerning THC limits, public consumption and changes to hemp-related rules that stakeholders say would “devastate” the market.

During a 30-minute hearing on Monday, the Senate General Government Committee voted 4-1 to attach the cannabis legislation to an unrelated House-passed bill on alcohol regulations. As revised, the legislation contains several provisions that Republican leaders have previewed in recent weeks since voters approved legalization at the ballot last month, but it also goes further, for example, by proposing to criminalize people who grow their own cannabis at home.

Senate President Matt Huffman (R) said he’s aiming to pass it on the floor as early as Wednesday before it’s potentially sent over to the House for concurrence. The plan is to get the changes enacted on an emergency before the legalization of possession and home cultivation becomes legal on Thursday.

Advocates and Democratic lawmakers have already expressed frustration with the leaderships push to revise the voter-initiated statute. 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.

But while they’ve made that argument in the context of more incremental changes, the idea of eliminating home grow is likely to generate sizable pushback given its centrality to Issue 2. That could complicate its path to being enacted. An emergency clause would mean the bill would require a two-thirds vote instead of a simple majority to pass.

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Former Michigan GOP House speaker surrenders to serve marijuana bribery sentence

Former Michigan House Speaker Rick Johnson has surrendered at a minimum-security federal prison camp in Minnesota to serve a 55-month sentence for pocketing bribes and corrupting the state’s marijuana industry, according to an inmate database updated Saturday.

The database shows Johnson, 70, among the 433 inmates at FPC Duluth near the western edge of Lake Superior. The prison is about 700 miles northwest of Lansing where Johnson was one of the most powerful Republican lawmakers in the state before becoming a lobbyist and chief regulator of Michigan’s marijuana industry.

That career ended in scandal after the politician from LeRoy received more than $110,000 in bribes from marijuana lobbyists and a businessman while serving as chairman of the medical marijuana licensing board from May 2017-April 2019. The illegal payoffs included repeated trysts with a sex worker who called him “Batman.”

Johnson had been ordered to surrender by Saturday after losing a last-ditch attempt to shorten his time behind bars and serve part of the sentence under house arrest as he recuperates from heart bypass surgery.

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Ohio GOP Senate President Outlines Plan To Amend Voter-Approved Marijuana Law Next Week, Days Before Legalization Takes Effect

Ohio’s Republican Senate president says his chamber will take the first step toward amending a voter-approved marijuana legalization law at the beginning of next week, with just days left before key provisions of the initiated statute take effect. But the House speaker, for his part, still says he doesn’t necessarily see the urgency.

GOP legislative leaders and Gov. Mike DeWine (R) have been discussing revisions to the cannabis statute ever since voters passed the reform at the ballot last month, with the main focus being on possible changes to provisions concerning tax revenue,  youth prevention and impaired driving.

Two Republican-led bills to amend the legalization law have been introduced so far, but Senate President Matt Huffman (R) said the plan is to take up separate, unrelated House-passed legislation in the Senate General Government Committee on Monday, attach yet-to-be-seen cannabis amendments as an emergency clause and advance the proposal on the floor on Wednesday. The House would then need to concur with the changes.

An emergency clause would mean the bill would require a two-thirds vote instead of a simple majority to pass, but it’d mean the legislation would take effect immediately rather than after a standard 90-day period following signature by the governor. That seems to be the only option if lawmakers want to revise the marijuana law before possession and cultivation become legal on Thursday.

“It would be better for people going forward to know what the law is than people begin spending money or taking actions and then the law changes six months from now or 90 days, you know, a year from now,” Huffman told WCMH.

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Washington State Republican Party Files Formal Ethics Complaint Against WA Secretary of State Hobbs for Using Public Funds to Surveil and Censor Political Opposition

Today the Washington State Republican Party (WSRP) filed a formal ethics complaint with the Washington State Ethics Board against Secretary of State Steve Hobbs. A big thank you to WSRP Chairman Jim Walsh for initiating the complaint and attorney K. Garl Long, Long Law office, for writing and filing the complaint.

After the complaint was filed the WSRP issued a press release here.

Full Complaint, Exhibits, and Footnotes here:

Summary of Complaint: Secretary of State Hobbs (“Secretary Hobbs”) is using public funds to pay an offshore artificial intelligence company to surveil voters. Speech objectionable to Secretary Hobbs is “fact-checked,” reported as a “threat,” and suppressed. It is unethical and illegal to use public funds to aid Secretary Hobbs and/or his political party in suppressing opposition views. Such government censorship is a spreading cancer in our society.1

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‘Performative clown’: GOP candidates slammed for assuming terrorism caused car explosion

Two Republican candidates seeking higher office were both shouting terrorism and publicly shamed.

GOP presidential candidate and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy jumped the terrorism gun — early after a car bulleted toward a U.S.-Canada bridge checkpoint and then smashed and blew up causing the deaths of two people.

Fox News quickly called the event a “terror attack” and said the car was “full of explosives.”

They later backed off its claim of a “terror attack” and instead labeled the motive as “unclear.”

“I’ve been saying it for a long time & will say it again: we must secure our *NORTHERN* border too,” Ramaswamy wrote in a post on Twitter/X. “It’s the forgotten frontier of the border crisis in our country.”

Kari Lake, the failed Arizona pro-Trump gubernatorial candidate who is now running for Senate, also shouted terrorism.

“This looks like at attempted terrorist attack along our Northern border,” she tweeted. “Our worst fears are being realized. @JoeBiden’s open border invites chaos & misery into our country.”

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