The golden glisten of the summer sun shone bright this month as the House finished it’s business before the summer recess of July. It handled sixty three bills from the various committees of conference. Including the bail compromise long debated by the committee which I serve on, and the contentious issue of cannabis legislation, through legislation I cosponsored this session. 

HB1633, relative to the legalization and regulation of cannabis was one of the most closely debated pieces of legislation during the 2024 legislative session. The bill was originally referred to the House Commerce and Consumer affairs committee where it received two months of work before passing the full House onto the House Finance committee. Finance worked on the bill throughout three work sessions of the first division in February and March. Ultimately passing the committee on a 19-6 majority vote in committee and 239-136 on the floor. The then got it’s referral to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Which heard the bill in April, voting on a 3-2 bipartisan vote for it’s advancement onto the Senate floor. After a long debate on a variety of amendments, the Senate passed the legislation later in May by a vote of 14 yea to 9 nay. Marking the first time that the State Senate has passed any version of cannabis legalization in the State. Senate Finance then was referred the bill. They debated it for about a week before passing it onto the Senate floor by a vote of four to three. The Senate then passed the bill onto the House by a vote of 14-10. 

The House received the bill, and moved non-concur with a request for a committee of conference. The Senate agreed to a committee of conference, and the Speaker appointed his four members, the Senate President appointed his three. 

The main contention point of the bill was how the process of recreational stores would be handled. Some believed that the State should run recreational cannabis stores similar to how it runs the liquor industry. Some thought that was pure stupidity, and that it should be a free market where average citizens are also allowed to open up their own businesses. Through a similar process any commercial liquor business would need to go through in the normal states where the legislature doesn’t sling alcohol. Throughout the months of deliberation the bill got and up until the Conference committee finished it’s work. This debate was central to the bill and it’s passage. Ultimately the Conference committee decided to form a system where the State allowed several agency stores in the State, with expansion in the future. The agency stores would be privately run, State licensed stores. This was the solution offered by the Governors office and from what we were told, the only way to get his signature. Agency stores is a far from perfect system. Such as seemingly everything goes under the golden dome, limited licenses would go to the friends of those in power. 

The circle of soft corruption! 

Queue the Lion King music. 

The Conference committee also allowed for the possession of edibles in automobiles for passengers, added an additional member of the medical cannabis growers to the cannabis oversight board, and moved the date given to allow them to go for-profit up earlier than planned. Most importantly the House was able to get the Senate to accede to a provision which would more the current ¾ of an ounce possession limit to one full ounce, immediately. The agency stores, cannabis oversight board in the composition proposed, and no action on recreational home grow was a disappointment; but this was the first time, ever, that the legislature has been able to get a bill legalizing possession of cannabis through the State Senate, and a  Conference committee. It was the the first time we had a Governor who was willing to put his pen to paper and sign the bill. We were two votes of acceptance of a Conference report away from the first real step towards cannabis legalization in the history of the State. One from the Senate, who swallowed their pride and voted on a non-partisan 14 yea to 10 nay vote margin. 

One vote, and a signature away from cannabis legalization. It all came down to the House. Which no matter the composition of the bill has nearly never failed a bill to legalize cannabis in the State. In the days leading up to the vote, the progressive caucus of the House began to lobby against passage of the bill. Their reasoning was essentially that it was not good enough, and that we can always come back next session. They trust that the Democrats will win the Gubernatorial election with a candidate for Governor who supports legalization and therefore, Democrats should kill the bill so that we can do it when we are in office. 

Now throughout the months the two chambers debated this bill, I found myself voting against it’s passage a number of times when it came before me in a form that I believed to be absolutely unworkable. Some of the versions of the bill would have resulted in legalization in-name-only. I was not going to vote for anything that didn’t make a real change to the system. So I understand the trepidation of the House Democratic progressive caucus, but I would ask them to look at the work done to get us to this point. The fact we are so close is not a result of a whim. It is the result of decades of hard work by people who came to this building long before any of us did and did the hard work to blaze a path in the minds of the members of both bodies. I and many others, including activists who have worked on this issue for years, pushed back on their silly strategy as much as we could. I set to speak on the floor, other members of the Democratic caucus who found themselves on the fence were eagerly waiting to hear my arguments on the floor. Right before the Speaker called my name to speak, Representative Simon ran up to the well to seek recognition. He moved to table the bill which is a non-debatable motion. In the sentence leading up to his making of the motion he cited the amount of people signed up to debate. There were several members signed up to speak, but how is that a reason to restrict debate? It’s not. The only reason you would want to restrict debate is because you know you would lose it.