Recently I received a missive from the Delaware House Republican Caucus that went like this. Normally I try to keep blockquotes to a minimum but my editor’s eye saw all of this was vital information.
A bill to legalize recreational marijuana in Delaware has been quietly released from a House committee and is now eligible to be placed on the House Agenda for a vote.
On Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee released House Bill 305 (the Delaware Marijuana Control Act) by “walking the bill” — a process where a majority of the committee members sign a document to release a bill for further consideration. This method does not require a committee hearing or public notice.
House Bill 305 had earlier received a hearing in the House Health and Human Development Committee.
The action taken by the four Democrats on the six-member House Appropriations Committee – State Reps. Bill Carson, David Bentz, Stephanie Bolden and Kimberly Williams – potentially positions the legislation for immediate action in the House Chamber when lawmakers return to work next month.
House Bill 305 contains several highly controversial elements, including one designating a significant number of licenses established under the legislation as “social equity licenses.” These licenses include those that would be needed to operate a marijuana retail store, testing facility, cultivation facility or product manufacturing facility.
Qualifications to obtain a social equity license include being “convicted of, or adjudicated delinquent, for any marijuana-related offense except for delivery to a minor.”
Social equity license applicants could also qualify if they resided for at least five of the preceding ten years in a “disproportionately impacted area.” The legislation defines a disproportionately impacted area as census tracts “having high rates of arrest, conviction, and incarceration relating to the sale, possession, use, cultivation, manufacture, or transport of marijuana.”
Additionally, the bill seeks to create a Justice Reinvestment Fund that would be financed with a portion of the state’s marijuana tax revenue. According to the authors of the bill, the fund would “be used for projects to improve quality-of-life for communities most impacted by the prohibition of marijuana and ‘War on Drugs’ era policies.”
Because the bill seeks to establish new fees, it will require a 60% super-majority vote (3/5ths) to clear each General Assembly chamber (25 votes in the 41-member House, and 13 votes in the 21-member Senate).
The General Assembly is currently in recess for budget hearings. Lawmakers return to work on Tuesday, March 8.
E-mail from Delaware House Republican caucus, February 18, 2022.
Indeed, HB305 was released from the Appropriations Committee “on its merits” by the four aforementioned members. No members voted for it or against it. Back in January it advanced out of the Health and Human Development Committee with six in favor and three “on its merits” with the other six members not registering a vote. Since nine of the 15 members of the HHDC are Democrats, it’s likely they were the votes that passed it out of their committee. In fact, the composition of the Delaware General Assembly ensures this could pass without a GOP vote, as the House is 26-15 Democrat and the Senate 14-7. (Ironically, the Senate Democrats defeated their two best candidates for bipartisanship at the last election as they gained two seats over very moderate Republicans.)
According to this helpful article at the Delaware Live website, though, there was an important reason the bill was revamped.
In order to decrease the number of votes required for the bill to pass, Rep. Ed Osienski, D-Brookside, removed a proposal for a social equity loan fund.
The social equity loan fund would have directly paid for loans and grants for prospective marijuana growers and sellers who have, in the past, been negatively affected by the disproportionate prosecution of cannabis-related crimes.
That component of the bill was designed to redress what many in the legislature — and their constituents — view as historical wrongs in the area of criminal justice.
But because it would have directed public funds to businesses, the Delaware Constitution would have required it to receive 75 percent of the legislature’s approval.
Charlie Megginson, “Recreational marijuana bill heads to House floor,” Delaware Live, February 18, 2022.
I also found it interesting that the House leadership shuttled this bill, which serves as a successor to the heavily amended HB150 from last year’s portion of the session, from the HHDC to Appropriations instead of taking it to the floor.
(After starting this post, I found out from the above article that the reason was the amount dictated a Fiscal Note, and those bills automatically go to Appropriations. Moreover, the funding for HB150 was already in the budget. It’s different than the Maryland procedure I’m used to, where sending a bill to two committees is often done to pass an otherwise controversial bill.)
The new bill integrated most of the HB150 amendments, including provisions for Big Labor, along with the Justice Reinvestment (read: slush) Fund. Perhaps they were hoping that Appropriations would amend the bill to get a little bit of Republican support because, in principle, there’s nothing wrong with a state decriminalizing and taxing marijuana in the same manner as tobacco as it has become a de facto legal substance despite prohibition by the federal government.
I do object to the prohibition on people growing their own supply, at least on a limited basis for personal use. To me, it would be akin to not allowing people to create their own beer or wine and I’m sure some do. Heck, if people could grow tobacco in Delaware maybe they would to avoid the onerous cigarette taxes – and taxation is the largest part of what this is really about. (However, it seems that growing tobacco isn’t the hard part, curing and aging tobacco is. It’s probably more cost-effective for smokers to swallow the buck or two.)
But there’s also the “social equity” aspect that bothers me. Why are we watering down standards for one group that’s supposedly been oppressed for its existence? When I see a success story like Dr. Ben Carson, who raised himself up (with the assistance of his mother and his faith) from grinding poverty, as opposed to the trainwreck – despite his silver spoon upbringing – that is Hunter Biden, I realize that people put a lot of limits on themselves, creating the perception that we need “equity” which encourages big daddy government to step right up.
Basically, because the Democrats have complete control of the state, they can use bills as playthings to address their usually imagined grievances. So they’re layering on a lot of garbage to mess up a bill that would, on its surface, work in the right direction aside from the prohibition to “grow your own” as the government hates competition.
Once again, it’s not about what the people want, it’s about how the hand of government can pick winners or losers. Since we’ve become a nation that selectively enforces law anyway, we may as well leave the current system in place until we get a stripped-down proposal that does what needs to be done and doesn’t play favorites.