Republican Andy Harris, from Maryland, seeks to prevent implementation of D.C. law

[RainDog]

Contact information for Harris: https://harris.house.gov/contact-me

Rep. Andy Harris, a conservative Republican from Maryland, will propose a spending rider on the District of Columbia’s annual funding bill Wednesday that would deny funding for implementing the city’s recently passed marijuana decriminalization law.

...(Harris, a doctor), will seek to block the implementation of the District’s newly passed decriminalization law that would limit punishments for small amounts of marijuana to a civil infraction of $25 — among the laxest in the nation. While Congress has 60 legislative days to review D.C.’s decriminalization proposal, Harris is choosing to instead just cut off its funding. “Probably too late to affect anything because of the deadlines. But there will be a limitation amendment,” Harris said. “I would suspect it will pass the committee.

There’s a long history of Congress taking their pet issues and applying them to D.C., which is still in many ways overseen by Capitol Hill. Republicans have attached riders to spending bills that prohibited city money from being spent on providing abortions, and an amendment that loosened the city’s strict gun laws torpedoed Democrats’ attempt to give the District a congressional seat when Nancy Pelosi was speaker.

“[Harris would] have a whole lot of push-back in his own district if he tried that. I mean, they may be conservative but he’s got a whole lot of people in his district smoking pot, and they’d be incensed,” said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) of Harris’s Eastern Shore district. “It’s like kicking somebody when they’re down. Invariably, we have amendments to pick on D.C. because you can get away with it and they figure D.C.’s politically powerless to do it. And it’s wrong.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/andy-harris-marijuana-washington-dc-108259.html#ixzz35cENqOR5

To add insult to injury, Harris' own state decriminalized marijuana this year. He can't be a petty despot there, but, because of the rules of Congress concerning D.C. law - he gets to stomp all over the rights of citizens who live in D.C.

D.C. passed a medical marijuana law more than a decade ago, iirc, and, in that case, Congress refused to fund the implementation of the law until this year.

What a little fascist fuck.

[Uncle Joe]

1. Did Rep. Andy Harris inadvertently legalize marijuana possession in D.C.?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mike-debonis/wp/2014/06/25/did-rep-andy-harris-inadvertently-legalize-marijuana-possession-in-d-c/

But District lawyers are now exploring whether he might have actually moved to, in effect, legalize marijuana possession instead.

(snip)

Even if the amendment survives a Senate conference, the decriminalization law converting marijuana possession from a misdemeanor into a $25 civil citation is likely to pass a congressional review period and take effect beforehand, sometime in mid to late July.

If the amendment — which bars the city from spending any funds to “enact or carry out any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution [of marijuana and other drugs] for recreational use” — then takes effect after the decriminalization statute is officially on the books, the city would be in the odd position of having a decriminalization law that it could not enforce.

(snip)

But the officials familiar with the matter said the amendment could prevent the police department from printing citations, prevent cops from writing and processing them, and prevent the city government from adjudicating them. The upshot is that there might be no penalty for minor marijuana possession, they said.

Wouldn't that just be peaches and cream.

Thanks for the thread, RainDog.