Local Control for Local Law

Floor Speech

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this afternoon because of a threat, a rare threat, because this seldom happens in the House anymore, but a threat from at least one Member of this House to try to nullify a local initiative approved by the voters of the District of Columbia.

But when it comes to the lawful initiative for District of Columbia citizens, that is a threat to democracy that means that anyone who represents this city, has to come to the floor and to indicate to Members how important it is to hold fast to your own principles.

Wherever you stand on the District of Columbia or any of the underlying issues, this is the local jurisdiction of 650,000 people who pay taxes without full representation in this House.

So I am asking Members of the House not to take advantage of an anachronism in the law which does allow Members of the House to step forward, if they are so inclined, to try to get others to join them in nullifying the local laws of a local jurisdiction. If one reads the history of our country, it is hard to find anything more un-American.

That is why, particularly, I have to thank the bipartisan group of Members who stood with me yesterday, three Members of this House--two Democrats and a Republican--who themselves come from States that have taken action on the underlying issue, one that is rapidly developing in our country where the States differ among themselves. But since each State is, as a local or State matter, a government unto itself, those matters don't come before this House.

The Members who stood with me yesterday were Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, which has approved a ballot initiative just this past election day, that legalized small amounts of marijuana; Representative Jared Polis of Colorado, his was the first State to legalize small amounts of marijuana; and Dana Rohrabacher of California, who is perhaps the recognized leader in the House of Representatives and in the country for reform of marijuana laws.

Alaska and Oregon joined two other States, Washington and Colorado, and yes, a third, the District of Columbia, approved the legalization of marijuana in small amounts. I am going to indicate to the House how that came about because it didn't come about in the usual way. There were pressing concerns that led the District to move to decriminalize and then legalize small amounts of marijuana.

In fact, the D.C. Council, upon hearing concerns about disparities in arrests and convictions based on race, had moved to decriminalize marijuana with a small fine; whereas, before, there was a penalty of up to 6 months in jail and up to a $1,000 fine. After the council passed that decriminalization law--and 18 States have decriminalized--then some residents put legalization on the November ballot.

Now the people have spoken. Two-thirds of the residents of the District of Columbia say that the council did not go far enough, and they have, I think, among them a number of reasons that I will try to indicate on the floor this afternoon why they thought they had to go further.

I indicated that there are and already were States that had legalized marijuana, and the Justice Department has taken the position and took it again at a hearing on the D.C. decriminalization law that the District will be treated like the States that have relaxed their marijuana laws--in our case, 2 ounces of marijuana for personal use.

And the position of the Justice Department--and I will indicate later why the Justice Department has taken that position--has been that, as a matter of prosecutorial priority, the Justice Department, the U.S. attorneys of the United States are not in the business of prosecuting people who smoke small amounts of marijuana.

So the District is to be treated in the same way as the States who have either decriminalized or legalized marijuana. The Justice Department is on record in a hearing saying that--and we appreciate that the District is not to be treated differently when it comes to Federal enforcement, any differently than, for example, Oregon, Colorado, and Alaska, and you don't see the Justice Department rushing forward to prosecute what will almost always be young people for possessing small amounts of marijuana.

Particularly for new Members, I want to make clear that there is an anomaly here, an anachronism, because the House does still have the authority to step forward and nullify the local laws of the District of Columbia. That goes back hundreds of years, and the fact that anybody would attempt to use that authority today flies in the face of 200 years of history and democratization in our country.

It is interesting to know that the Member who has stepped forward to stop D.C. thus far is a sophomore. I want to thank Members of Congress who recognize that they have the authority and who may disagree with the District but have not in fact moved to nullify local law. This really isn't where you stand on the law. It is whether you believe local jurisdictions should have what the Framers believed all should have throughout the United States, and that is the right to pass local laws without interference by the Federal Government.

That is the principle at stake here. That is why we rarely have Members step forward to try to nullify a law of the District of Columbia, and I am very grateful that principle for most Members is almost always observed.

Now, I want to make something very clear: I am not here this afternoon to make a case for the use of marijuana; I am here to make a case only for local control of local law.

If you were to ask my preference, and obviously, I am obligated to support the laws of my local jurisdiction here, but if you were to ask my preference, I would say to you, in all candor, that I don't believe Americans should smoke anything.

We know that millions of lives were lost needlessly because people didn't know about the deadly effects--I think I do not speak inaccurately when I say the ``deadly effects''--of cigarette smoking. Cigarette manufacturers are still paying the price with millions of dollars--billions of dollars that they have had to pay States in order to make up for essentially hiding information on the effects of cigarette smoking.

Frankly, there is much investigation still to be done about cannabis. We certainly can't say it is good for your health, except for medical marijuana.

Representative Rohrabacher yesterday spoke of a constituent whose son had come back from Iraq and had seizures and other problems emanating from his service, and no amount of medicine had done him any good. He was able to get a prescription for medical marijuana, and it controlled the problem.

Yet, by the way, although there have been bills introduced, the VA could not have prescribed medical marijuana to that veteran.

So I can't make the case for the underlying issue. In fact, there is evidence of harm to the brains of children. The bills that have passed the States are for adults only, people over 21. I am not even making the case for them. We need to know a lot more about marijuana, a substance that is breathed in deeply.

However, I tell you this much: I cannot make a case at all for a drug conviction for smoking marijuana in small amounts. That is where it seems to me that there is increasing agreement by the American people.

Just look at the latest polls. 54 percent approve legalization. I don't think they approve of legalization because they smoke cannabis; I think they approve of legalization because they don't believe people ought to be convicted of a drug offense for possessing small amounts of marijuana.

There is very good news. The reason we always speak of marijuana and young people is because, apparently, people tend to outgrow the use of marijuana. As young adults leave college and become more mature, they tend to smoke very little of anything today and no longer marijuana. You don't see lots of middle-aged people talking about marijuana either.

I wish I could say that their parents had outgrown alcohol, that people could outgrow alcohol, which is a legal substance that destroys lives, the lives of individuals, lives of entire families. Some become addicted to the substance, but if all you do is use it and get drunk and don't hurt anybody, then of course you are not convicted of a crime.

A Member of this House, Representative Andy Harris, makes the case for nullification of the D.C. law based on harm to young people; except, of course, the law doesn't allow young people to smoke, and it is interesting to know that Representative Polis said, because it is legal in Colorado, that smoking among juveniles in Colorado has gone down. I asked why.

He said it is because Colorado is wiping out the illegal market and kids have to go to that illegal market to get marijuana--and to a very illegal market to get it because some are under 21, so young people are smoking less and less in Colorado.

I don't think you can make the case against freedom and liberty based on children here, where we are talking about a substance for adults, and not when the District of Columbia already has introduced a bill called the Marijuana Use Public Information Campaign, which Council Member Tommy Wells has put on a fast track for passage. I like the bill that Council Member Wells is taking through the council. It would include education forums for each ward of the city. There are eight wards.

It is trying to get to people where they live, educating the public on what we do know of the impact of marijuana use and abuse. The bill requires that the Mayor report to the council on the type and the frequency and the provider and school age level of public school health education programs related to substance abuse, including marijuana use, and of course alcohol and tobacco.

Again, not making the case that I cannot in honesty make, I do want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that marijuana is still classified under Schedule I, and that is the schedule for the most dangerous drugs.

Marijuana is scheduled in the same category as heroin and LSD and ecstasy, even though the science we know today tells us that the addictive qualities of cannibis are nowhere near the same; worse, marijuana is scheduled above cocaine.

Now, if you want to know a drug that has torn big cities and suburbs alike apart, it would be cocaine. So cannibis is more dangerous, according to the scheduling of drugs, than cocaine and methadon and OxyContin.

Well, young people know that is not the case. The young people who smoke and then outgrow marijuana know that is not the case, so they don't pay any attention to the law.

And as I shall indicate, the laws don't pay much attention to them because most of them do not face the possibility of conviction. They don't face conviction, and I want to emphasize this because, when you consider law enforcement, it is impossible not to recognize that State and local law enforcement officials and Federal law enforcement officials, have virtually ceased to enforce the laws that make marijuana a Schedule I drug offense--but some people do get arrested.

I have already indicated that the Justice Department has said that it will not prosecute people for possession of small amounts. U.S. attorneys in Democratic and Republican administrations for years now--there are many who have never prosecuted anyone for small amounts of marijuana.

In effect, that means that marijuana is so widely used, has caused so little in the way of known harmful effects, that it is, today, de facto legal. That is why young people take the risk.

If that is the case, if convictions rarely occur, let's look at what happens when arrests and convictions do occur.

What led the District of Columbia to pass its law, its first law, the decriminalization law, were two studies done by outside organizations, two reputable organizations: the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the American Civil Liberties Union. They found that while Whites and Blacks use marijuana at the same rate, 9 out of 10 arrests are of African Americans. This city is half White and half Black.

The people of the District of Columbia have decided that decriminalization alone would not undo this outrageous disparity. A conviction on your record for marijuana is a conviction for a schedule 1 drug offense. And it doesn't matter; the word ``drug'' is what matters. That record can sentence, for example, a young Black man or woman or young Hispanics to a lifetime of underemployment or unemployment. Indeed, if there is enough underemployment and unemployment, a drug conviction for a small amount of marijuana can lead some further to a life where drugs become, in their view, the only way to make a living at all. So for them it can be a gateway drug precisely because the marijuana arrest or conviction has simply stopped their lives.

So when the council understood that 9 out of 10 arrests were of African Americans, it could not justify keeping that law on the books. And I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I have now had, for 10 years, a Commission on Black Men and Boys and am cochair of a Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys because of issues like this that affect young men of color. Such a conviction can ruin a young man's life for work. If it makes work impossible or work possible only in the underground or the illegal economy, then it ruins his life for marriage and for children and for stability in the community.

The D.C. Commission on Black Men and Boys and the Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys, of course, look at issues across the board, but there are serious concerns about disparities of this kind that affect men and essentially take them out of the African American community, out of the Hispanic community, and make them men apart. Marijuana use is simply one example.

And again I point out, it is not that people of color use marijuana at a greater rate than their counterparts of the same age who are White. It is who gets arrested. Whether that is in the ordinary course of law enforcement, intentional or not, those are the facts.

The interesting thing about the investigations by the independent organizations in the District, is that they find that these statistics showing hugely disparate treatment of people of color from other Americans on marijuana convictions and arrest are by no means confined to the District of Columbia. It is a nationwide phenomenon. If only a tiny minority are arrested and they turn out to be people of color, you have a classic case of racial discrimination.

I note that I have been joined on the floor by a very good friend from Nevada (Ms. Titus). I am pleased to yield to her.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. NORTON. Well, Ms. Titus, I must say I thank you for coming to the floor, but I particularly thank you and congratulate you for the extensive homework you have done educating yourself before you took a position on this issue. It is something to be emulated.

I do want to say, when you spoke of the need for further investigation, and particularly when you considered how many veterans with PTSD and other ailments may benefit from medical marijuana, it is worth noting that marijuana is so sharply regulated and restricted that we have not even been able to do the studies necessary to find out what is wrong with it or what is right with it. For example, medical marijuana cries out for studies. If, in fact, the anecdotal evidence is to be believed, that in itself should lead to Federal studies by the NIH and federally funded studies.

What are we afraid of? We need to know more about this substance. And on the negative side, we know that it has some harmful effects on the brain for children. We need to know more about it for adults. Why would the Federal Government not be out front, considering how widely used this substance is?

If the government had done the kind of homework you had, Ms. Titus, I think we would be much further ahead. Thank you very much for coming to the floor with all of that useful information from your own study.

I particularly appreciate your supporting the District's home rule and the right to pass its own local laws without Federal interference. I thought that was what both Democrats and Republicans believed. I thought that was the contention of Republicans that want to get the Federal Government even out of Federal matters. I thought they would be my natural allies to say, ``Big foot Federal Government, don't mess with any local jurisdiction.'' Yes, even here in the District of Columbia.

In July, the District's marijuana decriminalization bill took effect. I should note that the District passed medical marijuana earlier with one of the strictest sets of regulations in the United States. Our council has shown it knows how to handle these issues.

The threat that has been made is to use our local budget. Now, if you want to know insult on top of injury, you ask what is our local budget doing here? We are talking about $6 billion raised in the District of Columbia locally from businesses and residents. It comes here, again, because of an anomaly.

Although the District got home rule 40 years ago, there was still the obligation to bring its balanced budget here, where there is no balanced budget. Well, it has resulted in shutdowns of the District of Columbia more than once. It has been responsible for the fact that the District pays a premium on Wall Street because our budget has to be passed by another body that knows nothing about our budget. And to its credit, the Appropriations Committee doesn't even have hearings on our budget because it doesn't intend to overturn our budget. But it does allow people to come forward and use the budget as a vehicle for attachments to try to nullify our local laws. It is rarely done--and I appreciate that--because Members, in their own forbearance, have tended not to do that. But we do have a threat on this bill.

Now, the House did pass an amendment to block D.C.'s decriminalization bill. Representative HARRIS offered it in committee. And this amendment was not included, I am pleased to say, in the fiscal year 2015 short-term resolution or in the Senate's fiscal year 2015 D.C. appropriation bill. You see, there is a real difference here, and I hope that the House, in contemplation, will understand it also should go with liberty and freedom for the local jurisdiction.

The administration has issued a statement of policy that it strongly opposes the amendment that passed the House. And it did so. And here I am quoting its words:

Because it violates principles of states' rights and of District home rule.

Mr. Speaker, I know that the District is not even a pioneer when it comes to marijuana decriminalization or legalization. Yet it is the District that is singled out. There has been no Federal interference. No one has come to this floor who may disagree with the notion of legalization to call down the States that have legalized or decriminalized. And I think the reason is because there is simply no principled way for Members who 100 percent believe in local control to call out the States that may have taken their own route different from the other States and the District.

There is just no principled way to do anything with respect to what those States have done because those are local matters or State matters. Therefore, for the District, it is particularly painful not to be respected because the District has no vote on this floor.

When the bill containing the Andy Harris amendment was passed, everybody in the House could vote on it except the Member who represents the District of Columbia, because I have no vote even on matters affecting the District of Columbia. When the Democrats controlled the House, I would have had a vote on amendments to appropriations bills because they occur in the committee of the whole, but even that was taken away. So every Member got to vote on a matter affecting only my district except the one Member that the District sends to the Congress, and that is why I come to the floor.

We pay $12,000 per capita in Federal taxes. Keep that figure in mind because that is the highest per capita figure in Federal taxes paid by any jurisdiction. The lowest in Federal taxes happens to be Mississippi. I point out the difference because I think Mississippi pays about $4,000 per capita. The District pays $12,000 per capita.

So you can imagine if you support the Federal Government at this rate and you have no vote on the House floor and others have a vote that could take away your laws, you perhaps have every reason to be concerned.

May I ask how much time I have remaining?

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 18 minutes remaining.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When I say that there is no principled position except the American position that local jurisdictions must have complete autonomy to deal with local matters, I can offer at least one very prominent example.

Senator Rand Paul was asked what he thought about the District's marijuana legalization initiative. And I want to quote him. Senator Paul said:

I'm not for having the Federal Government get involved. I really haven't taken a stand on the actual legalization, but I'm against the Federal Government telling them they can't.

This is a classic principled position because Senator Paul hasn't taken a position on the underlying issue. He has only taken a position consistent with his views, and what I thought were the views of my Republican and Democratic colleagues alike, that the Federal Government shouldn't tell a local jurisdiction that it can't do what is, in this case, de facto legal, because the Federal Government does not prosecute. All I am asking Members to do is to take the same principled position that Senator Paul has taken.

Notwithstanding Senator Paul's position, Representative Harris has said that he will try to insert language into the omnibus bill to block legalization in D.C. Well, I am going to try to keep him from doing that. But isn't it interesting to note that Representative Harris couldn't keep his own State, Maryland, from decriminalizing marijuana, and so he hops over into my jurisdiction to do what he couldn't do in the State where he has authority. Well, we are not going to have it.

Representative Rohrabacher and I disagree on any number of things. That is why I was pleased to have him stand with me. But what he said is interesting because he has the longest history of fighting for marijuana reform. I want to quote him. He called on Members of his own party to ``wake up and see where the American people are.''

Representative Rohrabacher is from conservative Orange County. He says he believes that his position on marijuana reform may have helped him to gain 5 points in the last election. He says that he thinks that GOP principles about individual liberty and limited Federal Government are completely consistent with his own views on marijuana, and certainly consistent with his own philosophy. I cite Representative Rohrabacher and Senator Rand Paul because they have taken positions that I do not believe are inconsonant with the positions of their party.

People are fond of saying that this is not a partisan issue. Well, I guess it is because the parties have not come together on it. What is not a partisan issue, however, is local control of local laws.

I want to note what my good friend from Nevada referred to. Representative ROHRABACHER and a Democrat, SAM FARR, succeeded in passing an amendment in this House, this very Congress, that would keep the Justice Department from intervening in States that have legalized medical marijuana. This matter passed in a Republican House.

The fact is that the Justice Department has indicated that it will not intervene--and it has not intervened--when it comes to medical marijuana or recreational use of medical marijuana when we are talking about small amounts. And yet the House came forward and indicated where it stands, and that is where I think the country is going and where the House is going.

But there is an important issue still pending--one that this House has passed and I urge the Senate to pass, along with the Rohrabacher-Farr bill--and that is a bill that is sponsored by Representative BLUMENAUER and Representative ROHRABACHER, who were joined at a press conference by Grover Norquist, who, of course, is the antitax advocate. Their bill passed this House. It would change Federal tax law so that State-sanctioned providers can claim deductions and credits as other businesses do.

I am sorry I said that passed. This did not pass. This is pending. What did pass is an amendment that would no longer penalize financial institutions because they provide financial services to State-sanctioned marijuana operations. Now, you can imagine those operations now must deal in cash because the banks and the financial institutions are afraid to deal with them.

This amendment, which is perhaps the most urgent of the reforms, did pass the House, and I think it, again, shows growing recognition of where the country is and where the House should be headed.

It is worth noting that just hearing the names of the States that have decriminalized marijuana, I think, makes the case for where the country is headed. This is decriminalization alone. States that have done so, in alphabetical order, have red and blue running right through the list. I am talking decriminalizing marijuana for small amounts.

They are Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. They have nothing in common except they don't convict people for possessing small amounts of marijuana.

The Congress, 40 years ago, passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. That act says that matters of local law are for the District alone. It was a landmark law. We intend to have it respected.

There were some exceptions. They were very small, and I can guarantee you that there were no exceptions of the kind that I have spoken about today.

Legalization in the District of Columbia comes from the direct votes of two-thirds of the people in my district; therefore, it comes with a very special mandate. It comes with a mandate of freedom and liberty, and it comes with a very special mandate that the country will probably increasingly note, and that special mandate is the disparity in arrests based on race, where 9 out of 10 of the arrests are of blacks in, by the way, a progressive city.

It is very hard to justify such a law remaining on the books. That is why I think the people went all the way to legalization.

So what I am asking this afternoon is for House Members to remember your own States and the States of your colleagues that have taken action in one form or another to relax marijuana laws, and I am asking for all of the residents of the District of Columbia simply the same ordinary privilege.

I particularly ask, not only our own Members, but Members who I think would particularly want to take note in the other body because in that body are found the Senators who represent the 23 States that have passed medical marijuana laws, the 18 States that have passed marijuana decriminalization laws, and the four States that have legalized marijuana.

It is difficult for me to see how the other body, which has States which have relaxed marijuana in this way, could possibly vote not to give equal treatment to the residents of the District of Columbia.

So, Mr. Speaker, at bottom, I am asking only for equality of treatment for the residents of the District of Columbia. I come in that spirit only. I don't ask for your support for the underlying matter.

I ask for your support on the one issue in which I believe I can say Members in this body, to the last Member, are in agreement, and that is, since the very founding of our country, the principle that holds us together is federalism, that what happens in a State may not be what we would desire or do in our own, but if it is a local matter and if it is legal and constitutional, then it is for the people of that State.

Mr. Speaker, that is the essence of freedom and democracy. I ask in that spirit for the same respect for the people of the District of Columbia that I would give to the people of every State of the Union.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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