- House votes to legalize cannabis, but Senate has its own ideas.
The House passed a bill to legalize marijuana for the second consecutive Congress, signaling a continued interest by Democrats in overhauling the federal approach to a substance that is legal for medical use in 37 states.
The 220-204 vote on the bill, which would decriminalize the possession and use of marijuana, fell mostly along party lines Friday. Three Republicans voted in favor of the bill, and two Democrats voted against.
When a similar bill passed in 2020, the GOP-controlled Senate declined to take it up, but lawmakers are hopeful that growing public support and a Democratic majority in the chamber could spur action.
“The Senate works with its own schedule,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat. “We’ve talked to a number of people in terms of their support for this, but I’ve only been here 20 years, and I do not pretend to understand the ways of the Senate.”
- House readies relief package for restaurants, other industries.
The House might vote next week on a small-business pandemic aid package that would provide $42 billion for additional restaurant relief and $13 billion for other “hard hit” industries.
The Rules Committee is scheduled to meet on the revised bill Tuesday afternoon, which indicates floor action soon after. Democratic leaders are whipping the bill to see if there are enough votes to pass it, according to a source familiar with the planning who wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
The restaurant and hard-hit business grant funding would be offset by “all funds rescinded, seized, reclaimed, or otherwise returned” from various programs in prior pandemic relief laws. It was not immediately clear if that would score as a full or partial offset for the $55 billion in total funding.
Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., said in an interview Friday that he has been working with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for months to provide additional aid to restaurants and other small businesses that were not able to access previous pandemic relief programs. Speaking a few hours before the bill was released, Phillips said he was hopeful for a vote and that there would be bipartisan support given the measure is offset with recaptured fraudulent awards.
“We under-appropriated to begin with,” Phillips said. “So this is about a make-good and not picking winners and losers. And that notion is picking up some steam, recognizing this is not a prospective COVID relief bill. This is a retrospective make-good.”
- GOP expands House target list; Democrats book airtime for defense.
National Republicans, already bullish about their chances of taking back the House in November, announced an even more aggressive midterm strategy Wednesday and expanded the list of districts they are targeting into deeply Democratic territory.
The announcement, from the National Republican Congressional Committee, came as House Majority PAC, the main super political action committee for House Democrats, announced its first major ad reservations of the cycle, allocating $101.8 million for television and digital advertisements for the campaign's final months.
In keeping with House Democrats’ more conservative campaign strategy so far this cycle, much of that spending will be focused on regions in which Democratic incumbents are seen as vulnerable.
The parallel announcements indicate that both parties are solidifying their game plans as the campaign adopts a faster pace with the near completion of redistricting and the dwindling time to shift voters’ opinions before Election Day.