When President-elect Donald Trump nominated US Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama to be the next attorney general, the institutional outcry came nearly immediately. The New York Times editorial board called the pick “an insult to justice.” The NAACP declared him unfit to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. And it wasn’t just civil rights leaders—civil libertarians expressed a few fears of their own.
There were immediate fears also raised by those who advocate for cannabis legalization as well as those who count themselves among the 122,814 Americans who work in the legal cannabis industry. The Obama administration allowed the adult-use laws in Colorado and Washington state to proceed, based on the 2013 Cole memo. But that memo was just a memo. It interpreted the law and established policy. It did not establish federal legality.
Jeff Sessions is no friend of cannabis, legal or otherwise. He famously declared, during a Senate hearing in April 2016, that “good people don’t smoke marijuana.” He added: “We need grownups in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it is in fact a very real danger.”
Supporting Sessions is, of course, President-elect Trump, along with nearly all of his Republican colleagues. A large number of law enforcement organizations have also endorsed Sessions. That, according to Politico, makes him a lock for confirmation. And unless some bombshell evidence emerges over the next two days of Senate confirmation hearings, Sessions is, indeed, very likely to be confirmed.
If you’re reading Leafly, you’re probably interested in the Sessions hearings for their cannabis-related content. But you can’t sit through two days of testimony to get it. Allow us to be your eyes and ears. Deputy Editor Bruce Barcott and editor Ben Adlin will be monitoring the hearings, posting regular updates, and highlighting whatever cannabis content may emerge.
Honestly, we’re not expecting much. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), has a strong track record of supporting reasonable cannabis legal reform. But Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has long opposed what he sees as all this nonsense about marijuana. For years, Grassley has blocked any move to reform banking laws that keep the legal cannabis industry largely a cash-only business. And Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s high-ranking California Democrat, has for years opposed the will of her state’s citizens and stood against both medical and adult-use legalization.
Check back with us over the coming two days. We’ll keep rolling updates, newest first.
6:14 — Chuck Grassley, mercifully, calls the first day’s proceedings to a close. That’s it, we’re done, see you back here at 9:30am tomorrow morning. Remember to pack a lunch.
5:51 — Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono is emerging as one of the real ass kickers of this committee. After the award B.S., Hirono brings the hearing straight back to one of the most pressing serious issues in America today: Police actions and accountability. She asks Sessions about the DOJ’s ongoing consent decrees with 20 police departments around the United States. Consent decrees are agreements reached between DOJ and a police department that require the department to enact serious reforms, following a pattern of abuse or other unconstitutional behavior. They are one of the few mechanisms available to cities and their citizens to force police reform. Sessions has spoken out in the past against consent decrees, and his opposition to them gives you a hint about why so many police organizations and unions have lined up to support Sessions. Hirono asks Sessions: Will you uphold these decrees? Sessions says yes, he will, but then goes on about his worries that consent decrees “create the impression that the entire police department is not doing their work consistent with fidelity to fairness and the law.” Which is an amazing statement to make. Because the purpose of consent decrees is to force police departments to improve after they’ve been shown to, in fact, fail to do their work consistent with fidelity to fairness and the law. Sessions’s main concern isn’t for the citizens abused by their police officers. It’s for the emotional well being of the police officers, who might feel a tiny bit ashamed about the consistent pattern of illegal actions taken by their department.
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