The (Legislative) Empire Strikes Back: Take that, “will of the people”…
In a possible direct threat to the entire ballot initiative campaign, a state legislator – who’s also a member of the Utah Highway Patrol (UHP) – is considering spearheading an obscure legislative move we’ve only recently heard of – a move which could make even a passed ballot initiative moot, i.e., passed but stopped dead in the water by legislative chicanery.
We’ve already seen another story on the tactic, so we know it’s not him alone – and may not be original to him. And the rhetoric sounds far more hollow than sincere to us.
This is nothing but a “nuclear option” to try and thwart what legislators KNOW is the will of the great majority of the citizens of Utah..!!
In this lengthly article, advocates are covered, but not until later in the story, so please don’t miss what they have to say about this news.
But cutting to the chase, behind the “positive” things those who claiming to want to Utahns are quoted as saying, here’s the (super) dirty trick some legislators and lobbyists are discussing (including NON-reformist, Rep. Daw):
#1: They would actually pass all or most of the initiative into law.
#2: But they would pass it with the following (or a similar) simple addition:
“This law will not take effect until the DEA reclassifies cannabis in Schedule IV”
#3: there is no number three, because they say, this would effectively kill the initiative NO MATTER HOW people vote on it.
And face it, at the current level of functionality in Congress, the DEA is not going to put cannabis in Schedule IV until hell freezes over.
This tactic is based on a trick employed to derail a long-ago popular initiative on election reform pols didn’t like – the idea is that the initiative wouldn’t be able to supercede the bill even though the initiative has a provision saying no conflicting law passed by the legislature can derail it.
It’s an obscure legal difference, but in that earlier case was held to “extend” rather than “conflict” with that proposed law.
TRUCE truly hopes the legislature is not SO anti-patient, so anti-best practices of medicine, so anti-will-of-the-people as to ever make such a fundamentally undemocratic legislative move as this one on issues of pain, suffering, lives lost to opioids, etc..
Still, over the last four years we’ve also learned there are some so opposed to reform they will who do whatever they can to thwart progress even if citizen opinion is 95% to 5% against them.
Please let your reps know how you feel about this… …clearly but (we advise) without name-calling and invective…
Need to find your reps..? http://ift.tt/2mbMCJm
We promise you that OUR members are going to be whispering sweet nothings in their ears in the coming days.
#MMJ #UTpol #Initiative #SB54 #PatientsBeforePolitics #TRUCE
See full article – Lawmaker mulling bill that usurps cannabis ballot initiative, could include implementation barriers
