The Los Angeles Post

Congress may lose chance to pass bipartisan pot bill

by · Published · Updated

Lawmakers are facing a rapidly closing window to get key marijuana legislation across the finish line in the lame-duck session.

 

Despite fetching broad bipartisan support in the House and Senate, opposition from GOP leadership and a tightening timeline is chipping away at the bill’s chances of passage.

 

The measure, called the SAFE Banking Act, would undo federal restrictions that discourage banks and other financial institutions from offering services to legally operating cannabis businesses.

 

What Congress is saying:

  • “We still got amendments on the floor. We still got a continuing resolution,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who has also been leading efforts pushing the bill in the upper chamber, told The Hill on Wednesday. “We may have an omnibus. Not giving up on this Congress.”
  • “We’ve got nine [GOP] co-sponsors and probably some other Republicans who support it that aren’t on the bill. So, there’s some support for it,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), a lead negotiator for the bill, told The Hill, saying he is hopeful that the measure will be included in a potential government funding omnibus.
  • “We get a lot of bad legislation when we do that, and the bad outweighs the good,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), one of the co-sponsors for the marijuana banking bill, told The Hill. “So, I don’t want it on the omnibus, and I don’t want non-defense items hooked to the NDAA.”

Though the bill has Republican backers even outside those co-sponsoring the measure, there is still pushback within the caucus, party members say. Among the loudest has been Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who this week knocked the bill as a measure that aims to make “our financial system more sympathetic to illegal drugs.”