A powerful GOP-controlled House committee has blocked an amendment to a spending bill that would have freed up Washington, D.C. to legalize marijuana sales in the nation’s capital, as well as a separate proposal to prevent drug testing federal job applicants for cannabis.
The House Rules Committee declined to make in order for floor votes the two amendments to appropriations legislation covering Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) on Monday—the latest in a series of marijuana reform measures that the panel has prevented the full House from considering.
Reps. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Barbara Lee (D-CA) filed the D.C. amendment. It would have removed a longstanding rider that prevents the District of Columbia from using its local tax dollars to implement a commercial marijuana market, despite voters in the District approving legalization at the ballot in 2014.
To the disappointment of advocates, the rider was kept in both the Republican majority House and Democratic majority Senate base bills that moved through each chamber’s respective Appropriations Committee over the summer. President Joe Biden’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget request that he released in March also maintained the D.C. rider for the third year in a row.
The Rules Committee
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