How Marijuana May Mobilize More Voters to Go to the Polls
*By Jacqueline Corba*
The nation may get greener on Tuesday night.
"There's a lot more senate and congressional races in which marijuana has become an issue than ever before," Cannabis Voter Project Director Sam D'Arcangelo told Cheddar's CannaBiz on Tuesday. "Marijuana now more than ever has become an issue that politicians are talking about."
The Cannabis Voter Project is an initiative launched by HeadCount, a nonpartisan and nonprofit group that registers voters at popular concerts and events that are attended largely by younger generations.
Four states could relax their policies on marijuana after this midterm election. Legalizing weed for recreational use is up for a vote in North Dakota and Michigan, and Missouri and Utah could legalize the drug for medicinal use.
"Cannabis has only really become an important issue for a lot of people in the last few years," D'Arcangelo said. "A lot more people are going to the polls with that in mind."
According to [Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/243908/two-three-americans-support-legalizing-marijuana.aspx), 66 percent, or two-thirds, of Americans are in favor of legalization. Driving that all-time high of support are [millennials, in particular](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/08/americans-support-marijuana-legalization/).
D'Arcangelo said if Michigan legalizes marijuana at the recreational level, it could signal a sea change for the entire Midwest, since policy reform often starts at the state level.
"Washington and Colorado legalized back in 2012 and then the dominoes fell, so to speak, across the West Coast," D'Arcangelo said. "So if it goes through in Michigan, which is looking like it probably will, the next places you want to look to are places like Illinois and Ohio where there's been a lot of talk about marijuana legalization at the state legislative level that hasn't gotten rolling in earnest."
Ahead of the midterms former Speaker of the House John Boehner penned an op-ed in The [Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-needs-to-legalize-cannabis-1541361855) calling for legalization at the federal level. Boehner [now serves on the board of cannabis producer Acreage Holdings](https://cheddar.com/videos/why-john-boehner-changed-his-mind-on-cannabis).
"When a guy like John Boehner ... is now coming around and publishing an op-ed like this, I think that's a pretty clear indicator that things are going to be changing pretty soon," D'Arcangelo said.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/how-pot-reform-could-drive-more-voters-to-polls).
Peter Zalzal, associate vice president for clean air strategies at the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, joined Cheddar to discuss the Biden Administration's unveiling of stricter fuel-efficiency standards for new automobiles. "The administration estimated that these rules will reduce about 2.5 billion tons of climate pollution by 2050, and using less fuel also means that we have to go to the gas pump less often. And so it means we save money, thousands of dollars in avoided fuel costs each year for consumers," he noted.
The relatively robust March jobs report showed that despite the low unemployment rate, Black, Hispanic, and women job seekers are still having difficulty finding work. William M. Rodgers III, the vice president and director of the Institute for Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis noted that participation rates in the labor force ticked up for minorities, adding to other positive signs of growth. He also spoke to Cheddar News to discuss further the jobs figures, the state of the labor market, and rising inflation.
U.S. markets opened higher to kick off the second quarter, despite a miss on the March Jobs Report. The economy added $431,000 in the month, slightly lower than the $490,000 analysts had expected. The unemployment rate also ticked down to 3.6% from 3.8%. Kevin Simpson, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Capital Wealth Planning joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
President Biden is going after billionaires in his 2023 budget request to congress. The proposal would establish a 20% minimum tax rate on all households worth more than $100 million, as well as raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. Rhett Buttle, Small Business for America's Future Senior Advisor, Business Policy Expert & Biden Campaign Business Advisor, breaks down the proposal, what it aims to accomplish, and how small businesses might feel about it.
The Biden administration has announced the U.S. will accept up to 100,000 refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine and provide more than 1 billion dollars in new funding for the growing humanitarian crisis. The move comes as President Biden meets with his western counterparts in Europe to demonstrate a united front against Russia and show support for Ukraine. Altagracia Pierre-Outerbridge, Immigration Attorney for Outerbridge Law, explains how this is going to work.
The DOJ has endorsed an antitrust bill targeting tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Google. The legislation would ban the companies from favoring their own products and services over their competitor's, making it more difficult them to dominate the marketplace. Greg Day, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Georgia, breaks down the bill and its potential impact on anti-competition in the tech sector.
Catching you up with what you need to know on Apr 1, 2022, with Ukrainians hoping to flee the besieged city of Mariupol with a ceasefire is in place, President Biden orders the release of oil from U.S.reserves, LGBT activists suing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the "Don't Say Gay" Law, U.S. passports offering an "x" option for gender, and more.
America’s employers extended a streak of robust hiring in March, adding 431,000 jobs in a sign of the economy’s resilience in the face of a still-destructive pandemic and the highest inflation in 40 years.
