*By Jacqueline Corba*
Voters are effectively pressuring lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to publicly support the easing cannabis laws, said the deputy director of the National Organization for Marijuana Laws.
In an interview Tuesday with Cheddar, the deputy director, Paul Armentano said politicians were realizing that marijuana enjoyed greater popularity than they did.
"With the midterm elections approaching, more and more members of Congress from both parties now acknowledge that advocating for marijuana policy reform is not a political liability, rather its a political opportunity," said Armentano.
Last Friday ー on 4/20, of all days ー Sen. Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, introduced a bill to decriminalize weed. A few days earlier, the majority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, had introduced a bill to remove hemp from the list of controlled substances.
Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) have called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to stop using federal anti-drug laws to block medical marijuana research. And even President Trump changed his tune last week when he promised Sen. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, he would support legal protections in states where marijuana is legal.
A majority of Americans ー 60 percent, according to a Pew Research Center poll ー said they support marijuana legalization.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/inside-the-momentum-driving-politicians-to-back-cannabis).
In the aftermath of earthquakes, one of the U.S. territory’s top architects is making the case for short-term assistance combined with long-term vision.
When President Bill Clinton was impeached more than 20 years ago, the Senate leaders who controlled his fate say they sought to appear neutral and separate from the White House and wanted to make the trial a bipartisan process. At least that’s how Trent Lott and Tom Daschle remember it today.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Facebook’s behavior “shameful” during her weekly press conference Thursday.
The federal government's watchdog agency said Thursday a White House office violated federal law in withholding security assistance to Ukraine.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Thursday, January 16, 2020.
The House delivered the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate Wednesday hours after Speaker Nancy Pelosi named seven managers to handle prosecute the trial.
“[Trump] would win right now because the Democrats have not succeeded in making this election a referendum on Trump,” longtime Republican and political strategist Rick Wilson told Cheddar on the eve of another sort of referendum — the president’s impeachment trial.
President Trump signed a so-called "phase one" trade deal with China on Wednesday, signaling a détente in a protracted trade war that resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs being exchanged on exports between the world's two largest economies over the better part of two years.
Weeks after the White House unexpectedly derailed a bipartisan tax deal for electric vehicles, offshore wind energy, and other major green priorities, dozens of emissaries from the nation’s renewable energy industries and environmental advocacy groups are gathering in the nation’s capital to begin charting their green-energy push for 2020 — and to dissect what went wrong in the final hours of its 2019 influence campaign.
Here are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, January 15, 2020.
