Green Party: Congress’s Threats Against a Marijuana Ballot Initiative Prove the Need for D.C. Statehood

Candidates of the D.C. Statehood Green Party expressed strong support for a ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana in the District of Columbia, but said that Congress’s power to block or overturn the law proves the need for statehood for the District.

“We urge every D.C. voter to assert our rights and vote for the ballot initiative, even though members of Congress are threatening to block the initiative or void it if it passes in November,” said David Schwartzman, Statehood Green Party candidate for “Shadow” U.S. Senator (http://www.davidschwartzman.com).

“The only way to ensure that locally passed laws are safe from Congress’s interference and veto power is to win statehood, so that District residents can enjoy the same citizenship, constitutional rights, and self-governance as all other Americans,” added Dr. Schwartzman.

Rep. Andy Harris (R.-Md.) inserted an amendment into the District’s 2015 Appropriation Bill in Congress that would stop decriminalization of marijuana laws from taking effect and remove the initiative from the ballot in November. In June, House Republicans blocked funding for a law passed by D.C. Council that would eliminate the threat of jail time for marijuana possession (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/us/politics/marijuana-decriminalization-in-washington-dc-is-contested-by-federal-lawmakers.html).

The D.C. Statehood Green Party endorsed Initiative 71 in May. On July 7, the D.C. Cannabis Campaign handed in 57,000 signatures to place the initiative on the November ballot, more than twice the required number (http://dcmj.org).

“Congress’s power over D.C. will only be eliminated when we become a state. ‘D.C. voting rights’ — giving the District a voting seat in the U.S. House — will not give us democratic power over our own laws. Voting seats in a legislature isn’t the same thing as self-determination and democracy. It was a mistake for political leaders to focus on D.C. voting rights for so long when we really needed D.C. statehood,” said Eugene Puryear, D.C. Statehood Green candidate for At-Large Member of D.C. Council (http://www.EugenePuryear.com).

“We call on the DC Statehood Delegation, our Shadow Senators and Representatives, along with U.S. House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, to provide all the resources of their offices to organizing D.C. residents for a sustained campaign of mass resistance to this flagrant violation of our political rights,” said Dr. Schwartzman. “Such a campaign, uniting with ongoing struggles for a living wage, truly affordable housing, and the human rights of our Returning Citizens, will create the critical momentum to make the goal of DC Statehood realized much sooner than cynical pundits think is possible. This is our moment for a Moral Monday in D.C.!

D.C. Statehood Greens collected a plurality of the signatures to place Initiative 59 for medical marijuana on the ballot in 1999. Initiative 59 was passed by D.C. voters with a 69% majority but was vetoed by Congress.

“Attempts by members of Congress to block the initiative and shut down medical marijuana dispensaries are a serious affront to our democratic rights and well-being in D.C. The citizens of no state in the U.S. suffer this kind of federal tyranny,” said Mr. Puryear.

The D.C. Statehood Greens Party and the Green Party of the United States support abolition of drug prohibition and an end to the War on Drugs and favor treatment of drug addiction as a medical and social problem. Greens have called drug prohibition part of a scheme to feed the growing private-prison industry, which increases profits by filling up more cells with more inmates.

The D.C. Cannabis Campaign notes that “[t]he District of Columbia has the highest per capita marijuana arrest rates for people of color in America. Although studies show that both white and black people of the District of Columbia use marijuana equally, people of color are disproportionately arrested and subject to all the collateral consequences a criminal record creates. The aim of the Campaign’s ballot initiative is to expand freedoms to District citizens and to help end the discrimination affecting all marijuana users.”

“D.C. residents should refuse to cooperate with the mass incarceration of our young people,” said Eugene Puryear. “Thanks to the prison-industrial complex, the U.S. has the world’s highest per-capita incarceration rate. Mass incarceration is a result of the War on Drugs, militarization of civil police departments, draconian drug laws, mandatory sentencing, zero tolerance, sharp racial disparities in prosecution and sentencing, and the political influence of private-prison companies and contractors over both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and state legislatures.”

The Green Party has endorsed D.C. statehood in its national platform since the party was founded. The Democratic Party deleted support for D.C. statehood from its national platform in 2004 and declined to reinstate such support in 2008 and 2012. Statehood Greens have sharply criticized Democrats for refusing to move forward on D.C. democracy whenever they controlled Congress and the White House. The Republican Party does not support D.C. statehood.

The D.C. Statehood Green Party was founded as the D.C. Statehood Party in 1970 by Julius Hobson and other local activists who called democratic self-determination for the majority-black District an important part of Civil Rights agenda.

Although the U.S. Constitution mandates a federal enclave apart from the states, D.C. statehood can be enacted by a simple majority vote in Congress, without a constitutional amendment. The borders of the federal enclave can be altered by Act of Congress (precedent: Congress’s vote in 1846 transferring part of the District to Virginia) to include only federal government properties such as the White House, Capitol, Mall, and Supreme Court building and the grounds on which they sit. Congress could then admit D.C. to the union as a state by majority vote, as it admitted all the other states after the initial 13 colonies.

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