For the fifth time in two years, the Vermont Senate passed a bill that would legalize recreational marijuana. But a refusal to suspend chamber rules in the House stalled the bill during the brief special session — delaying further action on the issue until January.
Lawmakers made the bid to pass a modified version of marijuana legalization after Gov. Phil Scott’s veto of S.22, a bill that would have allowed adult possession of small amounts of pot.
Scott nixed the bill in May but offered a list of suggestions for how the measure could be changed to win his support.
Over the following weeks, a new proposal emerged that maintained the initial legalization provision — allowing adults to possess up to an ounce of pot and to grow up to six plants at home, as of July 2018. The revised bill included concessions to Scott, such as creating criminal penalties for using marijuana in a car with kids and stiffening penalties for providing pot to those under age.
The Senate Judiciary Committee convened Wednesday morning and reviewed language that came out of negotiations with the governor’s staff. With three in favor, one opposed and one absent, the committee set the bill on track for the Senate floor — subbing the language into H.511, a bill originally related to transportation that passed the House earlier this year.
At that point in the day, opinions differed as to whether there was in fact a deal between lawmakers and the administration. After some further meetings around midday, the administration officially reached consensus with legislators leading the negotiations — Rep. Maxine Grad, D-Moretown, and Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, the chairs of their respective Judiciary committees.
Late in the afternoon, the full Senate quickly passed the bill through preliminary and final approval on voice votes, with no floor debate.
Sears, a consistent advocate of legalization through the last two years, told fellow senators that the measure is “our best chance to legalize marijuana.”
There was some opposition to expediting the legalization measure in the majority party, too. The bill cleared the House by a margin of just 13 votes in May.
Ultimately, House Republicans never voted among themselves on whether to support a rules suspension as a group.
House Majority Leader Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, moved to take up the bill for a floor vote Wednesday.
On a roll call, the motion got 78 votes in favor and 63 opposed — failing to get support from the three-quarters of the members necessary to suspend the rules.
With that, marijuana legalization was killed for the year.
Earlier Wednesday, Scott said he had reached out to House Minority Leader Don Turner, R-Milton. Turner told him the decision on suspending the rules would be for the House Republican Caucus to make, Scott said.
“So we’ll see what happens,” Scott said.
Scott said if the bill didn’t advance, he would consider taking executive action to create a commission focused on marijuana.
“If it doesn’t move forward we’ll still move forward with something,” he said.
The bill would create such a commission, charged with looking at setting up a regulated market. Scott said if he establishes a commission, it would focus on issues he sees as priorities now, including marijuana-impaired driving and youth access to pot.
“Maybe eventually” it would consider marijuana legalization and regulation, he said.
Scott did not commit to signing the bill if it comes up when lawmakers return for the second half of the biennium in January.
“Things change over six months, so we’ll have to see where we’re at at that point,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sears said he was considering taking a different approach to the issue in the future.
Perhaps he will seek to put the question of legalization directly to Vermont voters, in the form of a nonbinding referendum, he said.
On Wednesday morning, a coalition of law enforcement associations and the anti-legalization group SAM-VT held a press conference at the Statehouse.
Flanked by more than a dozen officers in uniform and other opponents of legalization, the head of the Vermont Association of Chiefs of Police — Colchester Police Chief Jennifer Morrison — said law enforcement’s position on the issue has been ignored through the discussion about legal pot.
She laid out a list of “benchmarks” the group feels should be met before Vermont legalizes, including increasing public service announcements discouraging pot-impaired driving; two-year declines in rates of crashes and DUIs in which marijuana is a factor; and the existence of a saliva impairment test that would be accepted by the courts.
Meanwhile, those in favor of legalization championed the bill and urged its passage. After the Senate passed it Wednesday afternoon, Matt Simon of the Marijuana Policy Project said in a statement that there is “no good reason” for the legislation to be delayed.
“The question is no longer ‘if’ Vermont will stop penalizing adult cannabis consumers, but ‘when,’” he said.
