The GOP controlled congressional committee will vote this week on a number of bills targeting Washington, D.C.’s policies, one being a bill that repeals a local measure expanding the expungement for marijuana possession.
On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee will be meeting under Rep. James Comer’s (R-KY) chairmanship to mark up 14 bills aimed at amending or repealing D.C. law.
Comer, a House Republican and President Trump supporter of law and order restoration in the nation’s capitol city said this in a release issued on Friday. Comer also noted that Trump has been pushing to correct perceived shortcomings in local law enforcement.
The proposed repeal of Second Chance Amendment Act is part of those efforts. It was passed by D.C. in 2022, and went into effect the following year.
The District’s judiciary has been mandated by law to remove marijuana possession records that were made before D.C. legalized cannabis in 2014.
This is the main text of the D.C. statute that Congress would repeal.
“The Court shall order automatic expungement of all criminal records and court proceedings related only to citations, arrests, charges, or convictions for the commission of a criminal offense that has subsequently been decriminalized, legalized, or held to be unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia or the Supreme Court of the United States, or records related only to simple possession for any quantity of marijuana in violation of § 48-904.01(d)(1) before February 15, 2015…”
Comer noted that “under President Trump’s decisive leadership the crime rate in D.C. has fallen at an unprecedented pace.” The House Oversight Committee is ready to support the President by supporting comprehensive legislative reforms which empower the District law enforcement agencies and address the growing juvenile crime crisis.
Advocates have already been frustrated with congressional interference with the District’s cannabis laws—particularly the annual renewal of an appropriations rider from Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) barring D.C. from using its local tax dollars to implement a system of regulated recreational marijuana sales.
Comer had put a new repeal on the agenda of Wednesday’s meeting, and had indicated previously that he was open to revisiting this rider. Asked about the possibility of lifting restrictions on D.C. legal cannabis sales, he said in late 2023 “if that’s what Washington D.C. wants, yeah.”
The House Appropriations Committee advanced last week the spending bill with its rider intact.
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Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, (D-DC), has criticised appropriators who have put forward a bill which restricts the autonomy of the District in many ways. This includes the riders to “prohibit use of funds for commercializing recreational marijuana.”
Norton expressed his outrage at the “number and extent of anti D.C. home-rule riders” in the legislation released in today’s release. The measure had cleared subcommittee back in July.
In May, the congresswoman stated that she will again urge her colleagues to support her efforts to eliminate cannabis from language.
“As Congress works on the fiscal year 2026 appropriation bill, I will continue to fight to remove this rider,” she said, while referencing a statement from the White House that called the District’s move to enact local marijuana reform an example of a “failed” policy that “opened the door to disorder.”
Trump’s June budget proposal contained the Harris Rider, which prevented marijuana sales in D.C. despite the fact that voters there had approved legalization of the drug in 2014. The former president Joe Biden, who served as the office of President from 2009 to 2013, also requested that the D.C. cannabis riders be maintained in his budget requests.
Local officials in D.C. have expanded their city’s medical marijuana program to work around the fact that the District hasn’t had the funds available to create a system for regulated cannabis sales.
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