A GOP controlled congressional committee approved a measure to repeal Washington, D.C. laws expanding the expungement of marijuana possession.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-KY), voted on Wednesday to approve the legislation—one in a series of proposals the panel advanced targeting a variety of local D.C. policies.
Second Chance Amendment Act (a District Law passed in 2022) contains the cannabis expungement policies. This law went into effect the following year.
Under the law, the District’s judiciary was mandated to automatically expunge marijuana possession records for offenses that took place before D.C. enacted a limited cannabis legalization law in 2014.
Heres’s the key text of the D.C. law that the congressional bill 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 stated ahead of Wednesday’s vote that the Second Chance Amendment Act increased expungement, record sealing, and automatic expungement. Comer said that these D.C. law have collectively created an environment in which convicted criminals aren’t held accountable for their crimes.
The amendment he offered was accepted. It “fixes an error in the legislation and clarifies that the effect of repeals is prospective.” It was then approved by a vote score of 24-20.
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton called the legislation “paternalistic”, adding that the “over 700,000 D.C. citizens, the majority being Black and Brown, are capable of and deserving of self-government.”
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 was in charge of voting on repealing the law, but he had indicated previously that he might be willing to revisit the riders. 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.”
Last week, the House Appropriations Committee again advanced the underlying spending bill with the rider kept intact.
—
MEDCAN24 has been tracking the hundreds of bills relating to cannabis, psychedelics or drug policies that have passed through state legislatures as well as Congress in this past year. Patreon members who pledge at least $25/month gain access to interactive maps, charts and a hearing calendar.
Discover more about the marijuana bills tracker. Become a patron on Patreon and you will have access.
—
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 the subcommittee back in July.
The congresswoman said in May that she would again again push her colleagues to join her in an effort to remove the cannabis 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 budget request that he released in June similarly contained the Harris rider preventing marijuana sales in D.C., despite voters in the jurisdiction voting to approve legalization in 2014. In his budget requests during his tenure as president, former President Joe Biden repeatedly asked for the continuation of D.C. Cannabis rider.
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.
MEDCAN24 would not be possible without the support of readers. Consider a Patreon subscription if our marijuana advocacy journalism is what you use to keep informed.
