Month: November 2020

Montana voters, who approved medical marijuana by a wide margin in 2004, have passed a ballot measure that takes the further step of allowing recreational use. With 75 percent of precincts reporting, 57 percent of voters had said yes to Initiative 190, which also authorizes state-licensed growers, manufacturers, and retailers to serve the recreational market.

Montana is the 15th state to legalize marijuana for recreational use, joining 11 states that took that step from 2012 to 2019, along with New Jersey, Arizona, and South Dakota, where voters approved legalization on Tuesday. As of next year, about one in three Americans will live in states that allow recreational use.

Under Initiative 190, adults 21 or older will be allowed to possess up to an ounce of marijuana in public and grow up to four plants at home beginning on January 1, 2021. The Montana Department of Revenue is required to start accepting applications from growers, processors, and retailers by January 1, 2022. Retail sales will be subject to a 20 percent tax; Montana has no general sales tax.

Initiative 190 legalizes some marijuana-related activities and reduces the penalties for others. It authorizes courts to reclassify or expunge the records of people who were convicted of marijuana offenses that are no longer crimes or have been downgraded.

The initiative does not allow “consumption of marijuana in a public place,” except as permitted by the Department of Revenue’s regulations. “A person who smokes marijuana in a public place” that is not licensed to allow it can be fined $50, although that provision does not mention other modes of consumption.

The initiative was supported by Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney, a Democrat who ran for governor this year, and state Sen. Dave Lewis, a Republican. The opposition included U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, the Republican candidate for governor. Public support for the measure fell from 54 percent in a February poll to 49 percent in a poll conducted from mid-September to early October. A poll conducted from October 19 to October 24 put support at 54 percent, with 7 percent undecided.

 

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The Libertarian Party (L.P.) had high hopes for a win in the Wyoming state House in two different races—and one of them came through. Marshall Burt, has won in District 39 against Democrat Stan Blake, 1,696 to 1,420, according to Apollo Pazell, who was running the L.P.’s campaigns in the state.

This is only the fifth time the L.P. has won a state legislative seat with a candidate running only under the Libertarian label.

In Wyoming’s House District 55, Bethany Baldes, who in 2018 lost a state House race against an incumbent GOP majority leader by only 53 votes, lost to Republican Ember Oakley by only 32 votes, 2,058 to 2,026.

In other L.P. races of note around America, Donald Rainwater, in a three-way race for governor of Indiana, has earned 13.1 percent of the vote with well over 90 percent of the results in. That is right in line with polling from last month, even though third-party results tend to fall precipitously from earlier polls when actual votes are cast. Rainwater came in ahead of Democrat Woody Myers in nearly two dozen counties around the state. Republican incumbent Eric Holcomb won reelection.

In Arkansas, with 81 percent of the vote counted, the L.P.’s Ricky Harrington got 33.3 percent in his race to dethrone Republican Sen. Tom Cotton. (No Democrat was on the ballot.) Harrington won outright in two counties. In Pulaski County, which contains the state capitol of Little Rock, Harrington leads Cotton 59 percent to 41 percent.

In Kentucky’s Senate race, which Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won with 58 percent of the vote, Libertarian Brad Barron got 4 percent while losing Democrat Amy McGrath earned 38 percent.

In Montana, L.P. gubernatorial candidate Lyman Bishop currently has around 3.5 percent with about 52 percent of the votes counted. That’s more than 10,000 votes in a race where the declared winner—Republican Greg Gianforte—is presently ahead of Democrat Mike Cooney by about that many votes.

In Rhode Island, Libertarian William L. Hunt Jr. came within 150 votes of winning a state General Assembly race in District 68 against Democrat June Speakman.

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No winner was determined on Election Day in three of the most important states for this year’s presidential contest: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

That means neither President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden has clinched the election. And there’s a good chance that it will be several days before one of them does.

Wisconsin says there's no way they are announcing a winner tonight

Michigan needs until Friday

Pennsylvania isn't coming out anytime soon, either

Per officials in those states

— Saleha Mohsin (@SalehaMohsin) November 4, 2020

This is not an unexpected outcome! In fact, it is exactly the sort of scenario that political scientists and media outlets—including Reason—have been highlighting for months as a serious possibility. Three major factors that combined to delay a result: a large number of absentee ballots, high turnout, and a neck-to-neck race in several swing states.

In Pennsylvania, for example, state law prohibited election officials from even beginning to count the estimated 2 million mail-in ballots until polls closed on Tuesday. Some counties decided to hold off on opening those ballots until Wednesday morning. Unless in-person votes cast on Tuesday gave either Biden or Trump an unexpectedly insurmountable lead, there was never much hope that Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes would be decided on Election Day itself.

Wisconsin is in a similar situation, with state officials forbidden from counting mail-in ballots early, as most other states do. About 1.9 million absentee ballots have been returned in Wisconsin, so unless in-person votes cast on Tuesday gave either Biden or Trump an unexpectedly insurmountable lead…well, you get the point.

In Michigan, some mail-in ballots were processed ahead of Election Day, but Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson tells Politico that it will likely take until Friday for counting to be completed.

As of 12:45 on Wednesday morning, neither Biden nor Trump had declared victory or conceded the race. In brief remarks delivered from Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said he was “feeling good about where we are” but urged patience as the votes are counted.

“We knew this was gonna go long, but who knew it was going to go into tomorrow morning—maybe longer?” Biden said.

Around the same time, Trump tweeted (and then deleted) an unfounded allegation that the election was being stolen.

Early results on Tuesday seemingly shut the door on the possibility of a Biden landslide, but the Democratic challenger also hasn’t lost any states that were essential to his most likely paths to an Electoral College victory. With more than a dozen states still up for grabs, the only state that appears to have “flipped” from its 2016 result is Arizona, which some outlets have called for Biden.

The Arizona results could be telling, since the state was one that processed mail-in ballots ahead of Election Day. Biden supporters hoping for a “blue shift” in results as mail-in ballots are counted in places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin may take heart from the outcome in Arizona.

On the other hand, losing Arizona’s 11 electoral votes is not a critical blow to Trump’s campaign either. He seems to have avoided a wipeout by holding Florida and possibly Georgia—and Republicans appear on track to hold the Senate as well.

So the outcome will take a while to be settled. Assume good will on the part of election officials and volunteers facing unprecedented circumstances. Let all the votes be counted. Have patience.

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Voters in South Dakota today said yes to legalizing both medical and recreational marijuana. With 80 percent of precincts reporting, more than two-thirds of voters favored Initiated Measure 26, which allows patients with a physician-certified “debilitating medical condition” to use marijuana as a medicine. Constitutional Amendment A, which allows recreational use and creates a licensing system for commercial production and distribution, was winning by five points.

South Dakota joins 33 other states that already recognized cannabis as a medicine, including its neighbors North Dakota, Montana, and Minnesota. Mississippi voters also approved a medical marijuana initiative today, bringing the total to 35. South Dakota is the 14th state to allow recreational use, joining New Jersey and Arizona, where voters approved legalization today, and 11 other states that had already taken that step. It is the first state without an existing medical marijuana program to approve broader legalization.

Measure 26 applies to patients who suffer from “cachexia or wasting syndrome; severe, debilitating pain; severe nausea; seizures; or severe and persistent muscle spasms” caused by “a chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition or its treatment.” It allows qualified patients to obtain marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries and possess up to three ounces at a time. They also can seek permission to grow up to three plants at home.

Constitutional Amendment A allows adults 21 or older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana in public and, if they lived in jurisdictions with no cannabis retailers, grow up to three plants at home. The state Department of Revenue is charged with licensing and regulating growers, wholesalers, and retailers. The deadline for writing regulations is April 1. The state will collect a 15 percent tax on marijuana sales.

A Mason-Dixon poll conducted from October 19 through 21 put support for medical marijuana at 74 percent. In the same poll, just 51 percent of voters wanted to legalize recreational use; 44 percent were opposed, while 5 percent were undecided.

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On a sunny Friday afternoon in July 2014, James King, a 21-year-old college student, was walking to a summer job in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when he was accosted by two unshaven men wearing jeans and baseball caps who asked his name and grabbed his wallet. When King tried to flee, the men tackled him, choked him unconscious, and punched him in the face over and over again.

The men, it turned out, were cops, and for six years King has been trying to hold them accountable for their actions that day. Next Monday the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether he should get that chance. If not, police officers will have another legal trick they can use to violate people’s constitutional rights with impunity.

“Are you mugging me?” King asked before trying to get away. As he was being choked and beaten, he cried for help and asked bystanders to call the police, which several of them did.

The assailants, FBI agent Douglas Brownback and Grand Rapids detective Todd Allen, were looking for a 26-year-old man named Aaron Davison, who allegedly had stolen liquor and empty soda cans from his former employer’s apartment. They had a driver’s license photo of Davison, which looked nothing like King.

Brownback and Allen, who were members of a state-federal fugitive task force, nevertheless claimed they reasonably believed King was Davison, based on the suspect’s general description and the fact that King was in the same neighborhood where Davison had a habit of buying soda. They also said they identified themselves as police officers, which seems highly doubtful given King’s reaction.

“I thought they were trying to mug me,” King told an officer who arrived in response to bystanders’ 911 calls. Even at that point, he was asking whether the men were “real police.”

Because a Grand Rapids officer ordered witnesses to delete their cellphone recordings of the beating (ostensibly “for the safety” of “undercover officers”), we have no video of the struggle. But witness accounts suggest that Allen—who choked King and, after the panicked college student responded by biting his arm, hit him in the face and head “as hard as I could, as fast as I could, and as many times as I could”—was out of control.

“They were pounding his head for no reason,” a bystander says in a cellphone recording. “They’re gonna kill this man,” a 911 caller said.

King’s first stop after this harrowing encounter was the hospital; his next stop was jail. He was charged with three felonies for assaulting Brownback and Allen, but a jury acquitted him.

After a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit that King filed in response to the incident, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit last year ruled that he could pursue his constitutional claims against Brownback and Allen. It said a jury could reasonably conclude that the cops violated the Fourth Amendment by detaining King without reasonable suspicion, taking his wallet, preventing him from leaving, and using excessive force against a man who thought he was being mugged.

In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the U.S. government argues that King should never get his day in court, because part of his lawsuit—claims against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA)—was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. King’s lawyers, joined by members of Congress, civil liberties groups, and several FTCA experts, argue that the government’s reading of that statute contradicts its plain language and intent.

According to the government, a law aimed at providing victims of official abuse with additional remedies leaves King worse off than he would have been if it had never been passed: He not only cannot use that statute; he has no recourse at all.

“These officers did something that was illegal and then charged me,” King says. “The system closed around them and helped them get away with that. There is zero accountability.”

© Copyright 2020 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

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