GOP leaders call on Pelosi for marijuana legalization bill as relief...

Republican lawmakers have condemned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after Democratic leaders announced a bill to legalize marijuana at the federal level would hit the House floor on Wednesday.

Majority House Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Said the chamber will consider several bills, including the Marijuana Desirability, Reinvestment and De-listing Act (MORE), and the vote will take place from Wednesday to Friday.

Another bill to be considered seeks to ban the breeding and private ownership of big cats, which featured in the Netflix “Tiger King” docuseries earlier this year.

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But Republicans, many of whom are strong critics of legalizing marijuana despite being legal in many of their states, took to Twitter to accuse Pelosi, D-Calif., Of prioritizing “cannabis and cats’ rather than looking for a bipartisan coronavirus relief bill.

“This week, your Democratic majority in the House is tackling the tough issues with a vote on legalizing pot and banning tiger ownership,” Minority Parliamentary Leader Kevin McCarthy wrote on Twitter on Monday. “Nothing for small businesses. Nothing for the reopening of schools. Nothing on the fight against the pandemic. Just cannabis and cats. ”

While the House will not vote on funding for COVID-19 aid this week, the speaker said she spoke with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin about the “bipartisan progress” that had been made in the research of a solution, which attempts to marry both Democrats and Democrats. The stubborn demands of the Republican.

A coronavirus stimulus package has been delayed for months largely because Democrats are looking for a package of around $ 2.2 trillion, while Republicans do not want to spend more than $ 500 billion on aid, this which is a stalemate which resulted in the rejection of several back-up plans from both sides of the aisle.

After speaking with President-elect Joe Biden, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said it was a priority to push through a stimulus package during the lame session of Congress.

“Secretary Mnuchin has said he will consider the proposal that Leader Schumer and I made to Leader McConnell and Leader McCarthy last night and the bipartisan Senate proposal unveiled today,” Pelosi said in a statement Tuesday evening. “Further relief from COVID is long overdue and must be embraced in this lame duck session.”

The decision to vote on the MORE law is not as unexpected as some Republican lawmakers apparently believe, as it was on the chamber register in September.

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But some centrist Democratic lawmakers feared that enacting federal weed legalization ahead of the election, when COVID-19 legislation had failed, could play badly with voters, the Marijuana Movement reported earlier this year.

“The MORE law remains a critical part of the House Democrats’ plan to tackle systemic racism and advance criminal justice reform, and we pledge to put it to a vote before the end of the year,” Hoyer said in a statement. according to the publication. “Right now, the House is relentlessly focused on getting a deal to avoid a damaging government shutdown and continues to do its job to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Although Republicans in Congress remain broadly opposed to legalizing marijuana, two staunchly conservative states voted to legalize the plant for medical purposes on election day.

Mississippi and South Dakota passed legislation allowing the medical use of marijuana, joining 34 other states.

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But South Dakota has also joined with Arizona, New Jersey and Montana in allowing adults to possess recreational marijuana – making 15 states that now allow possession, USA reported. Today.

And despite Congressional GOP’s qualms about drugs, a Gallup poll released just after the election found 68% of Americans actually support legalizing marijuana, a 2% increase from the year last.