Medical Marijuana in NC -- Nowhere Again

 

It's just not in the Raleigh Republican DNA to want to help people out:

Legislation that would legalize marijuana use for medicinal purposes in North Carolina is probably dead for the rest of this year’s General Assembly session, House Speaker Tim Moore said Tuesday, citing opposition by many fellow Republicans in his chamber.

A bill that would lay out the structure for patients with serious and life-ending illnesses to lawfully obtain cannabis and smoke or consume it passed the Senate by a wide margin over four months ago. But it has idled in the House ever since, save for a committee hearing on the measure in early June. (NandO)

Sen. Bill Rabon

Senator Bill Rabon has been pushing legalization for years, based on his own experience after being diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. Smoking marijuana saved my life, he's told reporters, and when he smoked it at age 48, it shure nuff wasn't legal. Rabon, who's also the Republican chair of the Senate Rules Committee, actually played a little hardball, according to the reporting of the Associated Press:

Rabon, the marijuana bill’s chief sponsor, tacked a floor amendment onto an unrelated health care bill favored by the House that said it couldn’t become law unless his bill also became law.

Apparently, bluff didn't work. Even the most restrictive, begrudging medical marijuana law does not interest hardline Republicans in the House.

Did Bill Rabon Smoke Dope?

 

Bill Rabon

Bill Rabon, the powerful chair of the NC Senate Rules Committee, dodged the direct question of whether he himself had smoked marijuana during a grueling bout with chemotherapy to treat colon cancer. But that experience in 1999, well before he was elected to the Senate in the 2010 Tea Party uprising, fueled his determination to make medical cannabis legal in North Carolina (Senate bill 711), which now looks likely to pass because of Rabon's sponsorship. He's among the most conservative of Republicans, and he's bringing many of his conservative brethren in the NC General Assembly over to his side.

SB 711 would make North Carolina one of the last states to legalize medical cannabis. California was the first (naturally), but don't think for a minute that North Carolina will be unleashed by Rabon's bill from Victorian abstemiousness. Rabon and the other Republicans supporting the bill emphasize that it will be the most restrictive in the country. The list of "debilitating medical conditions" eligible for treatment with cannabis remains narrow and highly prescriptive. "Chronic pain" doesn't qualify. If you're claiming PTSD, you better have proof of military service in a combat zone. There'll be a higher-than-normal sales tax for consumers. Rabon's bill proposes charging dispensaries $50,000 to get a license, plus another $10,000 a year to keep it, with extra fees if they open multiple locations.

General Assembly Republicans want it clear that no one is going to have fun because of SB 711. The promotion of happiness would be very "off-brand" for North Carolina's Republican legislative majority.

The NC Senate Finance Committee passed the bill on Wednesday after hearing some testimony from the public. One gentleman said "he would qualify for medical marijuana if this bill passes, due to a tumor. But he questioned why there needs to be a higher-than-normal sales tax on marijuana, plus extra costs imposed on growing equipment, plus fees on dispensaries. 'The patient will pay that,' [he] told lawmakers, later adding: 'I’m going to go to the black market if you put a 10%, 18% tax on it.' ”

Will Doran reported, "Democrats in both chambers support the bill, although some say it shouldn’t be as strict as the Republicans backing it want. Some Democratic lawmakers have argued for full legalization, as Virginia just did in addition to another handful of states, while others haven’t pushed for full legalization but have asked — so far in vain — for the list of medical ailments to be expanded to include things like chronic pain or migraines."

"No" was the Republican answer.

More Dirty, Rotten Politics in Raleigh

Bill Rabon

Some Republicans in the NC General Assembly want to change the state's constitution to force judges at all levels, including the Supreme Court, to run for reelection every two years. That would in effect put judges into constant campaign mode and further erode the independence of the state's judiciary.

The constitutional amendment filed by Rep. Bill Rabon of Bladen County is intended as a direct slap at judges who have found so much legislation passed by this General Assembly plainly unconstitutional. If judges uphold new Republican laws, they're acting like wise judges, but if they strike laws down, then they're "legislating from the bench."

Republican Rep. David Lewis (Harnett County) underscored the political calculations behind the Rabon amendment in a comment he made to WUNC: "If you’re going to act like a legislator, perhaps you should run like one” -- that is, run every two years like members of the General Assembly do.

One of the last principled Republicans in the state, former Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, has already come out strongly against the Rabon amendment:

“It’s just wrong,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Bob Orr

Orr said the amendment sends the wrong message to the judiciary that if judges won’t rule the GOP’s way, lawmakers will retaliate. 

“That’s just fundamentally repugnant to everything I believe,” he said....

“Not only [are two-year terms] a bad idea, it’s just fundamentally a bad policy. I don’t think the legislators or the public want judges to be full-time candidates.”

The General Assembly has adjourned until January, so perhaps Dictator Phil Berger and Go-Along House Speaker Tim Moore won't call another special session to ram this thing through prior to the first of the year.

In the meantime, people need to let Jonathan Jordan (Jonathan.Jordan@ncleg.net) and Deanna Ballard (Deanna.Ballard@ncleg.net) know that the Rabon amendment is dirty, rotten politics.

This Week in "Eff You!" Government

Yes, the honorables convened in Raleigh right now are still pursuing what we've come to think of as "eff you" government ... "eff you!" teachers and schools! "Eff you!" cities and towns! "Eff you!" you mother-effing environmentalists!

It's hard to keep up:

1. The last small protection for homeowners -- protest petitions in zoning cases -- is about to be eliminated from North Carolina law, where it's provided a tiny last-ditch shield for some neighborhoods encroached on by high-dollar, big-muscle bullies. "Eff you! neighborhoods."

2. On Monday Governor Squishy signed a law repealing a statutory requirement for air pollution rules for fracking operations, opening the door for the immediate issuance of licenses to gas exploration in the state. "Eff you! water-drinkers."

3. Also on Monday, after a three-judge panel ruled in favor of McCrory in his separation-of-powers lawsuit against the legislature, that same legislature (well, its Republican overlords) decided in retaliation that it will confirm no executive branch appointments until it gets its way. "Eff you! Governor Squishy." (It's unusual that I'm taking up for our sadly befuddled chief executive, but these are unusual times.)

4. The scheme to steal Wake County commissioner elections back for Republicans is now in the NC House, after the NC Senate passed it in record time. "Eff you! Wake County voters."

5. Sen. Bill Rabon introduced a "local bill" to eliminate the office of Coroner in Brunswick County, an elected official who has somehow offended Sen. Rabon. “My position is a county position, elected by the people of Brunswick County,” Coroner Greg White said. “What I have learned is that Mr. Rabon did not have any conversation with county officials, the county manager or the county attorney. County officials had no say, had no input into this matter, which I think is disrespectful to them.” "Eff you! Brunswick County voters."

NC Senate: Killing Puppies

Ann McCrory with her two pets

A North Carolina law regulating the humane treatment of dogs in our state's notorious "puppy mills" ... that was one of the few original things that Governor McCrory has advocated for, perhaps mainly because his wife Ann McCrory took up the cause.

Kinda sweet. Certainly innocuous enough. Pass a mamby-pamby law, and no one gets hurt.

The NC House passed House Bill 930 last year. Ann McCrory sat in the House gallery and watched, then held a press conference praising the action. But then nothing happened in the NC Senate.

Something just happened yesterday in the NC Senate with reference to H 930: Senate Rules Committee Chairman Tom Apodaca, in an apparent fit of pique, killed the bill in the Senate. Killed it dead.

Trying to figure out why leads to one man, Republican Senator Bill Rabon, who represents Brunswick County and happens to be a veterinarian. He happens also to have a smutty mouth and coincidentally a tall impression of himself as a powerful politician, a dangerous combination.

A "profanity-laced recording" of Sen. Rabon surfaced yesterday at WRAL. Rabon was taped before a citizens' group saying in essence, "Over my mutha-effing body will that puppy mill law ever pass the Senate!"

Rabon said a good deal more in the recording:

1.  He said that Republican leaders in the Senate -- including, presumably, himself -- had already decided that the bill wouldn't even be taken up in the Senate in the "short session" this year. “That bill is not going to pass,” Rabon told the group. “Angels in heaven cannot make that bill pass."

2.  He used obscenity to refer to House members who passed H 930: “They [the House] are a bunch of [expletive]. They got political heat. They said, ‘We can no longer sit on this. We know the Senate will not pass it because it’s a piece of crap, so we’ll send it to them, and they’ll take the heat.’ Ladies and gentlemen, that is politics 101.”

3. The "political heat" Rabon says melted the House's resolve came from Ann McCrory and her little hubby, and Rabon expressed contempt for them too: "He claimed that Ann McCrory's advocacy, including a visit to the House chamber to watch the May 9 vote, was 'against all laws.' 'There is a strong line between opinion and lobbying,' Rabon said. 'When you pick up the phone and you are in a position of power and call individual legislators and offer advice or praise or this or that, you are, under the law, lobbying, and you must be a registered lobbyist in this state to do that.' ”

Intelligent people dispute Rabon's understanding of the lobbyist law, but we'll let that pass.

4. (Here's where it gets really interesting!) Rabon said the "puppy mill" law shouldn't pass because it's too weak ("It's too weak") and because it's too strong ("standards for humane treatment could too easily be interpreted by a judge to apply to livestock as well as pets").

5. The issue for Rabon appears to be money, especially money flowing out of pig farms, which are abundant in his part of the world: “animal husbandry in this state ... is an $80 billion industry – larger than the other top five industries in the state,” he said. “There is a LOT of money involved." For Republicans, it always comes down to the money, and Rabon evidently fears that H 930 might force factory farms to stop the brutality.

6. Rabon bragged about his own power. He bragged a lot:

He told the group he would introduce a stronger bill in the future, but he wouldn’t give a date or year.

 ”When I do it, it will be done at the right time, and it will pass,” he said. “I’m in the top five members in power in the Senate. The best shot you folks have ever had, you’re talking to."

Brunswick Sheriff John Ingram, who also attended the meeting, asked Rabon whether a stronger bill would be able to pass the House as well as the Senate.

 “If it’s sponsored by me, 100 percent,” Rabon responded. “It’s that simple, folks. I don’t mean to brag.”

Well, of course he meant to brag. But did Senator Apodaca kill the bill because Rabon pulled back the curtain on the Republican leadership? Is Apodaca embarrassed?

The Naked Power That Should Embarrass Every Fair-Minded North Carolinian

Senate Bill 10, passed on a party-line vote yesterday in a NC Senate committee, would simply fire all existing members of several key consumer and environmental boards and allow the Republican Governor to replace those members with his own partisans (more details below). "What have [board members] done to deserve being fired?" asked Sen. Josh Stein (D--Wake County). Chief sponsor of S10, Bill Rabon (R-Brunswick) answered rather frankly that the bill will give the Republicans "a political edge." No kidding! The boards subject to mass firings were created by the General Assembly to protect consumers, injured workers, and the environment. "They're going after everything so they can put their stamp on it," Sen. Stein warned. "Commissions are supposed to be independent; they're not supposed to be ideological. And I fear they're trying to politicize state government in a way that will hurt North Carolinians." Sen. Rabon's bill (S10) would fire all the existing members of the following important boards and commissions, and you have to guess what a wholly partisan membership, appointed by a Republican governor, will do once they're installed. (That's Sen. Rabon pictured to the left, looking extraordinarily unembarrassed.) The North Carolina Utilities Commission: regulates the rates and services of all public utilities in North Carolina, including electric, telephone, natural gas, water, wastewater, water resale, household goods transportation, busses, brokers, and ferryboats. The Environmental Management Commission: responsible for adopting rules for the protection, preservation and enhancement of the state's air and water resources. The Coastal Resources Commission: establishes policies for the N.C. Coastal Management Program and adopts implementing rules for both CAMA and the N.C. Dredge and Fill Act. The commission designates areas of environmental concern, adopts rules and policies for coastal development within those areas, and certifies local land-use plans. The North Carolina Lottery Commission: supervises and administers the education lottery. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission: conserves North Carolina’s wildlife resources and their habitats and provides programs and opportunities that allow hunters, anglers, boaters, and other outdoor enthusiasts to enjoy wildlife-associated recreation.

Hump Day Smorasbord

Whaaa? Another Republican senator in the NC General Assembly, Southport's Bill Rabon, publicly queasy about mucking up the NC Constitution with a ban on gay marriage?

A new "Fire Renee Ellmers" Facebook page. Dyspepsia, thy name is Tea Party.

Heath Shuler's got that Blue Dog shuffle down pat.

It's official: NC GOP will use queerfear to try for a voter stampede in Nov. 2012. What fine human beings we have serving us in public office!