Pubdate: Fri, 27 Feb 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Authors: Robert Mccartney, Aaron C. Davis and Mike Debonis

A DEAL WITH POT ADVOCATES LIGHTED WAY TO D.C. LAW

Reaching Out to Hill Also Helped Bowser Ensure Low-Key Launch

The mayor met with marijuana advocates to minimize drama. After 
staring down congressional Republicans who had threatened her with 
prison, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser helped usher in legal pot in the 
District this week with minimal fuss. But the work actually began 11 
months ago in a Mount Pleasant coffee shop, when she struck a deal 
with marijuana advocates.

Bowser secured a promise from leaders of the city's pot movement to 
keep legalization a low-key affair to avoid needlessly provoking 
opponents. Even though she hadn't yet won the Democratic primary, 
Bowser knew she didn't want to be mayor when images of weed-smoking 
crowds packed in public parks or around national monuments emanated 
from the city on national news programs.

When legalization took effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday with celebrators 
inhaling in the privacy of their homes, it was the kind of 
understated, even anticlimactic moment that is becoming typical of 
Bowser's governing style.

Bowser had spent her first 55 days mostly on defense - reacting to 
snowstorms, a crush of new homeless families and a fatal meltdown in 
a Metro tunnel. This week, her cautious and inclusive approach earned 
its first high-profile success. There may yet be a price to pay in 
the mayor's relations on Capitol Hill. Spurned GOP representatives 
could call hearings to hammer Bowser and other D.C. officials. Rep. 
Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who leads a subcommittee handling the city's 
affairs, suggested that certain funding for the District could become 
"very difficult" in the next fiscal year.

Still, with opponents lacking a clear option to block Bowser right 
away, it seemed likely that the District's determination to legalize 
marijuana, albeit with numerous restrictions, will continue at least 
through Congress's fall budget season.

As a bonus, Bowser secured national attention for the District's lack 
of full self-governing rights. National media that yawn over the 
city's quest for budget autonomy were gripped by the spectacle of GOP 
representatives warning the mayor in writing that she could face 
prison for allowing a voter-approved law to take effect.

"Any time I can get a home-rule issue on the front page of CNN's Web 
site, then I think that's a huge victory for trying to right the 
injustice," D.C. Council member David Grosso (I-At Large) said.

Making her case

It started at the March 24 meeting at Flying Fish Coffee and Tea. The 
pot advocates wanted Bowser's backing for Initiative 71, but she was 
concerned about the potential backlash from Congress.

Bowser agreed to say on the campaign trail that residents should have 
the right to decide the issue, and she later signed the petition to 
put the marijuana measure on the ballot. In return, Adam Eidinger, 
head of the D.C. Cannabis Campaign, ruled out holding mass 
demonstrations where marijuana would be used.

"I said I would personally not organize a smoke-in anywhere in the 
city," Eidinger said. "We wouldn't turn it into Seattle, with a 
smoke-in every year for 300,000 people."

Eidinger also spread the word that Bowser was his choice for mayor.

Several D.C. Council members and political observers praised Bowser 
this week for successfully walking the line between standing up for 
District rights and avoiding feisty rhetoric - or a visible spectacle 
involving marijuana - that risked baiting Congress.

Historian George Derek Musgrove noted that Bowser reached out to Rep. 
Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the committee with jurisdiction 
over D.C. legislative matters, at the same news conference Wednesday 
where her actions defied him. (She had also placed a call to Chaffetz 
before she addressed the cameras.)

"Her press conference was impressive. Not only was she firm . . . 
standing up for the wishes of 7 in 10 voters, but she was shrewd, 
making her case in a manner that left room for a continuing 
relationship with Chaffetz." said Musgrove, a D.C. resident who 
teaches at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and is writing 
a book about race and democracy in the city.

Once at the news conference, Bowser referred to what she termed 
Chaffetz's "bullying" of the District. But she tempered that with 
several conciliatory appeals.

"A lot of reasonable people have a different view of this issue," 
Bowser said. "We think there are perfectly reasonable ways to resolve 
those things without us threatening him, nor he us."

Quiet outreach on Capitol Hill

Bowser's bargain with advocates was only one step in what turned into 
an extended effort to implement Initiative 71, which was approved 
overwhelmingly in a referendum on Election Day in November, when she 
also won the mayoralty.

Bowser made a point early in her term of personally reaching out to 
top congressional leaders, including House Speaker John A. Boehner 
(R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). That appeared 
to pay off Wednesday, when Boehner stayed out of Bowser's 
confrontation with Chaffetz, Meadows and Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) and 
Pelosi issued a statement backing the mayor.

The mayor also worked quietly but systematically to plan for 
Initiative 71 and firm up support from the D.C. Council and the 
city's new elected attorney general, Karl A. Racine.

With the deadline for the measure to become law fast approaching 
earlier this month, a flurry of meetings and e-mail began circulating 
among Bowser's advisers, top commanders at the police department and 
Racine's aides.

By keeping those deliberations private, Bowser shortened the time 
House Republicans would have to push back against the pending law.

In her first days in office, the mayor had agreed with D.C. Council 
Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) to test Congress's willingness to upend 
the marijuana measure by sending it to Capitol Hill for review. But 
she waited until there were just over 38 hours remaining before pot 
would be legalized to confirm details on how the city would forge 
ahead once that happened.

The District's confrontation with congressional conservatives arose 
over a provision inserted in a budget bill Congress passed in 
December. Republicans said the measure prevented the District from 
spending any money to implement Initiative 71 legalizing marijuana.

District leaders said, instead, that Congress's December action came 
too late because Initiative 71 had already been certified as approved 
by voters. Bowser's view is that Congress's action means mainly that 
the city can't set up a regulated market for buying and selling pot.

The problem for congressional opponents is that they have virtually 
no way to enforce their interpretation of the law.

Another problem for the opponents: divisions and distractions among 
House Republicans.

A tea party conservative, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), said he was 
"glad" Chaffetz and Meadows had taken action to curb the District.

"We have to assert federal supremacy over the District of Columbia 
just like we have to assert our supremacy under Article I over the 
president of the United States," King said.

But even the hard-liners are focused now on lambasting President 
Obama over immigration. And the establishment GOP isn't inclined to 
get directly involved.

Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, 
declined to criticize the city's moves in strong terms.

Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) said the city benefited from 
an "exquisite" legal situation because Congress had nothing to block.

"Our inaction is the action," Cheh said. "What we're simply saying 
is, our police are not going to arrest people for having a small 
amount of marijuana. . . . We can just sit on our hands."

She also said Bowser's handling of it typified her approach to governing.

"She's resolute when she reaches a decision, but she's also 
characteristically careful," Cheh said. "It's a scenario that really 
plays directly into those qualities."

Cautious even in apparent victory, Bowser on Thursday declined many 
requests to appear on several national news programs - although she 
did accept one from Rachel Maddow. But asked by reporters about Day 1 
of legalization, Bowser looked up, gently smiling, and said, "The sky 
didn't fall."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom