The word on the street is that Congress is set to finally take action on legislation in the coming weeks that will allow banks to do business with the cannabis industry. It is known as the SAFE Banking Act, a measure that has attracted bipartisan support, and is quite possibly, depending on which na\u00efve news force is reporting, the most likely step to ending federal marijuana prohibition in the United States.<\/p>\n
But while the SAFE Banking Act has enough support to become the first concrete marijuana-related measure to make it out of the U.S. House of Representatives in all of history, there isn\u2019t much hope that it will find the kind of endorsement needed to make it all the way. So if you\u2019re feeling optimistic about the future of pot reform in America, don\u2019t. Because Congress is still entirely too flawed to come together on this issue in 2019.<\/p>\n
Cannabis advocates rejoiced earlier this year when the House Financial Committee\u00a0approved<\/a>\u00a0the SAFE Banking Act, setting it up to go before the full House for a vote in the near future. Well, the time has come for lawmakers in the lower chamber to party. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer recently\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0CNN that he intends to bring the banking bill to the House floor for a vote before the end of September.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re discussing it with members, but it hasn\u2019t been scheduled just yet,\u201d Mariel Saez, a spokesperson for Hoyer\u2019s office confirmed with the new source on Monday.<\/p>\n In all seriousness, as long as there aren\u2019t any pesky amendments introduced in the 11th hour, the SAFE Banking Act has found the approval necessary to move out of the House, as is. The bill has attracted a massive\u00a0outpouring of support<\/a>\u00a0from Democrats (180 co-sponsors) and it has more Republican backers (26 co-sponsors) than one might expect. In fact, the banking bill is almost keyed up exactly how marijuana legislation needs to be in order to stand a fighting chance at going the distance in the halls of Congress.<\/p>\n Only the support for this potentially groundbreaking legislation is, while bipartisan in some regards, still pretty much one-sided. The Senate, a crucial component in getting this thing stamped and sent to the desk of President Trump for a signature, is not at all enthused about pot banking, and there is no sign that the upper chamber is going to so much as entertain the bill, much less push it through.<\/p>\n Everyone keeps forgetting that no matter how much the House wants to pass pot reform in 2019, the Senate still isn\u2019t there. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the man who championed\u00a0industrial hemp legalization 2.0<\/a>, last year, still isn\u2019t very keen on marijuana. He has\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0before that he has absolutely no interest in getting behind legislation aimed at legalizing marijuana in the United States. But more than he hates weed, at least the one that gets people stoned, the Kentucky Reaper despises the Democratic agenda. And while he didn\u2019t expressly point to pot when he stood before his constituents earlier this year pledging to put a stop to any Democratic proposal that crosses his path, McConnell likely has a total ban on putting anything led by Democrats on the Senate docket.<\/p>\n \u201cI would be shocked if Sen. McConnell wanted to spend a single second of floor time on weed,\u201d one veteran lobbyist\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Politico.<\/p>\n Even if McConnell is growing soft when it comes to marijuana, and that\u2019s a big\u00a0if<\/em>, chances are the big cheese of the Senate still isn\u2019t going to entertain the SAFE Banking bill if it makes it out of the House. Not with an election year on the horizon. He\u2019s not going to want to show the American voters that the Democrats have any real power on Capitol Hill. And as of now, they don\u2019t. No, the only way pot reform is going to make it out of Congress this year, regardless of whether it is a modest banking bill or one geared toward ending prohibition nationwide, is if it is a plan concocted by President Trump and Mitch McConnell behind closed doors. That\u2019s the only way this plays out in 2019, and the potential of that happening doesn\u2019t seem likely at this juncture.<\/p>\n House Democrats could also totally fumble on the banking bill prior to the vote, jamming it up with unnecessary amendments that not everyone agrees upon, putting it in a position where it doesn\u2019t even make it to the Senate. One thing is sure, we are perhaps just weeks away from finding out who the real friends of the cannabis industry are in Congress. You\u2019re going to want to take notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, House lawmakers are optimistic that the SAFE Banking bill will find a way to succeed. U.S. Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, who chairs the all-powerful House Rules Committee, said earlier this week that \u201cIt\u2019s a political liability not to take action,\u201d on the banking bill. Members of Congress and Senate will have to answer to their constituents if they don\u2019t act on this,\u201d he\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0Boston Herald.<\/p>\n But do they really care?<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong>\u00a0are you holding out hope?<\/p>\n The post Marijuana Banking Bill Is Probably Doomed in 2019<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The word on the street is that Congress is set to finally take action on legislation in the coming weeks that will allow banks to do business with the cannabis industry. It is known as the SAFE Banking Act, a measure that has attracted bipartisan support, and is quite possibly,Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[290,4602,50,170,4552,11326,7565],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38258,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38257\/revisions\/38258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Marijuana Banking Bill Is Probably Doomed in 2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"