President Donald Trump bypassed Congress and signed executive orders to extend coronavirus relief measures beyond the end date of the previous relief bill on Saturday, Aug. 8. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which was passed by Congress in March, provided an additional $600 per week in unemployment benefits until the first day of August. Congress failed to renew that vital bill because of petty infighting about details, especially marijuana reform.
Two coronavirus relief bills were pitted against each other in Congress. The Senate Republicans’ suggestion for a relief bill is a $1 trillion package that would slash the unemployment aid to $200 per week and provide tax cuts and lawsuit protections for businesses. The House Democrats created the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act, a $3 trillion package extending jobless aid until January, reserving $1 trillion for state and local governments, $200 billion in rental and mortgage assistance, as well as more Democratic priorities like election security and food assistance. The House of Representatives passed the HEROES Act in May, and it has been stuck in the Senate for three months because Republicans refuse to approve it.
The executive orders signed by Trump due to his party’s refusal to consider the HEROES Act are very flawed, and many points weren’t made clear in the text. The executive orders call for “an extra $400 a week” in unemployment benefits, instead of $600; but instead of federal dollars, up to 25% of that sum must be paid out by the states. Unemployed people might not receive any money at all if the state they live in doesn’t agree to enter an agreement with the Trump Administration, as they will have to develop a new system to deliver aid without the support of Congress. The executive orders do not block evictions or set money aside to help homeowners and renters, either.
Republican Favor Marijuana Prohibition Over COVID Relief
One of the key reasons why Republicans refuse to pass the HEROES Act is that it includes some marijuana reform measures. Take it from Marc Short, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, when he had to point out a single point he disagreed with in the HEROES Act: “The Democrats have put forward a liberal wish list, all sorts of things unrelated to coronavirus. One is that they have provided guarantees for banking access for marijuana growers; that has absolutely nothing to do with coronavirus.”
This is the one talking point that Republicans have repeatedly held onto since May to justify refusing to extend coronavirus relief measures beyond August. They have, in particular, pointed out the fact that the Act “mentions the word cannabis 68 times, more than the words jobs or hire are mentioned in the entire bill,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.
The fact that the word cannabis is used 68 times in the bill has become the soundbite repeated by numerous Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Jodey Arrington, Sen. Bill Cassidy, Sen. John Thune, Rep. Doug Lamborn, Rep. Ross Spano, Rep. Mike Johnson, Sen. John Kennedy, Rep. Kevin Brady, Rep. Doug Collins and many more. This convenient factoid ignores the fact that the word cannabis is used exclusively in a small section of the Act, where it is used up to three times per sentence, and not once outside of it. The part relating to cannabis makes up a measly 25 pages out of the 1,854 pages of the HEROES Act.
But what is that marijuana reform measure that Republicans think is so awful that they’d rather throw the entire coronavirus relief bill in the trash and leave millions of Americans in dire straits to avoid it? You can find it on page 1,088 of the Act, under the name “SAFE Banking Act of 2020.” It aims to prohibit federal actors from penalizing banks that provide financial services to legal cannabis businesses. Currently, even in states where it is legal to sell adult-use marijuana and where the industry brings billions in tax revenue, cannabis businesses often can’t access banking services; that’s because cannabis is federally illegal and banks can be punished for offering services to legal cannabis businesses. They have to do all their business in cash, which makes social distancing all the more difficult.
“The SAFE Banking Act of 2020 would address the increased health risk of spreading COVID-19 on bank notes and coins, as well as the increased public safety risk associated with this cash-only industry. At a critical time, safe banking will help protect jobs and encourage lending in our communities,” Rep. Perlmutter said in a speech in support of the HEROES Act.
But Senate Republicans refuse to hear it or even to admit that marijuana-related measures make up an infinitesimally small part of the relief package. This has not been helped by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who made a blunder when trying to defend the inclusion of the SAFE Banking Act in the bill. When challenged by a reporter saying that cannabis is unrelated to coronavirus, Pelosi replied, “I don’t agree with you that cannabis is not related to this. This is a therapy that has proven successful.” She then stuttered her way through a meandering explanation that marijuana represents a very small part of the bill, before concluding, “That has nothing to do with coronavirus.”
Pelosi’s misguided comment that cannabis is a therapy for coronavirus, which is completely false, has also been one of the Republicans’ rallying cries against the HEROES Act. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Republican House Minority Leader, mocked her comment, and so did Sen. McConnell, who took the floor to say of Pelosi, “I hope she shares her breakthrough with Dr. Fauci.”
It is true that Nancy Pelosi did a terrible job of defending that specific point of the relief package, but Republicans have been willfully misrepresenting it as a key element of the bill when it is barely a footnote. When all is said and done, Republicans are choosing Donald Trump’s underwhelming executive measures over the sweeping relief of the HEROES Act to deny legal cannabis businesses access to equal rights under the law.
To read more Cannabis Connection articles, click here.
To read more articles by Jean-Gabriel Fernandez, click here.
