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retahadon against federal employees who ask quesdons about
one another's compensadon. But he hasn't even done that.
In the end, the single best protecdon for "choice" is affluence,
so reducing poverty would help. In the last three decades, the real
value of the minimum wage has gone down. Eor wage workers
today, it stands at $7.25 per hour; for dpped workers, it is $2.13,
and women hold two-thirds of those jobs. That's not enough to
make it out of poverty working fuU-dme. Raising the minimum
wage to $9.80 per hour, as proposed imder the Eair Minimum
Wage Act, would boost earrdngs for more than 28 milhon
workers, nearly 55 percent of them women, and help close the
wage gap—and the "choice" gap.
CoUecdve bargaining also helps women. In 2008, the Center
for Economic and Pohcy Research reported that unionization
raises the wages of the typical woman worker by 11.2 percent
compared with her nonunion peers. Wages are brought into the
open in union negodadons. A concerted effort to oppose "right
to work" attacks and build union strength for workers would
empower more women than a pile of peddons for presidendal
execudve orders. Moreover, as Jane McAlevey describes in her
book Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell), given the right sort
of leaders, strong uiuons can contribute muscle and leadershipbuilding savvy to an endre community. That's good for a world of
fights, from healthcare layoffs to school closings to "fetal protec-
February 18, 2013
don" laws that result in pregnant women being locked up. They
might even be able to confront the lingering "confusion," let's
caU it, that in 2012 caused 56 percent of white women to vote for
Mitt Romney. Unions did more than any other endty in 2008,
and again in 2012, to taUi to voters in swing states, white person
to white person, about race.
American Eederadon of Teachers president Randi Weingarten
says that her workers, and unions, have never experienced such
a vicious attack as the one they recendy endured. "The moment
you press against austerity and budget priorides is the moment it
starts getdng ugly, espedaUy in tough economic dmes," she says.
"What happens is, you get demonized, denigrated, defamed in
order to divide you from your community—and then defunded."
That's what makes victories hke the Chicago Teachers Union's
so important. The union is 87 percent female, and a progressive
slate of candidates, having buÜt power within their own organizadon, won the union's leadership. The members then worked with
their community to build a sense of common interest such diat
when they took on a powerful Democrat, Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel, they won what many thought was an impossible fight.
As CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey told the smart new journal
Jacobin., "We know that we don't have real friends in high places.
So we should stop depending on them." It's probably the best
advice anyone could give the women's movement.
•
Turning the Tide on Drug Reform
W i t h state-level victories in November, activists are ready to take the fight to the feds.
by KRISTEN GWYNNE
I
n Barack Ohama: The Story, biographer
David Maraniss writes that the president spent his youth in Hawaii getting
stoned on a paved road up Mount
Tantalus, where he took "roof hits"
in smoke-filled cars with his friends, the
Choom Gang. (To "choom" is Hawaiian
slang for smoking marijuana.) Obama
loved weed so much, Maraniss writes, he
thanked his pot dealer, but not his mother,
in his high school yearbook.
Decades later, the Choomer turned president is in a historically unprecedented
posidon when it comes to drug policy in the United States.
Marijuana is ülegal under the ControUed Substances Act, but
two states, Washington and Colorado, voted in November to
legahze and regulate its sale and use by adults 21 and older.
This conflict with federal law puts aU eyes on Obama, who,
despite his smoke-filled teenage years, has refused to consider
marijuana legahzadon as an altemadve to prohibidon. Indeed,
drug pohcy reformers have endured a rocky four years (to
Kristen Gwynne is a New York-based reporter and drug policy editor at
AlterNet. Her work has also appeared on Salon and RollingStone.com.
put it mildly) in their reladonship with the
Obama administradon. That's why, when the
president told Barbara Walters in December
that his administradon had "bigger fish to
fry" than prosecuting recreadonal users of
state-legal pot, legahzadon advocates took
that statement with a grain of salt. The last
dme Obama said he would allow the states
to determine their own pohcies on medical
marijuana, he ended up busdng more statesancdoned dispensaries than George W. Bush.
Ethan Nadelmann, execudve director of
the Drug Policy Alliance, is confident that
the recent state-level legahzadon victories mark a "turning
point" that will inspire more polidcians and voters to become
curious, even passionate, about marijuana policy. "It's causing
lawmakers to rethink this issue," Nadelmann says, adding that
polidcal risk is "the same reason the White House said nodiing about the ballot inidatives in Washington and Colorado
before the election."
While preparing a response to a possible federal crackdown is a priority for the legahzadon movement, advocates
are hoping for more than just nonintervendon from the
feds. They would like to see an open conversadon about drug
February 18, 2013
-The Nation.-
policy that will turn more policy-makers into legalization advocates, and more states (red and blue alike) a cannabis-firiendly
green. For that domino effect to happen, however, they must
first craft a message that convinces people that voting for
reform or even outright legalization is not a vote for pot, but
a vote against the multidimensional disasters of prohibition—
a web of mass incarceration and racial injustice, tangled up with
everything from foreign policy to public benefits at home.
ccording to the FBI, in 2011 more than 750,000
Americans were arrested for marijuana-related offenses,
accounting for roughly half of all drug crimes in the
United States. Fighty-seven percent of marijuana-related
arrests were for possession alone—a minor prime that
can sdll cause major problems in one's life.
The good news is that, should the feds decide to crack
down on Colorado and Washington, there is no way to force
local law enforcement to arrest marijuana users in those two
states. They could, however, still go after some large-scale distributors, as they have done with medical marijuana suppliers
in California and Montana.
That's why the marijuana legalization movement's first priority, says Paul Armentano, deputy
director of the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), is making sure that all goes smoothly in Washington
and Colorado. It must ensure that policy-makers
follow through on implementing legalization, to
avoid situations like the one in Delaware, where a medical marijuana bill was passed in April 2011 but has never taken effect.
At the same time, Armentano says, legalization advocates
must make sure that new laws continue to reflect the will of
the voters. This means establishing viable and effective guidelines to regulate how marijuana will be sold and consumed,
while also looking out for unnecessary regulatory schemes.
In effect, Washington and Colorado must create a model that
lawmakers from other states won't be afraid to suppoi't.
"With drug law reform, it's the states that move federal
policy," Armentano adds. "There's going to continue to be
increased efforts at the state level to bring about additional
reforms—legislative in 2013, or possible citizen initiatives in
2014 or 2016." These will include everything from medical
marijuana legalization to decriminalization of possession to
fall legalization of recreational use and sale.
The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) tells The Nation that the
next roxmd of marijuana legahzation measures is most likely to
come from Alaska, Maine, Oregon, California, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island and Nevada. Meanwhile, Armentano is optimistic
that, elsewhere, efforts to decriminalize, rather than legalize,
pot stand a particularly good chance at success, since they do
not invite the same conflict with the feds. (Decriminalization
typically reduces the penalties for small amounts of marijuana
possession from an arrest to ticket or fine, while legalization
removes all penalties for adult possession and sale.)
Texas and New Jersey have already introduced decriminalization bills. In New Hampshire, MPP says, three bills will be
introduced this year: one to legaHze medical marijuana, one
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to decriminalize, and one to tax and regulate. "The election
of Governor Maggie Hassan, who has expressed support for
medical [marijuana], means a medical bill would almost surely
be signed," says MPP's Mason Tvert.
Still, Armentano believes that legalization bills will remain
on. hold until state lawmakers can feel reasonably confident
that there will be no federal crackdown. "To be realistic,
I don't think that we're going to see a state legalize legislatively in 2013. Most state lawmakers are going to want to take
a wait-and-see approach for at least a year, maybe two, to see
how this all shakes out in Colorado and Washington."
A year from now, says Rick Steves, a PBS travel show host
who co-sponsored the Washington initiative (1-502), residents
in that state can expect stores selling pot to open their doors,
though imder stringent regulations. Indeed, while some in
the legalization movement have criticized 1-502 for being too
strict—a DUI provision has been especially controversial—
Steves notes that "we had to seriously consider and address
the concerns of the pubhc that does not use marijuana." Part
of the goal was to "write a law that is so public-safety-minded
The last time Obama said he would let states
decide their own marijuana policies, he busted
more dispensaries than George W. Bush.
that you get local law enforcement endorsing it." That strategy
worked: not only did a Seattle sheriff and former prosecutor
endorse the initiative, the former prosecutor co-sponsored it.
much bigger challenge than passing state-level reforms
will be convincing Congress to take up the issue. But
advocates say they are up to the challenge. "It is a high
priority of NORML and other organizations to take
the victories of Colorado and Washington and try to
translate them into a much more serious and prolific discussion in Congress," Armentano says. He predicts that at the
federal level too, "a greater number of elected officials [will
be] talking about marijuana-law reform."
As for potential allies in Congress, MPP's director of government relations, Steve Fox, says the reform movement's "biggest
supporters are in the Democratic caucus." With Ron Paul and
Barney Frank—previously the "biggest players"—gone from
Congress, Fox says there's "a lot of younger people coming up,
trying to take the mantle." He cites Jared PoHs of Colorado,
Farl Blumenauer of Oregon and Steve Cohen of Tennessee as
leading the charge, addiiag: "The mood in DC on this issue has
completely shifted in light of the recent election."
Representative Diana DeGette of Colorado has already
introduced the Respect States' and Citizens' Rights Act of 2012,
which would amend the Controlled Substances Act to exempt
state marijuana laws from federal control. This kind of legislation, aimed at finally resolving the conflict between state and
federal law regarding marijuana, is what Americans can expect to
see coming out of Congress over the next four years. (Whether
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it can garner enough votes to pass is another story.)
The key to that effort is messaging, says Tom Angelí, the
founder and chair of the group Marijuana Majority, who
points to recent polls showing that most Americans do not
want the federal government interfering in Washington and
Colorado. "Our task now," he adds, "is to show [elected officials] that the voters are way ahead of them, and that they'll be
rewarded for speaking up and not punished for it." Bridging
that gap between public opinion and policy, however, requires
instilling in politicians the confidence necessary to attach their
names to marijuana-law reform. Marijuana Majority is dedicated to this work; much of what it does is spread awareness
of the broad range of support for marijuana-law reform so that
an increasing number of people, politicians and citizens ahke,
realize that "when you speak out for marijuana reform, you're
in good company and won't be attacked and marginalized."
I
f supporting pro-marijuana legalization is increasingly
mainstream, so is the opinion that the drug war as we know
it has failed. Even Obama's drug czar, Gil ICerlikowske, head
of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, has distanced
himself from the "war on drugs," recasting it as a public
health issue. "There is some truth to the notion that there's been
a shifr," Nadelmann says, but he adds that legislators have failed
to match their rhetorical shifr with a change in funding, and that
spending for incarceradon sdll outweighs funds for treatment.
The White House, too, has not hved up to its rhetoric. "I
think the Obama administradon would be well served to take
a page from what the states are doing with respect to incarceradon policy in general," says Mary Price, vice president and
general counsel for Eamilies Against Mandatory Minimums
(EAMM). She adds that while much reform at the state level is
driven, at least in part, by budgetary concerns, "it's also driven
by a new interest in evidence-based solutions" to criminal justice problems. Harm reduction, rather than incarceration, is
one kind of drug policy that would use a public health model
to minimize and prevent the harms (such as overdosing) that
are ofren associated with drug use.
February 18,2013
Still, while the Obama administration has shown some signs
of taking a more public-health-oriented approach (by backing federally funded needle exchange programs, for example),
it has been silent on prisons. "What's telling- is that Obama
has yet to make one powerful comment about the high rate
of incarceration in this country, or the fact that we have the
highest rate in the world, or the incredible racial disproportion involved," says Nadelmann, who adds that while Obama
worked early on to reduce the racially charged sentencing
disparity for crack versus powder cocaine (from 100-to-l to
18-to-l), "there's really been a lack of leadership."
The disconnect is particularly egregious given the outsize
role of mandatory minimum sentencing in drug cases. As Price
notes, the "stacking" of such mandatory minimums leads to such
injustices as the case of Montana medical marijuana provider
Chris Williams, who initially faced over eighty years in federal prison for possessing both marijuana and guns—neither of
which were illegal under state law at the time. "If a gun is foimd
in connection to the offense, even if it is not directly related, the
person is subject to this rather extreme mandatory minimum,"
says Price, who explained that the first gun charge carries a minimum of five years, followed by a twenty-five-year minimum for
every additional charge. (Prosecutors ultimately offered Williams
a plea deal that would reduce his sentence to five to ten years.)
With the Sandy Hook tragedy moving Obama and Congress
to target guns. Price says she is "somewhat concerned"
that the House might push for new mandatory sentencing
schemes. But vocal opposition by Senator Patrick Leahy to
mandatory minimums gives her confidence they would not
pass the Senate.
Coupled with drug reform victories, such progressive stances
by elected officials reflect a larger ongoing shifr in attitudes
toward criminal justice policy, driven by the states. Increasingly,
people reahze that the coimtry's exorbitandy expensive, excessively harsh prison system has been more cosdy than it has been
successful at making us safe. The question is whether Congress
and the White House will recognize this and use their powers to
expedite, rather than impede, change.
•
The Election Reform Moment
Campaign finance reform has been around a long time, but it's finally gaining traction.
by JOHN NICHOLS
T
here is little in the way of good news on the campaign
finance front. In 2012, campaigns for every office—from
the presidency to the San Jose City Council—cost exponentially more than ever before. It is certainly true that
right-wing billionaires Hke Sheldon Adelson blew fortunes
on losing political bets, as did the US Chamber of Commerce
and other groups that had hoped to buy elections with unlimited expenditures. But as Pubhc Campaign's Nick Nyhart notes,
"billionaires lost, but big money won." Republicans backed by
Adelson and the Koch brothers got beat by Democratic cam-
paigns and progressive interest groups that came close to—and
sometimes matched—Republican and conservative spending.
The pay-to-play political process remains cloaked in "dark
money" secrecy. Yet even those who complain about the political
arms race reject unilateral disarmament. And every indication is
that the courts are determined to make things worse.
The situation is overwhelming—and that's the good news.
The days of imagining we can merely tinker around the edges of
America's historically dysfunctional system for funding pohtical
campaigns with private dollars are over. There is no small reform
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