WA House - Session - Afternoon
(March 2, 2021)

Here are some observations from the Tuesday March 2nd Washington State House of Representatives (WA House) afternoon session.

My top 3 takeaways:

• In five weeks, cannabis social equity legislation was progressed from concept to consideration by the full Washington State House of Representatives (WA House).
  • At the Washington State Legislative Task Force on Social Equity in Cannabis (WA SECTF) public meeting on January 25th, members adopted two motions. 
    • The first covered social equity applicant criteria.
      • Read about the first public meeting of the WA SECTF work group devoted to defining disproportionately impacted communities on February 25th.
    • A second motion requested that lawmakers modify the criteria for the technical assistance grant program to permit otherwise eligible current license holders to apply for funds allocated by the State but unable to be disbursed by the Washington State Department of Commerce before the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) received guidance on the equity applicant process from WA SECTF.
  • WA SECTF Co-Chair Representative Melanie Morgan introduced HB 1443  "Concerning social equity within the cannabis industry" on February 1st.
    • On February 5th, a policy-oriented public hearing on the bill was hosted by the Washington State House Commerce and Gaming Committee (WA House COG).
    • On February 12th, WA House COG granted a proposed substitute bill a ‘do pass recommendation’ in a party-line committee vote during executive session.
    • On February 19th, a fiscal-oriented public hearing on the bill was hosted by the Washington State House Appropriations Committee (WA House APP).
    • On February 22nd, WA House APP approved the legislation in another party-line executive session vote, sending the bill on to the Washington State House Rules Committee (WA House RUL)
    • On February 24th, WA House RUL was relieved of further consideration when HB 1443 was added to the WA House floor calendar as part of a chamber pull.

• Three amendments were offered during the bill’s second reading on the House floor and two were adopted, altering the bill’s description of whom the WSLCB may consult with and the effective date.
  • Deputy Speaker Pro Tempore John Lovick asked for the consent of members to bring the substitute bill language as passed by WA House COG to the floor for the bill’s second reading and heard no objections (audio - <1m, video). The body then considered proposed amendments to the bill.
  • Amendment 192 - “Requires the Liquor and Cannabis Board to consult with interested parties, rather than advocates, in adopting rules to establish certain criteria to be considered a social equity applicant and to further define the criteria of a disproportionately impacted area” (audio - <1m, video).
    • House Majority Leader Pat Sullivan said his amendment responded to “concerns in [the] appropriations committee about referring to the term ‘advocates’ as a group” in “preference of a more neutral term” (audio - 1m, video).
    • Lovick initiated a roll call vote which the House Clerk reported showing “75 yeas, zero nays, one excused.” Lovick declared the amendment adopted (audio - 1m, video).
  • Amendment 215 - “Removes certain required recommendation topics for the Task Force on Social Equity in Cannabis...” (audio - <1m, video):
    • “...including recommendations regarding the social equity impact of:
      • Altering residential cannabis agriculture regulations;
      • Shifting primary regulation of cannabis production from the Liquor and Cannabis Board to the Department of Agriculture;
      • Removing nonviolent cannabis-related felonies and misdemeanors from obtaining a cannabis license;
      • Creating cannabis industry workforce training opportunities for underserved communities;
      • Redirecting funds from the Washington State Patrol Drug Enforcement Task Force to the Cannabis Social Equity Program; and
      • Creating new cannabis license types.”
    • Representative Kelly Chambers, the WA House minority caucus appointee to WA SECTF, introduced a similar amendment during the WA House APP executive session on the bill. She said amendment 215 “takes off some of the additional items” which the task force would be obligated to offer recommendations on. “The task force, I would say, is a little bit behind because of COVID[-19]” and “things didn’t get on track the way we expected them to,” Chambers explained. She reviewed the new issues the task force was being asked to make recommendations on, adding “I would just submit to this body that any one of these topics are worthy of a larger discussion and probably not best suited” for the task force she’d been appointed to. Chambers believed that if lawmakers had known these topics would be considered the task force “would probably have a different makeup” and asked for support of her revision to “keep us focused on the original task” (audio - 2m, video).
    • Representative Shelley Kloba offered a dissenting view of the amendment, saying “it strips out the extended list of items that the task [force] is requesting that they be allowed to work on.” As to whether the subjects were “better dealt with by the legislature,” Kloba said a “very important first step” would be to “have a group like this take a look at those issues...explore them more deeply than the legislature is often able to do and to report on them” to legislators. She added that HB 1443 also gave task force members more time to develop already mandated recommendations in addition to the new topics (audio - 2m, video).
    • Following a roll call vote, staff announced the measure failed, garnering “41 yeas, 50 nays, one excused,” to which Lovick responded that the amending language was “not adopted” (audio - 1m, video).
  • Amendment 169 - “Removes the emergency clause. Provides that the bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of the session in which the bill is passed, rather than immediately” (audio - <1m, video).
    • Representative Chris Corry, Assistant Minority Floor Leader, said amendment 169 removed the bill’s emergency clause. He noted, “while the work of the task force is important and needs to be done we as a legislature need to continue to be very careful with how we use the emergency clause and make sure that it meets the definition of emergency” (audio - 1m, video).
      • Emergency clauses in legislation are allowed under Article II, Section I(b) of the State constitution and permit laws to take effect with the Governor’s signature rather than after 90 days. However, there have long been accusations that the clause is overused as a means of preemptively thwarting challenges from citizen referendums.
    • Kloba spoke in agreement, finding the amendment to be a worthy addition to the bill. “We do agree that the work of the task force is very important,” she said, while acknowledging some legislators were frustrated that the group’s work had been delayed. Kloba’s perspective was that WA SECTF “still have a number of things that they are currently working on, enough to keep them busy” for the duration of a standard legislative effective date (audio - 1m, video).
    • The amendment was adopted with “86 yeas, one nay, one excused” (audio - <1m, video).

• The bill was progressed to its third reading for discussion and a final vote which resulted in passage of the legislation by the House.
  • Lovick asked to suspend the rules and move the engrossed substitute bill to third reading, eliciting no objections (audio - <1m, video).
  • Representative Melanie Morgan---the bill’s prime sponsor, Deputy Majority Floor Leader, and WA SECTF Co-Chair---talked about the existing law which established a social equity retail licensing program and task force while instructing WSLCB to listen for guidance on “how to issue licenses in an equitable manner” (audio - 5m, video).
    • Morgan said the WA SECTF hadn’t met “until December of 2020” and the late start put the task force months behind the mandated deadline “to report back to the legislature, to the governor’s office, and to the Liquor [and] Cannabis Board.”
      • The first meeting of the WA SECTF occurred in October 2020.
    • Morgan mentioned the January 25th WA SECTF meeting, and stated that the task force had heard calls for urgent action from the public and the group’s own members. “And one of the things that was coming out in the public testimony is that they felt that the task force was limited in their scope,” she said, clarifying that expanding the organization’s scope was “what House Bill 1443 does.”
    • Morgan described the “expansion of the work of the task force” as a reflection of input “from over 300 interviews held by the [Washington State] Commission on African American Affairs (CAAA), from discussions that came out of listening sessions that [WSLCB] held last fall, and also from public comments from the very task force in which I am presenting to this body.” These comments reflected the view that “Black African Americans felt that they were left out of the original effort to legalize cannabis, which continues today,” she explained, pointing to 2020 licensee demographics from WSLCB and cautioning against perpetuating policies which enabled institutional racism.
    • Morgan attested there would be expanded “eligible client applicants under the cannabis social equity technical assistance grant program to include all existing cannabis licensees and ones who are applying” for the first time. Additionally, the bill mandated that Commerce set up an assistance grant pilot program for licensees “who will meet the social equity grant criteria for technical assistance,” she told lawmakers.
    • Finally, HB 1443 “extends the final reporting date back to the legislature, the governor’s office,” and WSLCB until “January 10th of 2022,” Morgan said, clarifying that it was necessary given the group’s delayed start. It also extended the mandate for the task force itself until June 30th, 2023, “giving more time to complete the work in a thoughtful and meaningful manner.”
    • Morgan noted cannabis consumers had been "historically demonized” and the negative impact racist enforcement had on African American populations. She commented that “now, it’s legal, and Mr. Speaker, my hope is that this bill helps the task force to ensure that this industry is equitable and that we are ensuring access to every community in the state.”
  • Assistant Minority Floor Leader Drew MacEwen reported he was “unfortunately asking for a no vote on this,” claiming the failure to adopt Chamber’s “very valid” amendment was the reason Republicans would oppose passage (audio - 1m, video).
  • Hearing no further comments, Lovick had the clerk begin a roll call vote which resulted in the passage of HB 1443 with “60 yeas, 37 nays, one excused.” Lovick acknowledged the “constitutional majority” and declared the bill passed (audio - 1m, video).
    • The entire Democratic caucus voted in favor of the bill as well as three Republican caucus members.
      • Representative Chris Corry, Assistant Minority Floor Leader
      • Representative Jacquelin Maycumber, Minority Floor Leader
      • Representative Gina Mosbrucker, Minority Caucus Vice Chair 
      • The excused vote belonged to Representative Mike Volz of the minority caucus.
  • Following passage, the legislation would be delivered to the Washington State Senate (WA Senate) for its first reading and committee assignment. According to the legislative cutoff calendar, legislation must be given a public hearing and recommended for passage by a policy committee in the opposite chamber no later than March 26th. The cannabis policy committee in the WA Senate is the Washington State Senate Labor, Commerce, and Tribal Affairs Committee (WA Senate LCTA).