A Veto Override Without a Two-Thirds Vote

Friday morning Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, introduced her previously announced legislation which if enacted, would to a great degree, reinstate the 2011 vetoes by then-Gov. Christine Gregoire to changes in the state’s 12-year old medical marijuana law. SB 5528 has a very interesting enacting clause:

“AN ACT Relating to the medical use of cannabis but only relating to making technical corrections necessary to address the partial veto of Engrossed Second Substitute Senate Bill No. 5073 by restoring definitions, removing references to the vetoed provisions, providing qualifying patients and their designated providers with arrest protection, and requesting the liquor control board to study the feasibility of issuing a qualifying patient identification card.”

Of the sponsors of SB 5073 of 2011, Kohl-Welles has lost Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, Maralyn Chase, D-Shoreline, and Rodney Tom, D-Kirkland, and has picked up new sponsorship with Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island, and Jeannie Darneille, D-Tacoma. Tom is presently Majority Leader of the Senate. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland, is on this bill too, but he is now a Benton County commissioner and no longer a senator. (A person can hold both positions simultaneously.) The enacting clause adequately explains the bill. But is that “but” in the title but a conjunction, and any indication of two subjects in the same bill? No.

Two More Bills in The House Next Week — “A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell So Sweet”

Next week we can expect two more bills on cannabis subject to be introduced. Rep. Sherry Appleton, D-Poulsbo, will introduce the House version of SB 5528. We also expect the Washington State Liquor Control Board, or LCB, to add an agency request bill adding the term “cannabis” to its name. It has taken a while to get this one lined up because the folks at the LCB do not want to incur the costs of new letterhead, cards, signs — well, you know, the whole expense of branding. So the thought is to use the term cannabis, not marijuana or pot. That way LCB can stand for Liquor/Cannabis Board.

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