Insurgent Lawmakers Wants DC Mayor Locked Up For Endorsing Marijuana!

The insurgents want DC mayor Muriel Bowser locked up for advocating weed in her town.

Two insurgent lawmakers are pissed that District of Columbia residents passed a legislation allowing marijuana use in the nation's capital.

The District of Columbia and Alaska joins Colorado and Washington as places where you can light up some ounces of weed. The marijuana is legal in three and one federal district now.

Some lawmakers aren't keen on it. DC is technically ran by Congress. They control the spending and ordinances in the district.

Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Andy Harris (R-MD) have threatened to take Washington, DC Mayor to the federal time out for advocating it.

Insurgent lawmaker Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)

Muriel Bowser, the Democratic mayor (semi-governor) has ignored the threats. The Nation reports that Bowser and the District’s police chief announced earlier in the day that the city would move on the legalization measure, despite Congress’s disapproval. Voters approved Initiative 71 by a huge margin in November, but a month later federal lawmakers inserted a rider into the budget bill intended to prevent the city from using any funds to implement it or to set up a system for taxing and regulating marijuana sales. Doing so would be a violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act, which forbids DC from spending money that was not appropriated by Congress.

City officials, including Attorney General Karl Racine, argue that the rider doesn’t actually bar them from implementing Initiative 71, because the ballot measure was already certified by the time Congress voted. According to their interpretation, the rider does prevent the District from loosing drug laws any further. Based on this understanding, the City council canceled a hearing on taxing and regulating marijuana earlier in February, after Racine warned that council members and their staff could face fines and jail time if they took part.

Go Green.

Chaffetz’s threat, on the other hand, is hot air. Violating the Anti-Deficiency Act does carry civil and criminal penalties but, sadly for them, lawmakers like Chaffetz have little power to enforce it. (Chaffetz’s office did not return a request to clarify how implementing Initiative 71 could lead to jail time for city officials.) The Obama administration—specifically, the Department of Justice—would have to initiate prosecution. That’s hard to imagine, in light of the president’s statements in support of the legalization initiative—although it’s possible that a anti-marijuana presidential candidate could be elected in 2016 and initiate legal action against the city at that point. Chaffetz played coy when asked if he might sue the city— “It’s in the law; it’s crystal clear,” is all he told the Post— but Representative Mark Meadows, one of the other Republicans trying to block the measure, said “there’s no talk of litigation.” Instead, he issued a vague threat having to do with the District’s ability to get congressional approval for future, unrelated measures