SUBVERTING DEMOCRACY

It is seldom wise to look to Congress for profiles in courage. But the
way the House of Representatives yesterday disposed of the results of
the District of Columbia's voter initiative last year on medical
marijuana was even more cowardly than usual.

You may remember that the District had a medical marijuana initiative
last November, similar to California's Proposition 215. But just 13
days before election day Congress, which runs the District of Columbia
like a plantation, passed a law, sponsored by Republican Rep. Bob Barr
of Georgia - a former prosecutor and fierce drug warrior - to forbid
the city from spending any money to count the votes. So even though
exit polls showed that voters favored the initiative by a 69-31
margin, nobody knows the actual results to this day.

The ban on democracy was attached to the district appropriations bill,
so it was scheduled to be in force for only a year. So Rep. Barr
proposed an amendment to the new D.C. appropriations bill to prevent
the results of Initiative 59 from being counted or passed into law.

Here's the cowardly part. Rep. Barr's amendment was passed by a voice
vote. Although it takes only one member to call for a roll-call vote,
and even though some members of Congress supported Initiative 59 and
others believed that the votes should be counted, not a single member
rose to demand a roll-call vote on this issue.

Chuck Thomas, communications director of the Marijuana Policy Project,
which co-ran the initiative campaign last year, thinks "some Democrats
must have gotten to some other Democrats," he told us, "and said
'please don't make us go on the record on this issue."'

Consequently, Congress has nullified the will of the voters in the
District without anybody's fingerprints but Rep. Barr's on it. So
nobody had to go on the record in favor of subverting the democratic
process and nobody can be held accountable. Shame!