WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee has taken a significant step toward formally designating Joe Biden as the party’s presidential nominee before the Democratic convention in August — a move that’s necessary to place him on the Ohio ballot for November’s election, States Newsroom has been told.

DNC members finalized their vote Thursday to move forward with an all-virtual roll call vote after 360 members voted in favor, two voted against and five abstained, according to a spokesperson.

In addition, the DNC will offer an online portal for Democrats to say what they want to see included in the national party platform as it is constructed ahead of the convention.

DNC Chair Jaime Harrison wrote in a statement that during the first term of the Biden-Harris administration, “we’ve seen the incredible outcomes that can result when democratic ideas are put into action.”

“I’m excited to announce that this year, through our testimony portal, we’ll be able to hear from more Americans and receive more input than ever before as we chart the road to the 2024 Democratic National Convention,” Harrison wrote. “We’ll build a platform that is rooted in the collective experience of Americans and mobilize people to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in November.”

Virtual roll call

In order to nominate Biden and Harris before the Ohio deadline, the DNC’s Credentials Committee and the Rules Committee will next need to adopt their reports to allow the virtual roll call, which will formally nominate Biden and Harris, to take place before the convention.

The DNC Convention is scheduled to begin in Chicago on Aug. 19, but the state of Ohio requires that presidential candidates are formally nominated at least 90 days before Election Day.

The DNC is also moving forward with plans to hold some version of the traditional roll call during the convention, though the party is looking to “build on the success” of the roll call vote held during the all-virtual 2020 presidential nominating convention, necessitated by the pandemic.

The DNC spokesperson told States Newsroom that the goal for this year’s convention-week nomination is to pull in more Americans beyond the delegates who are in Chicago at the United Center.

Democrats, the spokesperson said, are looking to revive elements of the 2020 roll call vote, which they called “Roll Call Across America.”

The all-virtual nomination during the 2020 convention featured Democratic delegates voting from historic and sometimes quirky locations.

Those included the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama, the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Railroad Station in Delaware, a cornfield in Iowa, an art studio and community center in Louisiana, a field of grazing cattle in Montana, Biden’s childhood home in Pennsylvania and a beach in Rhode Island where a chef held a plate of fried calamari.

Democratic platform

In addition to working toward the nomination of Biden and Harris, the DNC is preparing to build the official Democratic platform in the weeks ahead.

The DNC planned to open the online portal Friday that will allow all Democrats to fill out a form detailing what they want to see in this year’s party platform, the spokesperson said.

There will be a version in English as well as one in Spanish.

The first Platform Committee meeting will be July 16, followed by the Rules Committee meeting on July 19 and the Credentials Committee’s first meeting on July 21.

Those meetings will be held the same week that Republicans gather in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to hold their convention and formally nominate Donald Trump as their presidential candidate.

All the DNC’s committee meetings will be virtual and streamed online for anyone to watch. Each committee includes about 200 people from the 57 states and territories.

The DNC on Friday also announced the 15 members of the platform drafting committee.

That list includes Chair Louisa Terrell, former director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs; former Labor Department Secretary Marty Walsh; Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison; Ted Kaufman, who worked in Biden’s U.S. Senate office before serving as the U.S. senator from Delaware; Jeremy Bash, who previously worked as the chief of staff at the CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense; Rebecca Brocato, who previously worked as a special assistant to Biden and as the National Security Council senior director for legislative affairs; Marla Blunt-Carter, who worked as the projects manager and director of constituent services in Biden’s Senate office as well as the senior adviser and political strategist for U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester; Joelle Gamble, former deputy director of the National Economic Council; Josh Hsu, former counsel and chief legal adviser for Vice President Harris; Angela Kelley, the chief adviser for policy and partnerships at the American Immigration Council and at the American Immigration Lawyers Association; former South Carolina state Sen, Marlon Kimpson; Rohini Kosoglu, former deputy assistant for Biden and domestic policy adviser for Harris; Lori Lodes, executive director at Climate Power, a political organization focused on addressing climate change; Jeff Peck, who worked for Biden on the Senate Judiciary Committee as general counsel and staff director in the late 1980s and early 1990s; Bharat Ramamurti, former deputy director for the National Economic Council; and Hilda Solis, secretary of labor during the Obama administration.

The drafting committee’s first meeting will be July 11. It will be held virtually and available for anyone to watch on the DNC’s YouTube page.

Democratic National Convention Committee Chair Minyon Moore wrote in a statement that during the “final sprint to the 2024 Democratic National Convention, we look forward to drawing upon our party’s rich diversity and hearing from Americans from all walks of life as we chart the course for the next four years under the leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris.”

“The Democratic Party’s strength is our diversity and, together, we will build a platform that reaffirms who we are as Democrats and sets us on the path to victory once again this November.”

by Jennifer Shutt, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and X.

WASHINGTON — Scientists debated the origins of COVID-19 on Tuesday, trading barbs over whether the bulk of evidence available points to a natural spillover event from a wild animal or a virus designed in a lab and then let loose through an inadvertent leak.

The hearing in front of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was part of ongoing efforts in Congress to apply the lessons learned during the pandemic to prevent or blunt the next outbreak.

Gregory Koblentz, associate professor and director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University in Virginia, said during the two-hour hearing that debate continues in the scientific community about the origins.

“The possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was deliberately developed as a biological weapon has been unanimously rejected by all U.S. intelligence agencies,” Koblentz testified. “While the intelligence community is divided on the origin of the pandemic, most of the agencies have determined that the virus was not genetically engineered.”

Residents in Wuhan, China, were first diagnosed with “an atypical pneumonia-like illness” in December 2019, according to a COVID-19 timeline from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Initial cases all appeared linked to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market at the time, though there has since been much speculation about the types of research taking place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Koblentz said he believes the available evidence points to a spillover event from an animal, though he added a “research-related accident can’t be ruled out at this time.”

The lack of transparency and data from the Chinese government has significantly hindered scientists’ efforts to unify around the origin of COVID-19, he said.

Scientists battle over lab vs. spillover

Richard Ebright, board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology and laboratory director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, testified he believes a “large preponderance of evidence indicates SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, entered humans through a research incident.”

Ebright also leveled criticism at fellow panelist Robert Garry, who, along with a handful of co-authors, published an opinion article in the journal nature medicine in March 2020, titled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2.”

In the commentary, Garry and the other scientists wrote, “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

Ebright said during Tuesday’s hearing that the opinion article represented “scientific misconduct up to and including fraud,” a characterization that Garry rejected during the hearing.

“The authors were stating their opinion, but that opinion was not well-founded,” Ebright said. “In March of 2020, there was no basis to state that as a conclusion, as opposed to simply being a hypothesis.”

Garry, professor and associate dean of the School of Medicine at Tulane University in Louisiana, argued on behalf of the spillover event during the hearing, testifying that the virus likely didn’t move directly from a bat to humans, but went to an unidentified intermediary animal.

“The bat coronaviruses are viruses that are spread by the gastrointestinal route,” Garry said. “For a virus like this to become a respiratory virus — it’s just going to require too many mutations, too many changes for a bat virus to spill directly over to a human being. That could only really happen in nature with replication through an intermediate animal.”

Garry also defended gain-of-function research during the hearing, arguing that it has had some beneficial impact, though he noted that it does need “appropriate safeguards and restrictions.”

Lawmakers and pundits have used several, often evolving, definitions for gain-of-function research in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Society for Microbiology defines it as techniques “used in research to alter the function of an organism in such a way that it is able to do more than it used to do.”

When research is “responsibly performed” on highly transmissible and pathogenic viruses, it can lead to advances in public health and national security, Garry testified.

“Without gain-of-function research, we’d have no Tamiflu. Without gain-of-function research, we wouldn’t have a vaccine to prevent cancer caused by infection by the human papilloma virus,” Garry said. “And without gain-of-function research, we won’t be able to identify how novel viruses infect us. And if we don’t know how they infect us, we cannot develop appropriate treatments and cures for the next potential pandemic creating virus.”

Oversight of funding, research

New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan raised several questions about whether there’s enough oversight of how the United States spends research dollars as well as what mechanisms are in place to monitor how private entities conduct certain types of research.

“While their research has the potential to cure diseases and boost our economy, unless they accept federal funding, there is very little federal oversight to ensure that private labs are engaged in safe and ethical research,” she said.

Koblentz from George Mason University said there is much less oversight of biosafety and biosecurity for private research facilities that don’t receive federal funding.

“In order to expand the scope of oversight to all privately funded research, (it) would require legislative action,” Koblentz said.

Congress, he said, should establish a national bio-risk management agency that would have authority over biosafety and biosecurity “regardless of the source of funding.”

“At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter where the funding comes from in terms of making sure this research is being done safely, securely and responsibly,” Koblentz said.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, ranking member on the committee, said the panel will hold an upcoming hearing specifically on gain-of-function research, including what steps Congress should take to ensure it doesn’t put the public at risk.

The next pandemic

Committee Chairman Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, said during the hearing that lawmakers “must learn from the challenges faced during this pandemic to ensure we can better protect Americans from future potential biological incidents.”

“Our government needs the flexibility to determine the origins of naturally occurring outbreaks, as well as potential outbreaks that could arise from mistakes or malicious intent,” Peters said.

Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, after listening to some of the debate, expressed exasperation that so much attention is going toward what caused the last pandemic and not on how to prepare for the next one.

“Given the fact that it could have been either, we know what action we ought to take to protect from either,” Romney said. “And so why there’s so much passion around that makes me think it’s more political than scientific, but maybe I’m wrong.”

The United States, he said, shouldn’t be funding gain-of-function research and should “insist” that anyone who receives federal funding follow the standards of the International Organization for Standardization.

by Jennifer Shutt, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and X.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a much-anticipated decision Thursday that mifepristone, one of two pharmaceuticals used in medication abortion, can remain available under current prescribing guidelines.

The high court unanimously rejected attempts by anti-abortion groups to roll back access to what was in place more than eight years ago, writing that they lacked standing to bring the case.

Those limits would have made it more difficult for patients to get a prescription for mifepristone, which the Food and Drug Administration has approved for up to 10 weeks gestation and is used in about 63% of U.S. abortions.

Erin Morrow Hawley, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued the case in front of the court on behalf of the legal organization, doesn’t believe this is the end of efforts to challenge access to mifepristone.

She said on a call shortly after the ruling was released the three states that intervened in a lower court — Idaho, Kansas and Missouri — could still advance their arguments against mifepristone and potentially hold standing, the legal right to bring a case.

“I would expect the litigation to continue with those three states,” Hawley said.

Kavanaugh writes opinion

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion in the united ruling from the Supreme Court, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing a concurring opinion.

“Plaintiffs are pro-life, oppose elective abortion, and have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to mifepristone being prescribed and used by others,” Kavanaugh wrote.

The four anti-abortion medical organizations and four anti-abortion doctors who originally brought the lawsuit against mifepristone have protections in place to guard against being forced to participate in abortions against their moral objections, he noted.

“Not only as a matter of law but also as a matter of fact, the federal conscience laws have protected pro-life doctors ever since FDA approved mifepristone in 2000,” Kavanaugh wrote. “The plaintiffs have not identified any instances where a doctor was required, notwithstanding conscience objections, to perform an abortion or to provide other abortion-related treatment that violated the doctor’s conscience.”

“Nor is there any evidence in the record here of hospitals overriding or failing to accommodate doctors’ conscience objections,” he added.

Alliance Defending Freedom has not “identified any instances where a doctor was required, notwithstanding conscience objections, to perform an abortion or to provide other abortion-related treatment that violated the doctor’s conscience since mifepristone’s 2000 approval,” the opinion said.

Kavanaugh might have also included hints on how the court will rule later this session on a separate abortion access case that addresses the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, known as EMTALA.

“EMTALA does not require doctors to perform abortions or provide abortion-related medical treatment over their conscience objections because EMTALA does not impose obligations on individual doctors,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Thomas agrees but questions who can sue

Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in the case, saying that he agreed with the court’s unanimous decision, which he did join, but brought up concerns with how a certain type of standing is used by the Court.

“Applying these precedents, the Court explains that the doctors cannot establish third-party standing to sue for violations of their patients’ rights without showing an injury of their own,” Thomas wrote.

“But, there is a far simpler reason to reject this theory: Our third-party standing doctrine is mistaken,” Thomas added. “As I have previously explained, a plaintiff cannot establish an Article III case or controversy by asserting another person’s rights.”

Reaction pours in

Politicians, anti-abortion groups and reproductive rights organizations all reacted to the ruling within hours of its release, often pointing to November’s elections as a potential next step.

President Joe Biden released a written statement saying the “decision does not change the fact that the fight for reproductive freedom continues.”

“It does not change the fact that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, and women lost a fundamental freedom,” Biden added. “It does not change the fact that the right for a woman to get the treatment she needs is imperiled if not impossible in many states.”

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, was in meetings most of Thursday with U.S. House Republicans and then separately with Republican U.S. Senators.

Neither Trump nor his campaign released a statement by early Thursday afternoon addressing the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, ranking member on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote in a statement that the justice didn’t actually address the merits of the case.

“The Court did not weigh in on the merits of the case, but the fact remains this is a high risk drug that ends the life of an unborn child,” Cassidy wrote. “I urge FDA to follow the law and reinstate important safeguards.”

President of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Stella Dantas related a statement saying the ruling “provides us with long-awaited relief.”

“We now know that patients and clinicians across the country will continue to have access to mifepristone for medication abortion and miscarriage management,” Dantas wrote. “Decades of clinical research have proven mifepristone to be safe and effective, and its strong track record of millions of patient uses confirms that data.”

Hawley from Alliance Defending Freedom wrote in a written statement the organization was “disappointed that the Supreme Court did not reach the merits of the FDA’s lawless removal of commonsense safety standards for abortion drugs.”

“While we’re disappointed with the court’s decision, we will continue to advocate for women and work to restore commonsense safeguards for abortion drugs—like an initial office visit to screen for ectopic pregnancies,” Hawley wrote. “And we are grateful that three states stand ready to hold the FDA accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of women and girls across this country.”

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, wrote in a statement she had “both relief and anger about this decision.”

“Thank goodness the Supreme Court unanimously rejected this unwarranted attempt to curtail access to medication abortion, but the fact remains that this meritless case should never have gotten this far,” Northup wrote.

“The FDA’s rulings on medication abortion have been based on irrefutable science,” Northup wrote. “Unfortunately, the attacks on abortion pills will not stop here — the anti-abortion movement sees how critical abortion pills are in this post-Roe world, and they are hell bent on cutting off access.”

Scientific evidence argued

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in March, during which Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued the FDA’s guidelines for prescribing mifepristone were based on reputable scientific evidence and years of real-world use.

“Only an exceptionally small number of women suffer the kinds of serious complications that could trigger any need for emergency treatment,” Prelogar said. “It’s speculative that any of those women would seek care from the two specific doctors who asserted conscience injuries. And even if that happened, federal conscience protections would guard against the injury the doctors face.”

Hawley of ADF told the court that conscience protections in federal law didn’t do enough to protect anti-abortion doctors from having to possibly treat patients experiencing complications from medication abortion.

“These are emergency situations,” Hawley said. “Respondent doctors don’t necessarily know until they scrub into that operating room whether this may or may not be abortion drug harm — it could be a miscarriage, it could be an ectopic pregnancy, or it could be an elective abortion.”

The case reached the Supreme Court within two years of ADF originally filing the lawsuit in the District Court for the Northern District of Texas, where ADF wrote the FDA “exceeded its regulatory authority” when it originally approved mifepristone in 2000.

ADF filed the case on behalf of Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Pediatricians and Christian Medical & Dental Associations, as well as four doctors from California, Indiana, Michigan and Texas.

Kacsmaryk ruling started journey to high court

Judge Matthew Joseph Kacsmaryk essentially agreed with the anti-abortion groups, in a ruling in April 2023, where he wrote he did “not second-guess FDA’s decision-making lightly.”

“But here, FDA acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns — in violation of its statutory duty — based on plainly unsound reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions,” Kacsmaryk wrote.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay at the request of the Justice Department, which put the district court’s ruling on hold until the appeal process could work itself out.

The Justice Department also appealed the district court’s ruling to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana, where a three-judge panel heard the case in May 2023.

The panel — composed of Jennifer Walker Elrod, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, as well as James C. Ho and Cory T. Wilson, who were both appointed by former President Donald Trump — issued its ruling in August 2023.

The appeals court disagreed with the district court’s ruling that mifepristone’s original approval should be overturned, though it said that the FDA erred in making changes to prescribing guidelines in 2016 and 2021.

“It failed to consider the cumulative effect of removing several important safeguards at the same time. It failed to consider whether those ‘major’ and ‘interrelated’ changes might alter the risk profile, such that the agency should continue to mandate reporting of non-fatal adverse events,” the appeals judges wrote. “And it failed to gather evidence that affirmatively showed that mifepristone could be used safely without being prescribed and dispensed in person.”

That ruling didn’t take effect under the Supreme Court’s earlier stay.

The Department of Justice wrote to the high court weeks later in September, urging the justices to take up an appeal of the 5th Circuit’s decision.

“The loss of access to mifepristone would be damaging for women and healthcare providers around the Nation,” the DOJ wrote in the 42-page document. “For many patients, mifepristone is the best method to lawfully terminate their early pregnancies. They may choose mifepristone over surgical abortion because of medical necessity, a desire for privacy, or past trauma.”

Briefs filed with court

Dozens of abortion rights organizations and lawmakers filed so-called amicus curiae or friend of the court briefs to the Supreme Court calling on the justices to keep access to mifepristone in line with the FDA guidelines.

A group of more than 16 medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association, wrote that “restricting access to mifepristone will not only jeopardize health, but worsen racial and economic inequities and deprive women of the choices that are at the very core of individual autonomy and wellbeing.”

Anti-abortion groups and lawmakers opposed to mifepristone wrote numerous briefs as well.

Attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming sent in a 28-page brief.

They wrote that the availability of mifepristone undermined states’ rights, since some of their states had sought to restrict abortion below the 10 weeks approved for mifepristone use or had sought to bar access to medication abortion.

“The FDA’s actions undermine these laws, undercut States’ efforts to enforce them, and thus erode the federalism the Constitution deems vital,” the attorneys general wrote. “Given these harms to federalism, this Court should view the FDA’s actions with skepticism.”

During oral arguments in March, several Supreme Court justices brought up conscience protections that insulate health care workers from having to assist with or perform procedures they have a religious objection to, like abortion.

Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she was “worried that there is a significant mismatch in this case between the claimed injury and the remedy that’s being sought.”

“The obvious, common-sense remedy would be to provide them with an exemption that they don’t have to participate in this procedure,” Jackson said.

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch said the case seemed “like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule, or any other federal government action.”

by Jennifer Shutt, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and X.

Nearly three weeks after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration proposed loosening a federal prohibition on marijuana, the next phases of policy fights over the drug’s status are starting to take shape.

Public comments, which the DEA is accepting on the proposal until mid-July, will likely include an analysis of the economic impact of more lenient federal rules.

Administrative law hearings, a venue for opponents to challenge executive branch decisions, will likely follow, with marijuana’s potential for abuse a possible issue.

Congress, meanwhile, could act on multiple related issues, including banking access for state-legal marijuana businesses and proposals to help communities harmed by the decades of federal prohibition.

U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon and longtime advocate for legalizing marijuana who’s retiring at the end of the year, is encouraging his colleagues to build on the administration’s action by taking up bills on those related issues.

The politics of the issue should favor action, even in the face of an upcoming campaign season that typically slows legislative action, Blumenauer said in a May 17 interview, noting the popularity of a more permissive approach to the drug.

“Congress may not do a lot between now and November, but they should,” the 14-term House member said. “Because it’s an election year, there’s no downside to being more aggressive.”

Economic impact

In a proposed rule published in the Federal Register last month, the DEA specifically asked commenters to weigh in on the economic impacts of moving the drug from Schedule I to the less-restrictive Schedule III list under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

That will likely mean the agency will consider the impact of allowing state-legal marijuana businesses to deduct business expenses from their federal taxes, Mason Tvert, a partner at Denver-based cannabis policy and public affairs firm Strategies 64, said in an interview. Under current law, no deductions are allowed.

That issue is seen by advocates, including Blumenauer and fellow Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, who chairs the tax-writing U.S. Senate Finance Committee, as paramount for the industry.

Thousands of state-legal businesses struggle to earn a profit or operate at a loss under the current system, Blumenauer said.

Potential for abuse

The DEA typically looks at three factors when assessing how strictly to regulate a drug: its medicinal value, potential for abuse relative to other drugs and ability to cause physical addiction.

A 2023 analysis by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that looked at data from states where medicinal marijuana is legal showed that “there exists some credible scientific support for the medical use of marijuana.”

That finding could lead DEA to look at other factors, Tvert said.

“The battleground that we’ll see will be around how we define potential for abuse,” he said.

Agencies split?

But the DEA proposed rule revealed a divided view among government agencies about the drug’s potential harms, Paul Armentano, the deputy director for the longtime leading advocacy group National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, told States Newsroom.

The text of the proposed rule shows “a lack of consensus” among HHS, the Attorney General’s Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration, he said.

“There are several points in the DEA’s proposed rule where they express a desire to see additional evidence specific to concerns that the agency has about the potential effects of cannabis, particularly as they pertain to abuse potential and potential harms,” Armentano said.

“The HHS addresses those issues, but the DEA essentially says, ‘We’d like to see more information on it.’”

Kevin Sabat, the president and CEO of the anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, agreed that the DEA did not appear to agree with the HHS conclusion that medical uses exist.

The proposed rule “just brings up all these issues with the HHS’s determination and it basically invites comment on all those issues,” he said.

Administrative law hearing

Sabat’s group will also be petitioning for a DEA administrative hearing, he said. An administrative law judge could rule that the proposal should not go through or that it should be amended to remain stricter than the initial proposal described.

“We’re going to highlight the fact that, first of all, this does not have approved or accepted medical use,” he said.

Tvert said the accepted medical value question is likely not to be a major factor in an administrative law hearing. Several medical organizations and states that allow medicinal use have already endorsed its medicinal value, he said.

Instead, the focus will turn to the drug’s potential for abuse, he said.

“What will be critical is looking at cannabis relative to other substances that are currently II or III or not on the schedule, and determining whether cannabis should be on Schedule I when alcohol is not even on the schedules and ketamine is Schedule III.”

As of June 6, nearly 12,000 people had commented on the proposal in the 18 days since its publication.

While opinion polls show that most Americans favor liberalizing cannabis laws — a Pew Research Center survey in March found 57% of U.S. adults favor full legalization while only 11% say it should be entirely illegal — the public comments so far represent a full spectrum of views on the topic.

“This rule is a horrible idea, this should remain in Schedule I,” one comment read. “Marijuana is a gateway drug and ruins lives.”

“There are no negative side effects to its use,” another commenter, who favored “fully” legalizing the substance, wrote. “Its not harmful. The only harm is what the government has done to me and America. Shame on the people that continue to oppose this. Seriously shame on anyone that would stand in the way of this change.”

Congressional action?

Blumenauer authored a memo last month on “the path forward” for reform as the rescheduling process plays out.

He listed four bills for Congress to consider this year.

One, sponsored by House Democrats, would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substance Act schedule entirely and expunge prior offenses.

A bipartisan bill would make changes to the banking laws to allow state-legal businesses greater access to loans and other financial services.

Another, cosponsored with Florida Republican Brian Mast, would allow Veterans Administration health providers to discuss state-legal medicinal marijuana with veteran patients.

Blumenauer has also co-written language for appropriations bills that would prevent the Department of Justice from prosecuting marijuana businesses that are legal under state or tribal law.

“All of these things are overwhelmingly popular, they’re important, we have legislative vehicles and supporters,” he said.

Still, there may be disagreements about what to pursue next.

Recent years have seen disagreements among Democratic supporters of legalization over whether to prioritize banking or criminal justice reforms.

A banking overhaul has much greater bipartisan support, and advocates on all sides of the issue agree it’s the most likely to see congressional action.

But some who support changes to banking laws in principle object to focusing on improving the business environment without first addressing the harms they say prohibition has caused to largely non-white and disadvantaged communities.

As recently as 2021, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer described banking reform legislation as too narrow. Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, called it a “common-sense policy” but said that he favored a more comprehensive approach.

“I’ve gone around with Cory on that,” Blumenauer said. “More than anybody in Congress, I’m in favor of the major reforms, and we’ve been fighting for racial justice and equity … but (racial justice and banking reforms) are not mutually exclusive.”

In September, Booker agreed to co-sponsor the banking reform bill after winning a promise from Schumer that a separate bill to help expunge criminal records would also receive a vote. Neither measure has actually received a floor vote.

In a statement following the administration’s announcement on rescheduling, Booker praised the move, but called for further action from Congress.

That includes passing a bill he’s sponsored that would decriminalize the drug at the federal level, expunge the records of people convicted of federal marijuana crimes and direct federal funding to communities “most harmed by the failed War on Drugs,” according to a summary from Booker’s office.

“We still have a long way to go,” Booker said in the statement on rescheduling. “Thousands of people remain in prisons around the country for marijuana-related crimes. They continue to bear the devastating consequences that come with a criminal history.”

Blumenauer said Congress should act on the proposals that have widespread support from voters.

“This not low-hanging fruit, this is having them pick it up off the ground,” he said. “There is no other controversial issue that has as much bipartisan support that’s awaiting action.”

by Jacob Fischler, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.

WASHINGTON — When a Purple Heart recipient named Pat reached out to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray in November to inform her that he couldn’t transfer his GI bill benefits to his children, he wasn’t expecting congressional action to solve the problem.

He simply just wanted to let the Washington state Democrat know, he told States Newsroom in an exclusive interview.

With a child about to head to college, Pat, who didn’t want his last name used, had recently been told by the Army that he couldn’t transfer his education benefits to them because he received the Purple Heart after he was medically discharged. This rule does not apply to those who receive the medal while still in service.

Murray and Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, introduced a bipartisan bill Thursday aimed at closing that loophole.

The legislation, titled the Purple Heart Veterans Education Act, would permit retroactive award recipients who served on or after Sept. 11, 2001 to transfer their education benefits to one or more dependents. It was unveiled just ahead of Memorial Day, when the nation honors its deceased service members.

“As the daughter of a Purple Heart recipient, I’ve seen firsthand the enormous sacrifices Purple Heart veterans make to defend our freedoms, and I feel strongly that we should be doing absolutely everything we can to help all veterans and their families thrive,” Murray said in a statement Thursday.

“It doesn’t make any sense that service members who are awarded a Purple Heart after their service can’t transfer their GI benefits to their dependents, while those who receive it during their service can—and I am grateful to Pat, my constituent in Washington state who brought this gap in the law to my attention,” continued Murray, a senior member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs.

“Our legislation will close this loophole and allow more children of Purple Heart veterans to further their education. I want to thank Senator Tillis for joining me on this legislation and I’ll be working hard to get it passed into law.”

Virginia recognizes Purple Heart recipients and their service in a variety of ways and has historic connections to the award. The oldest military honor in the United States, the Purple Heart dates back to 1782 when it was established by then-General George Washington — a native of Westmoreland County, Virginia — to commemorate the bravery of select Continental Army soldiers during the American Revolution.

“Sergeant William Brown was awarded the decoration for his gallantry while assaulting British positions at Yorktown in October 1781,” according to the Army Historical Foundation.

The Military Order of the Purple Heart, “the only veterans service organization comprised strictly of ‘combat’ veterans,” is headquartered in Springfield, Virginia. The organization created the Purple Heart Trails program; the trail’s origin point is in Virginia at Mt. Vernon, where Washington is buried, and extends the length of Interstate 95 through the state.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin decreed August 7, 2023 as Purple Heart Day in Virginia and the state offers special license plates commemorating the prestigious award.

Glitch in education benefits

Pat was medically discharged from the U.S. Army and retroactively received a Purple Heart for his actions during Iran’s retaliatory missile barrage in January 2020 on an Iraq airbase, after a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

The Army later approved 39 Purple Hearts for service members who experienced the attack, according to a December 2021 report by the Army Times.

As his teenager looks to enroll at Central Washington University next year, Pat found out that by law his education benefits would only be available for transfer if he had received the award while still in service.

“My thought was, ‘I doubt that legislators would have done that intentionally.’ I just thought, you know, people probably just didn’t think about how that happens — that some people are going to get retroactive Purple Hearts, or for whatever reason in evaluating them, they’re delayed. So it’s not like an unusual thing,” Pat said in a phone interview.

“I wasn’t thinking much was going to happen, but I just wanted to write Senator Murray, who is my local senator, and let her know the issue. They responded by saying, ‘That’s an oversight on our part, and we want to make good on that.’”

Pat said he’s “grateful for Sen. Murray” and hopes his action is able to help other Purple Heart veterans. For now, his family is moving forward with the college enrollment process for his child, he said.

Benefits and dependents

Among the provisions in the legislation, Murray and Tillis’ bill would also allow veterans to split up 36 months worth of benefits to each of their dependents. For example, they could transfer 20 months to one and 16 months to another.

The bill, if enacted, would also prohibit the benefits from being treated as marital property or a marital estate asset.

And, the bill would permit dependents to access unused benefits if their veteran family member has died.

“Purple Heart recipients are heroes who honorably served our country at great costs, and this oversight that prevents servicemembers who received this distinguished award after their service from transferring their GI bill benefits to their dependents needs to be corrected immediately,” Tillis said in a statement Thursday.

“I am proud to co-introduce this commonsense legislation with Senator Murray to close this loophole and ensure every Purple Heart recipient and dependents are able to further their education,” continued Tillis, who also sits on the Senate’s Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

The number of veterans who retroactively received the Purple Heart after their post-9/11 service is unclear. The bill is estimated to cost $500,000 in mandatory spending over 10 years, according to an informal analysis provided to Murray’s office by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The bill has received praise from veterans groups, including the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

“Unfortunately, not every veteran’s service and sacrifice on behalf of the United States of America is fully recognized while they’re still in uniform,” IAVA CEO and Iraq War veteran Allison Jaslow said in a statement Thursday.

“The Purple Heart Veterans Education Act ensures that those veterans who’ve endured bodily harm on behalf of our nation, but weren’t recognized for it until their service concluded, are able to turn that recognition into an investment in the education of their loved ones.”

More Purple Heart recipients

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have “greatly increased” the number of Purple Heart recipients as the Department of Defense has added some traumatic brain injuries as a recognized condition for the award, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

It wasn’t until a 2017 law that Purple Heart recipients were able to receive full post-9/11 GI Bill benefits regardless of their length of service. Previously, the recipients had to have 36 months of active service.

The Department of Defense does not maintain a record of the number of recipients, according to the CRS, but by law they do maintain a publicly accessible list with the permission of the veteran or next of kin.

Military historians and the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor estimate about 1.8 million Purple Hearts have been awarded since 1932. The Army Historical Foundation estimated as of 2016 that 30,000 Purple Hearts had been awarded since 2001. The CRS cited this statistic.

by Ashley Murray, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.

WASHINGTON — The race to harness the tax code is in full swing as economists and advocates across the political spectrum view the expiring Trump-era tax law as an opportunity to advance their economic priorities.

Democratic Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington said Wednesday that reworking the tax code will be “a reflection of what your values are.”

DelBene, who sits on the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax Policy, said her priorities include modernizing the tax code, raising revenue via carbon fees on imported goods, and making permanent an expanded child tax credit akin to the temporary changes in place during the pandemic.

“The top line is starting from what our values and goals are, and then looking at what the policies are that help us get there,” DelBene said at a Politico-sponsored discussion on proposed tax law changes.

The early morning event at Washington’s Union Station brought together tax experts and advocates from Georgetown University Law Center, the Urban Institute, the Heritage Foundation and Groundwork Collaborative.

Tax overhaul

The massive tax overhaul ushered in under the Trump administration permanently cut the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%. The 2017 law, championed by Republicans as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, also put in place several temporary measures for corporations and small businesses. Some are phasing out or already expired, including immediate deductions for certain investments.

Temporary changes for households included marginal tax rate cuts across the board, a doubling of the child tax credit, and a near doubling of the standard deduction — all of which are set to expire Dec. 31, 2025.

A bipartisan bill to temporarily extend the expiring business incentives and expand the child tax credit beyond 2025 sailed through the U.S. House in late January, but has been stalled by U.S. Senate Republicans who oppose some of the child tax credit expansion proposals.

A May 2024 nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report estimated extending the tax cuts would cost roughly $4.6 trillion over 10 years. The bulk of the cost would stem from keeping in place individual tax cuts, according to an analysis of the report by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Critics of the 2017 law point to a recent March analysis from academics and members of the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Federal Reserve that shows that the law’s benefits flowed to the highest earners.

DelBene said revisiting the corporate tax rate, even on the Republican side, is “on the table” and lawmakers will be talking about “where the TCJA wasn’t about investing and making sure that we were being fiscally responsible.”

‘Incredibly bullish’

Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, said Wednesday she’s “incredibly bullish” on elected officials making “fundamental changes” to the tax code next year.

The progressive think tank sent a letter Wednesday to House and Senate leadership and top tax writers urging them “to use the expiration of these provisions as an opportunity to address long-standing problems with our tax code, not just to tinker around the edges.”

The letter was signed by 100 organizations from across the U.S., ranging from the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers to the National Women’s Law Center and United Church of Christ.

Stephen Moore, who helped write the Trump-era tax law and is now the conservative Heritage Foundation’s senior visiting fellow in economics, said the 2017 law was a “huge success” and that “we’re gonna definitely make those tax cuts permanent.”

Moore is an economic adviser for former President Donald Trump’s reelection effort, but said he was not speaking on behalf of the presidential campaign.

He said he does not agree with Trump on everything, including a promise to enact 10% tariffs on imported goods, reaching as high as 60% on Chinese imports.

“A tariff is just a consumption tax,” he said. “And so you know, I think that it is not a great policy, in my opinion. But if you’re gonna have a tariff, I would rather have a tariff that is uniform than trying to have, like, a protectionist tariff to, you know, protect this industry or that industry.”

When pressed on data that shows funding the Internal Revenue Service increases revenue, Moore said that President Joe Biden’s increase in funding for the agency is “diabolical.”

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.