cannabisnews.com: Marijuana Vote To Be Released





Marijuana Vote To Be Released
Posted by FoM on September 18, 1999 at 06:44:58 PT
Judge Unlocks D.C. Election Tally
Source: Washington Post 
A federal judge ruled yesterday that Congress can no longer block the release of election results on a District initiative to legalize the medical use of marijuana.
U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts's ruling clears the way for D.C. voters to finally learn the outcome of a highly publicized election in November that generated a fierce legal battle involving Congress, the D.C. government, the American Civil Liberties Union and a host of initiative supporters. A congressional amendment had kept the vote from being made public in what city officials and activists contended was a flagrant attack on citizens' rights."Congress may have entirely understandable motives for attempting to curb drug possession, use, and distribution in the District," the judge declared in his 24-page opinion. "That does not change the fact that keeping a veil over the results of a properly conducted referendum would cut short public expression about the topic of drug legalization--either pro, con or neutral."D.C. officials said they hoped to release the results as quickly as possible, perhaps early next week. They said they needed additional time to thoroughly review the decision and to convene a meeting of the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics. "Today's court decision is a clear and decisive win for self-government in the District of Columbia," said Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D). "At long last, the voters will be heard on this public health issue."Arthur Spitzer, the ACLU's legal director was pleased. "All I can say is, 'Bravo for Judge Roberts,' " said Spitzer, who argued the matter before Roberts in a flurry of briefs and at a packed hearing in December.Initiative 59 would change D.C. law to legalize the possession, use, cultivation and distribution of marijuana if recommended by a physician for serious illnesses. Under current D.C. law, possession of marijuana is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of $1,000. The court dispute stemmed from an amendment Congress tacked onto last year's D.C. appropriations bill that prohibited the District from conducting any ballot initiative that would "legalize or otherwise reduce" penalties for users of marijuana. The measure, sponsored by Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.), was passed less than two weeks before the election.Because ballots already were printed by the time Congress acted, the vote still took place; more than 137,000 people cast ballots. A computer automatically tallied results but didn't put out the Initiative 59 count.That led to the lawsuit, filed by the ACLU on behalf of initiative supporters. The suit asked for a court order requiring D.C. officials to reveal the outcome and to certify the result. In an unusual twist, the D.C. government sided with the parties filing the lawsuit.Arguing on behalf of Congress, the Justice Department contended Congress did not overstep its bounds because it has authority over all aspects of D.C. government and had a right to block a medical marijuana law either before or after the election.Justice Department lawyers did not return telephone messages yesterday. Roberts, a former federal prosecutor who joined the bench last year, ruled the Barr amendment did not specifically prohibit the counting, release and certification of the vote, and so those actions could move forward. But if the Barr amendment could be construed as an attempt to keep the results secret and uncertified, Roberts said the measure would infringe upon voters' rights. Congress, he said, has no right to prevent political speech, despite its "unique relationship" in the governance of the District. Once the election results are certified, Congress has 30 days either to do nothing--and let the measure take effect, if it passed, or overturn it. Barr and his House colleagues acted again this summer, tacking an amendment onto the fiscal 2000 D.C. appropriations bill to block the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. The Senate passed the amendment as part of the budget package Thursday. The White House has threatened to veto the budget bill because of concerns about amendments. By Bill MillerWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, September 18, 1999; Page B01 © Copyright 1999 The Washington Post CompanyRuling, Like Senate, Allows Vote Count in MMJ Case-9/17/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2925.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on September 19, 1999 at 09:22:27 PT
Your Tax Dollars in Action...
This is but one instance where those who are supposedly sworn to "preserve protect and defend the Constitution" have urinated all over it. The Prohibitionists have condoned the murder of innocents (the recent example of which is the death of Mario Paz at the hands of police is dismissed as 'collateral damage' in their War on Drugs), they have trashed the democratic processes and supported destabilizing elemants in foreign nations who wish to show their autonomy from US Drug War policy, and now they even dare to tell us that our votes do not count. We fought several World Wars and the Cold War to prevent this kind of tyranny from happening here. Time we held these self-appointed national saviors responsible for their actions, before any more of us die or are incarcerated to feed their vile hunger for power.
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Comment #3 posted by jdd on September 18, 1999 at 23:22:34 PT
Evil
I understand Dankhank's anger at Rep. Barr, but you need to realize that he is a 'conservative'. Paradoxically, conservatives claim to want small, or limited government (which is great, by the way!), but at the same time, turn around and pass laws that increase government's role in our moral lives. Whereas the liberals think we are too stupid to know what to do with our own money (so they tax us more), conservatives think we are too stupid to know how to govern ourselves, and live our lives as we want (so they pass stupid laws to regulate our 'inferior morality'). We, as citizens, need to stand up to both. Let's elect people who know what our constitution says (by the way, do the American people even know what it says?), and abide by it. We need to repeal, not only national drug laws, but any law that restricts any citizen's constitutional rights!
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Comment #2 posted by Dankhank on September 18, 1999 at 13:47:43 PT:
Evil
Bob Barr is evil personified. Whether he is trying to trash the president or trashing reasonable thinking people, he certainly isn't one of them, he continues to astound with the depths that he will go to in his crusade to force his attitudes on the populace. He apparently has a clean conscience regarding the hijacking of the medical marijuana vote in D.C. How a representative of the USA, (Ga, let's not forget), can sponsor a bill that forbids the tallying and publishing OF A LAWFUL VOTE OF THE PEOPLE OF WASHINGTON DC is beyond my ability to understand. Yet he will certainly offer up his specious whalecrap, (the lowest crap in the world) to try to shore up his truly evil, anti-American position.Bob, sir, there is hopefully a special seat at the right hand of evil for you some day, you earn it every time you open your mouth ...
Hemp n Stuff
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on September 18, 1999 at 07:40:33 PT:
Judge Permits Washington to Count Vote on MMJ
Judge Permits Washington to Count Vote on MarijuanaThe New York Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/September 18, 1999WASHINGTON A Federal judge ruled on Friday that the board of elections and ethics for the District of Columbia may count and announce the results of a referendum on the use of marijuana for medical purposes that was on the ballot in November. District of Columbia residents voted last November on Initiative 59, a measure to allow chronically ill people like those suffering from AIDS, cancer and glaucoma, to use marijuana without facing criminal prosecution. Under current law, possession of marijuana is a misdemeanor charge, punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of $1,000. But just before the vote, Congress approved an amendment to the District appropriations bill sponsored by Representative Bob Barr, a conservative Republican from Georgia, that prohibited the city from using money to conduct a ballot initiative that "seeks to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties" for drug possession, use or distribution. Election Officials maintained that counting the results of a referendum was part of a ballot initiative, and so the vote was never tabulated. But in his ruling today, Judge Richard W. Roberts wrote that though the Barr amendment precluded use of the money for Election Day activities related to the referendum, it did not prevent "counting, announcing and certifying the results of the vote on Initiative 59 thereafter." Such a restriction, he held, would have been a violation of the First Amendment right of free speech. The decision did not address the issue of whether the ballot proposal would become law if approved. That question would have to be decided by Congress. Mayor Anthony A. Williams said today that he would instruct the board of elections and ethics to begin counting the ballots at "the earliest possible moment." He praised the decision as a step toward autonomy for the city. "Today's court decision is a clear and decisive win for self-government in the District of Columbia," Mr. Williams said. "The court recognized that our citizens, like citizens in every other state with a referendum, have a right to determine their own laws and set their future. At long last, the voters will be heard on this public health issue." The American Civil Liberties Union, arguing that the citizens of the nation's capital had the right to decide political issues, filed suit in October 1998 asking Judge Roberts to order city officials to certify results of the measure. A survey of 763 voters leaving the polls, financed by Americans for Medical Rights, found that 69 percent of those who have voted on the ballot issue said they had voted for it. Five states have approved referendums legalizing the medical use of marijuana: Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company 
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