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Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

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Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#251

Post by cthalupa »

petcat wrote: post #92
redserk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t imagine the framers of the Constitution envisioned having 50 states, either. 26 Senators is a substantially different shape of legislative body than the current 100.

There were already 25 states (50 Senators) by the time James Madison died in 1836. The original Constitution framers had already seen the explosive growth of the US during their lifetimes. So I can't imagine they didn't envision it.

They might have envisioned it during their lifetimes, but I don't see how you can argue that things that happened after the Constitution/BoR were written informed their decisions while writing it.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#252

Post by missingcolours »

nerdjon wrote: post #85

I feel like I am missing something here, and it is around it being called "hemp". Does this actually have any impact on legal dispensaries, their products, farms, etc? Does this make it harder to eventually de-schedule pot.

Only indirectly (see other comment).

In 2018 a provision was attached to the Farm Bill to legalize "hemp". The public and presumably the senators were led to believe this was about legalizing textiles and things like that, not drugs. It turned out that the language actually legalized delta-8 too. Many people were displeased with that outcome, because in many states it's completely unregulated with no additional taxes or anything like there is in "legal cannabis" states, and again because it was not understood or anticipated by most people. So now that provision is being reverted in this year's Farm Bill, passage of which was part of the shutdown deal (I think because SNAP benefits are part of the farm bill).

Until a month ago in Texas my kids could buy Delta-8 weed gummies at the gas station by my house (the Texas governor issued some emergency regulations to limit this). You didn't even need to be 18. This bill is targeted at those products legalized by the 2018 loophole.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#253

Post by cthalupa »

theoldgreybeard wrote: post #225
whimsicalism wrote: post #4

The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.

Senators are supposed to be representatives of the State Legislatures, not The People - that's what the House of Representatives is for. The 17th amendment was a huge mistake.

And so was the Permanent Apportionment Act.

Revoke them both and we're much closer to what the founders intended when it comes to Congress.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#254

Post by bombcar »

whimsicalism wrote: post #118
giantg2 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think it is far outweighed by the harm it does" But do you think the people in the less populous states feel the same? If we do remove the senate or make it population based, do you think people in those areas will feel represented if they're steamrolled by the urban areas? The point of democracy is to have some say (or the illusion of it) in how the government acts. If you're never sided with but have a large num…

> The point of democracy is to have some say (or the illusion of it) in how the government acts. People from small states will have a say. They will oftentimes be crucial votes. The point of democracy is not that some people get 10x voting power than others. The point of democracy is not that you are entitled to the swinging vote or disproportionate voting power. I am from a place smaller than Wyoming that never got…

The big takeaway is that you are a location where you could increase your political power infinitely by moving to Wyoming, and let you remain.

Very few people move based on where they would have voting influence.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#255

Post by johnnyanmac »

hattmall wrote: post #235
whimsicalism wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need something that essentially represents each whole state as a unit. You can have a group of people that represent each state as a unit. Political power should absolutely be proportional to population represented though.

I think that's a very idealistic idea. The reality is that some people / land area are simply far more important than others. It's not to say that the individual themselves is more meaningful as a matter of state, but there positioning, role in society etc simply carries more raw value than others. The US is huge and you have a major divide from the producers and the benefiters, the most critical components of the US…

> most critical components of the US don't require large populations centers

Yes, but large cities still produce the most value if we're talking in economic terms. For food production especially. Most logistical operation also operates in large cities.

>You absolutely have to offer some level of appeasement that outsizes their population representation to the people who support everyone else.

Well, yes. That was the big comprmise made by the constitution to begin with. They needed something like a Senate to get smaller states to sign on.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#256

Post by phendrenad2 »

ethin wrote: post #70
phendrenad2 wrote: post #22

This is from 3 days ago. Did this part of the bill actually make it in? Like, asking for a friend, maaaaaan.

Yep, it did. If I have the right bill (H. R. 5371), it's SEC. 781 if you want to see the actual text. (The table of contents is horribly bad though, and only covers divisions and titles and nothing beneath it though.)

Thank you. I try to avoid reading bills for that reason.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#257

Post by hattmall »

mothballed wrote: post #145
krapp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "urban concerns" and "rural concerns" are we talking about, specifically?

One in my state is solar panel legislation. You can't install solar panels in AZ without a permit and building plans and roof plans. That's all well and good in the city, but here in bumfuck nowhere I built a house with no building plans or roof plans. Why exactly did the majority of city dwellers pass this law without even considering people like me in bumfuck nowhere, who have as much or higher utility for solar pa…

But who in bumfuck is going to stop you exactly? Are you talking about a grid-tie system, where you feedback to the power company? My experience in rural areas is that after the initial approval for utilities if needed, no one is coming back to inspect anything.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#258

Post by [deleted] »

whimsicalism wrote: post #61
potato3732842 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The senate kind of makes more sense the bigger the country is. You need something that essentially represents each whole state as a unit. This is also why they originally weren't directly elected. When you consider that the OG federal government mostly dealt in issues that were common to the states or very clearly interstate the reason they chose the architecture they did for the senate seems even more sensible. They…

> You need something that essentially represents each whole state as a unit. You can have a group of people that represent each state as a unit. Political power should absolutely be proportional to population represented though.

[deleted]

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#259

Post by Spivak »

mullingitover wrote: post #166
vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole process has shown again that a democracy can only function if everybody or at least most politicians act in good faith and respect the rules . If you constantly ignore boundaries, the whole things falls apart. I honestly have no idea how the US can return to some level of sanity. It just gets worse and worse. Lots of energy is being wasted on posturing and coherent long term policy is basically impossible.…

This whole process was the epitome of anti-democratic principles by design: the Senate is expressly an anti-democratic institution (wildly different levels of representation/power for different voters in different states), and the whole standoff centered on protecting the filibuster, which makes the anti-democratic senate even less democratic by allowing a tiny group within that tiny group to shut down the entire law…

Hard disagree, I think time has proven that the filibuster (or some process like it) is necessary as a stabilizing effect on democracy. Making legislation easier to block than pass makes it so that small swings in representation, say 51-49 to 49-51 can't produce massive swings in policy. The minority party being able to, with effort, stop certain pieces of legislation they find abhorrent by raising the bar to it passing is a good thing.

The Veto is also profoundly undemocratic in exactly the same direction and it's also a good thing.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#260

Post by CalChris »

macintux wrote: post #239
CalChris wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Roman Senate was a unicameral form of government. Bicameralism principally comes from Britain, the country which we were formerly a colony of and which gave us our dominant language, legal code, …. That said, again, WHY is the Senate absolutely one of the best features of government?

My take on some of the Senate's advantages: - No gerrymandering - Longer terms mean that senators can spend more time governing, less time running for election, and they can take a longer view on the impact of their decisions - Filibuster means that a tiny minority cannot force legislation through

The States are a gerrymandering. Five states have populations less than a million and three wouldn't even qualify for Member of Congress by census. Yet they get two Senators, a Member and three Electoral College votes.

You've got filibuster backwards. Filibuster grants rights to a Senate minority.

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