Pennsylvania GOP leaders are delivering their response to the Democratic governor’s latest budget request calling for marijuana legalization: If you want the reform enacted, you need to meaningfully come to the table with the legislature and craft a deal to get it done.
Meanwhile, a top Democrat in the House suggested there’s still some splintering within the caucus about the best path forward to implement a regulated cannabis market.
Following Gov. Josh Shapiro’s (D) budget speech on Tuesday—where he called on the legislature to enact “long overdue” cannabis reform by this summer, even if it seems “complicated”—several legislators on both sides of the aisle have weighed in on the prospect of legalization in the new session.
“The governor needs to lead on something. If he wants something done, he needs to lead on it,” Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R) said. “He can’t throw an idea out there—which he did last year—and say, ‘Let the legislature figure it out. I’ll sign it. Then I’ll go do press conferences all over the state.’”
“He has to lead on something,” Ward said. “What is his priority? What will he do to get some of this stuff across the finish line?”
House Minority Leader Jesse Topper (R) was also asked about the prospect of enacting various of the governor’s budget proposals, including marijuana. And he said while he’s “not going to speak for the governor,” there’s “one person that has the ability to bring those deals together—and that is the governor.”
He referenced recent remarks from Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R) who said there are logistical challenges to advancing legalization that he’s unsure lawmakers will be able to overcome.
“It’s a practicality issue more than a philosophical issue,” he said, referencing the continued federal prohibition on cannabis and his concerns about the state’s ability to effectively regulate a cannabis market.
A spokesperson for Pittman separately declined to comment on the chances of moving cannabis reform, simply telling Spotlight PA that “strengthening communities and ensuring public safety continue to be of paramount importance to our caucus.”
The feedback from GOP lawmakers is reminiscent of earlier criticism from the caucus about the governor, who they’ve claimed has made the call for reform without meaningfully engaging with the legislature about how to get it done.
While there’s certainly more interest on the Democratic side to address marijuana legalization in the legislature, there are still open questions about whether even that caucus that coalesce around a specific path forward for reform.
House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D) said following the budget speech that “there is real diversity of opinions among our members,” likely referencing split perspectives on regulatory models, with some lawmakers pushing for a state-run cannabis program.
He also said recently that he feels the time is ripe to advance marijuana reform this session, saying “it strikes me as abdicating our responsibility to protect our communities and our children, and at the same time, we are losing revenue that is going to go into our neighboring states.”
“Yes, our numbers are close, but we are confident that we can get our numbers together and show that there is a path forward on cannabis,” he said of the possible vote tally on a legalization bill.
Meanwhile, the governor has called for legalization in his previous two budget requests, projecting a significant windfall of tax revenue for the Keystone State which he says is currently being lost to surrounding states that have implemented legal cannabis markets.
Shapiro’s latest plan projects that legalization of possession would be enacted on July 1, with the first regulated sales starting on January 1, 2026.
The governor’s budget projects a $536.5 million windfall in marijuana tax revenue for the fiscal year—a significant increase from the $14.8 million that was estimated in his last budget request. That’s largely attributable to a newly proposed licensing fee structure that the governor says is consistent with other legal state markets.
A portion of that revenue would be earmarked for social equity programs, while the remainder would go to the state general fund.
“I ask you to come together and send to my desk a bill that legalizes adult-use cannabis and expunges the records of people who have been convicted for nonviolent possession of small amounts of marijuana,” Shapiro said on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the new Republican state attorney general of Pennsylvania recently raised concerns about the “potential harm that could be caused criminally” by enacting the reform.
“From a policy perspective, what I can say is—and this is something that I said all throughout the campaign—regardless of what policy issue we’re talking about… you have to have voices from from from all parts of the community on this, and I would be remiss as a prosecutor and now as a chief law enforcement officer for Pennsylvania if I wasn’t a voice outlining the potential harm that could be caused criminally as a result of that,” Attorney General Dave Sunday (R) said.
The Republican chair of a key Senate committee recently said he’s expecting to take up legislation this year that would make Pennsylvania the 25th in the U.S. to legalize adult-use marijuana. He also thinks that more of his GOP colleagues could get on board with the reform soon than have in the past.
Sen. Dan Laughlin (R), a proponent of cannabis reform in past sessions, chairs the Senate Law and Justice Committee and said this month he expects the panel to “be one of the most active committees in the state” in the new session.
In response to the governor’s budget speech on Tuesday, Sen. Sharif Street (D) said, “I support the governor’s position on cannabis legalization—it’s long overdue.”
“This is about justice, economic growth, and securing PA’s future,” the senator, who has sponsored bipartisan legalization proposals in past sessions, said. “Let’s stop criminalizing cannabis and build a legal market that benefits all Pennsylvanians. We need this revenue. Let’s pass this bill!”
While many legalization advocates and observers think Pennsylvania is among the most likely states to pass a recreational marijuana law this session, the devil is in the details. One lawmaker has floated a relatively simple bill to decriminalize personal possession, while two others plan to introduce more sweeping legislation that would legalize through a state-run system of stores.
Laughlin, a longtime legalization advocate, last spring introduced a bill meant to remove state barriers to medical marijuana patients carrying firearms. While it didn’t move forward, the lawmaker said in the recent interview that he believes political support for legalization more broadly has been building.
The senator said an event last May that the state is “getting close” to legalizing marijuana, but the job will only get done if House and Senate leaders sit down with the governor and “work it out.”
Reps. Dan Frankel (D) and Rick Krajewski (D) announced in December that they planned to file legalization legislation, emphasizing that there’s a “moral obligation” to repair harms of criminalization while also raising revenue as neighboring state markets mature.
Frankel said sponsors hope for a vote on the bill “sometime early spring,” though questions remain as to whether the legislature would be willing to get behind the push to end cannabis prohibition, especially through the state-run sales model he is proposing.
A separate decriminalization measure, meanwhile, from Pennsylvania Rep. Danilo Burgos (D), would make simple possession of cannabis a summary offense punishable by a $100 fine without the threat of jail time. Currently, low-level possession is considered a misdemeanor, carrying a penalty of up to 30 days in jail, a maximum $500 fine or both.
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Additionally, in September, bipartisan Reps. Aaron Kaufer (R) and Emily Kinkead (D) formally introduced a bipartisan marijuana legalization bill, alongside 15 other cosponsors.
In July, the governor said his administration and lawmakers would “come back and continue to fight” for marijuana legalization and other policy priorities that were omitted from budget legislation he signed into law that month.
As for medical marijuana, the governor in October signed a bill to correct an omission in a law that unintentionally excluded dispensaries from state-level tax relief for the medical marijuana industry.
About three months after the legislature approved the underlying budget bill that Shapiro signed containing tax reform provisions as a partial workaround to a federal ban on tax deductions for cannabis businesses, the Pennsylvania legislature passed corrective legislation.
Separately, at a Black Cannabis Week event hosted recently by the Diasporic Alliance for Cannabis Opportunities (DACO) in October, Street and Reps. Chris Rabb (D), Amen Brown (D), Darisha Parker (D) and Napoleon Nelson (D) joined activists to discuss their legislative priorities and motivations behind advancing legalization in the Keystone State.
Other lawmakers have also emphasized the urgency of legalizing as soon as possible given regional dynamics, while signaling that legislators are close to aligning House and Senate proposals.
As for cannabis and gun ownership, Laughlin had been looking at the issue for more than a year before introducing last year’s bill, writing last February to the state’s acting police commissioner to “strongly encourage” he review a federal ruling that the U.S. government’s ban on gun ownership by people who use marijuana is unconstitutional.
Since then, further federal court cases have questioned the constitutionality of the federal firearm ban. A federal judge in El Paso, for example, recently ruled that the ongoing ban on gun ownership by habitual marijuana users was unconstitutional in the case of a defendant who earlier pleaded guilty to the criminal charge. The court allowed the man to withdraw the plea and ordered that the indictment against him be dismissed.
Photo courtesy of Brian Shamblen.
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