Here’s some more info about that:
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker introduced the bill back in August. Since then, Representatives Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna have co-sponsored the House version of the Marijuana Justice Act. According to Marijuana Majority leader Tom Angell, “This is the single most far-reaching marijuana bill that’s ever been filed in either chamber of Congress.”
The act has four major components: It would legalize marijuana on the federal level, retroactively clear all marijuana-related federal convictions, allocate $500 million for job training in communities affected by the War on Drugs and cut law enforcement funding for states that arrest a disproportionate number of people of color.
I’ve also been noticing this:
Sen. Bernie Sanders entered Duke University Chapel on Thursday night to hundreds of people singing “This Little Light of Mine.” Sitting down with NAACP national board member the Rev. William Barber II, Sanders’s conversation brought up a familiar theme of his 2016 campaign: the “moral economy.”
“There is no excuse for 40 million Americans living in poverty,” Sanders thundered on Thursday night. “The way we bring about change is having the courage to talk about a reality that you may not see on a TV and you surely will not hear discussed in the United State Congress.”
It was a different feel to many of his 2016 campaign rallies, even though the Vermont senator’s core message has not changed. Instead of speaking to a crowd of mostly white and mostly secular settings, Sanders not only shared his message with a predominantly black audience, he sang along in a nod to the long history of the black church and politics.
One of the biggest problems Sanders had in 2016 during his insurgent presidential campaign was in Southern states, where the African-American vote is crucial to securing the Democratic nomination. Now, as the senator from Vermont seriously mulls a presidential run in 2020, he’s not going to make the same mistake again.
Sanders has been crisscrossing Southern states this month, speaking to black voters. He marched in Memphis with the Rev. Al Sharpton and other black leaders on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death.
“If he can make that announcement — just confirm that would be true or not — I think that would be pretty dope,” said Travis Smith, a junior at Duke studying neuroscience, and a member of the campus NAACP chapter. Smith supported Sanders “1,000 percent” in 2016.
While Sanders is making a noticeable effort to shore up support among black voters and faith leaders in the South ahead of the 2020 cycle, not everyone is sold.
I also like that he’s been a big influence for him:
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) fired the small-donor fundraising shot that was heard around the political world and now stands on the brink of transforming American politics for a long time to come.
The Sanders fundraising triumph in 2016, raising huge amounts of money by refusing dirty special interest money and appealing to intensely patriotic and idealistic small donors, is a living legacy that is demonstrating enormous political power as the midterm elections and the 2020 presidential campaign come closer.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a leading progressive voice in the Senate and on the national stage, is inspiring her own wave of patriotic small donors.
Like Our Revolution, the Sanders affiliated group that is supporting progressive groups nationwide, Warren has parlayed a powerful base of small donors into supporting national efforts to elect enlightened candidates to regain Democratic control of the Senate and House of Representatives.
Now Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), who is surging in his campaign to defeat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) in their Senate race and who refuses to accept donations from political action committees, raised a staggering $6.7 million from powerful small-donor support in the first quarter of 2018.
In a new Quinnipiac poll, the underdog O’Rourke is running virtually even with Cruz, who leads in this latest poll by only 47-44 percent.
The success of Beto O’Rourke, widely seen as a rising star in the political world, is particularly noteworthy because he is campaigning in communities across Texas that have been bastions of deep-red GOP support that Democrats rarely visit and even Republicans often ignore.
Let’s help Bernie make this Blue Wave hit hard. Click below to become a Patriotic Donor to Sanders, Warren and Beto’s campaigns:
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