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Notes -
President Biden has announced new executive action (... on twitter):
There are some big, and not always obvious, caveats here. There are very few federal prisoners for simple possession, and most of those are border-related cases where the person will (or would normally) end up deported afterward. Leaving sale, manufacturing, and distribution charges and convictions alone is more tenable at the federal level, where most thresholds are high in practice, but it still leaves a lot of sympathetic cases in prison or with serious criminal records for what is often a bullshit crime. Even if state jurisdictions follow along, lower state and local thresholds for distribution or intent-to-distribute will have far less impact than the eye-popping numbers pot legalization advocates bring. Many of the jurisdictions not already seriously considering decriminalizing pot offenses at the state level are unlikely to find this Call On Governors very persuasive; while there is a crossover component, some Red Tribe-leaning states may consider the political nature of this call legitimate cause to adopt wait-and-see approaches at best. The overlap between pot and general soft-on-crime aren't perfect, but it's not non-existent, either.
And it's hard not to see the timing as political: this was a campaign promise, held off for over a year and a half. While a lot of friendly reporting points to requests from other politicians, that doesn't actually make it less political, even were it not their midterm election season.
On the other hand, there's limits to how much I can complain about someone doing a good thing for selfish reasons. I am not a fan of marijuana, and marijuana legalization advocates tend to get incredibly unrealistic promises for the benefits and ignorance of the costs of legalization or decriminalization. It's hard to see the drug as safer than vaping, for another matter the FDA has crusaded against recently, even for optimistic reads on the risks of schizophrenia or lung disease. But it's also very hard to consider most federal or state extant rules good on their own merits, or even legitimate uses of government power. And, notably, this route has been available to other Presidents, who had similar political benefits (and risks), and who did not take it.
((If it actually happens; announcing a policy on Twitter does not implement it. It's quite possible that the actual real-world version runs into stumbling blocks -- a Biden pardon series is unlikely to face the sort of legal friction a Trump one would, but there's no shortage of unsympathetic prisoners and very unpleasant border cases. Bulk pardons aren't unprecedented, but they may be rough in practice here. And this would easily dwarf those past examples; this isn't quite nullifying a federal statute, but it's a lot closer than anything done in the past.))
The other interesting side is this taking so long to happen. There's a lot of good reasons to be skeptical of policy polls on the matter, but support for decriminalization is one matter that's replicated fairly well in actual referendums and ballots. This is a place where federal legislative action is plausible, and also largely unexplored entirely. The actual FDA rulemaking is a charlie foxtrot waiting to happen -- emphasis on the wait, as I'm skeptical it goes anywhere in a year -- but the power of the pardon is broad. It's understandable that major politicians are less likely to have inhaled than the average American, but it's not like President Obama or Clinton were strong pot advocates, and in turn Biden's historically been almost as skeptical as Trump was.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned what I see as the biggest problem with this. Do we really want presidents to effectively unilaterally nullify laws the president thinks are wrong? How would those in the blue tribe react if a President Trump pardoned Jan 6th offenders? How would those in the red tribe react if a President Kamala Harris pardoned BLM rioters (supposing some future 2020-summer-of-unrest-like scenario where offenders were charged federally, for the sake of keeping this comparison apt)?
Yes, presidents have the power to pardon, but I don't think we should let that slide into something that looks quite like undermining the separation of powers. This is just the latest in a long-running series of examples (student loan forgiveness, eviction moratoriums, vaccine mandates via OSHA, Trump's border wall funding via "emergency" powers, DACA under Obama) where the executive is trying to usurp power that belongs to the legislature.
There is some amount of precedent to pardoning (or more likely commuting sentences) of perceived political prisoners. Carter rather famously
pardonedcommuted the sentences of the Puerto Rican nationalists who "attempted to assassinate President Truman" and "sprayed gunfire from a gallery overlooking the House of Representatives". Obama commuted Manning's sentence.Honestly pretty much all application of the pardon and commutation powers are some combination of nepotism and corruption (Clinton pardoned his brother, among others) and politically principled overturning of perceived injustices.
Carter did not pardon them; he commuted their sentences, and it was not because they were "perceived political prisoners" -- in the article you link, that claim is explicitly rejected by everyone involved.
Well, yes, because that doesn't leave much in the way of other reasons for the application of those pardons. The question is what percentage is each
Whoops, I knew it was supposed to be "commuted" but must have been in too much of a hurry when typing the original comment to notice. Thanks for correcting that!
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