Pennsylvania House Speaker Says Flipping Three Legislative Seats Could Legalize Marijuana Next Year

Speaker Says Three Seats Stand Between Pennsylvania and Legalization

Pennsylvania is poised to legalize marijuana as soon as next year if Democrats can win a handful of key state legislative races in the November elections, a top lawmaker says. House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D) said at a Black Cannabis Week event on Friday that the state still has “a ways to go” to catch up with its neighbors that have already “moved in the right direction” by enacting marijuana legalization.

While McClinton’s chamber passed a bill to legalize cannabis last year, it has stalled in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrow majority. However, the “exciting thing” is that “Pennsylvania voters may go a different direction” by electing Democrats in November and helping them flip the three seats the party needs to take a majority in the Senate, the speaker said.

“What it looks like for us to have change is we have to change who is making the laws in that chamber,” McClinton said, urging voters to “do the best thing for people to have business opportunities, health improvement, community empowerment, restorative justice things that are long overdue.”

Lawmakers Point to Changing Attitudes in the Senate

House Appropriations Committee Chair Jordan Harris (D) also spoke alongside McClinton on the Black Cannabis Week panel, noting that “attitudes are changing in Pennsylvania with regards to cannabis” but that “one of the reasons why we don’t have full adult use legalized here is because of the attitudes of a handful of members of the Pennsylvania State Senate.”

“If we had those attitudes changed and/or the attitudes of their constituency, we would pass a bill out of the House, we would send it to the Senate and they would be able to run it,” Harris said.

Legalization Bill Awaits Senate Action

The bill that passed the House last year remains stalled in the Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow majority. McClinton said that if Democrats win the three seats they need in November, the chamber could act on legalization as soon as next year.

McClinton and Harris made their remarks at the Black Cannabis Week event on Friday, where both lawmakers pointed to the November elections as the path forward for legalization in Pennsylvania.

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