The lawmaking and budgeting process in Congress is so warped that we expect the federal government to be on the brink of shutdown or worse. Cue the eye-rolling, blame games and the old saw about how “progress” is the opposite of “Congress.”
But every now and then, lawmakers find a new way to remind us how poorly they’re doing. In this week’s deal to end the longest federal shutdown on record, it’s an out-of-nowhere measure that would effectively end the hemp industry.
You weren’t aware we were debating cannabis policy at such a high-stakes level? That’s because we weren’t. A THC product ban was tacked onto the bill to extend federal spending at the last minute, undoing a provision in the 2018 farm bill that, admittedly, wasn’t itself a glimmering example of fine legislating.
Those determined to ban THC, the psychoactive element in cannabis, put a metaphorical gun to the heads of Thanksgiving travelers, food-assistance recipients and federal employees, threatening to extend the shutdown if they didn’t get their way on a totally unrelated provision.
It’s a sloppy way to make policy. It diminishes input from interested citizens, activists and businesspeople.
And it’s a recipe for uncertainty and lawsuits. Products with more than 0.4% by weight of THC will be banned, shuttering an industry that does $8 billion in business in Texas alone. The change would take effect in a year, and industry lawyers are probably already hard at work on injunction requests.
Contrast what happened in Washington with a similar battle in Austin this year. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and many Republican lawmakers wanted a strict ban on THC products, to the point that the Legislature passed a bill in its regular session. Gov. Greg Abbott was on the other side. He argued for a regulatory framework that would keep some items on the market for adults but curtail major doses and make it harder for children to get it.
A special session didn’t yield a solution. Unless the federal end-run remains in place and Texas need not legislate its own rules, the issue will no doubt be front and center in 2027.
Wherever you fall on the issue, surely you recognize that that’s a better, more democratic way of doing business.
We’re not naive about lawmaking. It’s a rough game, and most of those who play it care more about the result than making sure the process is open and fair.
But maneuvers like this erode trust in government — which, if you haven’t noticed, already polls about as highly as Dallas Cowboys fans’ hopes of reaching the Super Bowl. To have a major policy enacted merely because it will stave off an unrelated disaster undermines confidence that our laws derive from thoughtful consideration or even from the consent of the governed.
Cannabis is a broad area of policy that benefits from various levels of regulation so that we can figure out what approaches work best. We side with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who bucked most of his fellow Republicans and voted against the new ban on the principle that states should be able to enact their own regulations.
What makes sense for Colorado or New York, where full-blown legalization of recreational marijuana is showing some major downsides, is not necessarily the path Texas will go down. But Texas’ libertarian streak is just strong enough that many believe responsible adults should have access to THC products, particularly if they need help with pain management or traumatic stress.
That’s the kind of policy-lab environment that we could have, if Congress did its job remotely as intended. Today, it’s hemp; tomorrow, it could be gun policy, abortion or any number of fraught issues that a fractured society should debate out in the open.
If the choice is between a particular ransom demand or grounding American air travel, there’s no choice at all. And that’s not why we have representative democracy in the first place.
BEHIND THE STORY
Hey, who writes these editorials?
Editorials are the positions of the Editorial Board, which serves as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s institutional voice. The members of the board are: Cynthia M. Allen, columnist; Steve Coffman, editor and president; Bradford William Davis, columnist and editorial writer; Bud Kennedy, columnist; and Ryan J. Rusak, opinion editor. Most editorials are written by Rusak or Davis. Editorials are unsigned because they represent the board’s consensus positions, not necessarily the views of individual writers.
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The Editorial Board meets regularly to discuss issues in the news and what points should be made in editorials. We strive to build a consensus to produce the strongest editorials possible, but when we differ, we put matters to a vote.
The board aims to be consistent with stances it has taken in the past but usually engages in a fresh discussion based on new developments and different perspectives.
We focus on local and state news, though we will also weigh in on national issues with an eye toward their impact on Texas or the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
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News reporters strive to keep their opinions out of what they write. They have no input on the Editorial Board’s stances. The board consults their reporting and expertise but does its own research for editorials.
Signed columns by writers such as Allen, Kennedy and Rusak contain the writer’s personal opinions.
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