Democratic Congresswoman Calls Out GOP Colleague’s Marijuana Arrest As He Works To Upend D.C. Sentencing Reform Law

A Democratic congresswoman is accusing a Republican lawmaker of hypocrisy for sponsoring legislation to upend a Washington, D.C. sentencing reform law when his own charge for marijuana possession in his youth was dismissed under a court’s discretion.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday took up bills targeting D.C. policies that recently advanced through the Oversight and Government Accountability. That included a measure titled the DC Crimes Act from Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), which would restrict the District’s ability to enact sentencing reform.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) said the GOP congressman’s push for the legislation represents a double standard given his own personal history with cannabis criminalization as a young adult and whose case was dismissed, enabling him to reach Capitol Hill.

“As a young man, he went through pretrial diversion for misdemeanor marijuana possession,” Crockett said. “As an adult yet younger than 24, he was placed on felony robbery charges, which ultimately, too, were expunged.”

“As I sat and listened to the beginning of this debate, my heart simply broke. And many people know me for being able to do alliterations, and all I could think about was ‘amnesia allows adolescent accountability avoidance, agility from across the aisle,'” she said.

“Work with me for a second: Imagine being a young man born to Jamaican and Panamanian parents who messed up not once but twice. Imagine standing in front of a judge with your life hanging in balance, and instead of prison you’re given a promise of mercy. Your record is wiped clean, and you’ve got a second chance at life. Imagine turning that into a promotion and you go to college and get a job and even become a member of Congress. That’s what redemption looks like.”

“That’s what America is supposed to be about. And that is exactly the story of the next wannabe governor from Florida, as a young man, he went through,” the congresswoman said, referring to Donalds.

Donalds—who’s DC Crimes Act passed the full House in a 240-179 vote–was arrested for alleged cannabis distribution in 1997, but the charges were dropped in 2000 as part of a pre-trial diversion program.

“He was given a third chance, and now he’s the face of a bill that would not afford young people in Washington, D.C. the same opportunities afforded to him,” Crockett said. “Let me be real: If he had grown up under Donald Trump’s America or under the very D.C. crime bill he’s pushing today, he wouldn’t be standing here as a member of Congress. He’d still be living with the weight of those charges.”

“Let’s call this what it is: Opportunities for me but not for thee. He’s climbed the ladder of redemption and now is yanking it up from the D.C. youth. Most of us were taught to lift as you climb. But clearly, some is have forgotten to lift as they climb—and now they are committed to telling the next generation to pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” she said. “I will not sit quiet while a man who was saved by grace turns around and tries to snatch grace away from others.”

Despite his own history with cannabis criminalization, Donalds also voiced opposition to a proposal to legalize marijuana in his state of Florida during last year’s election. However, his overall record is somewhat mixed.

For example, he’s voted in favor of marijuana banking legislation, as well as a bill to reduce restrictions on carrying out cannabis research. The congressman is also a cosponsor of a bill to protect gun rights for medical cannabis patients this session, and he’s twice cosponsored legislation to automatically seal criminal records for people convicted of non-violent marijuana offenses.

While he experienced a cannabis arrest himself, Donalds also voted against an amendment to prevent people from being denied security clearances over prior marijuana use—even though he’s able to receive classified briefings as a member of Congress regardless of his own history with cannabis. The congressman additionally voted against a bill to legalize marijuana in 2022.

Meanwhile, the House is also teed up to consider another bill to repeal a D.C. law expanding expungements for marijuana possession, which cleared committee last week.

The cannabis expungement policy is part of the Second Chance Amendment Act, a District law passed in 2022 that took effect the next year.

Under the law, the District’s judiciary was mandated to automatically expunge marijuana possession records for offenses that took place before D.C. enacted a limited cannabis legalization law in 2014.

Advocates have already been frustrated with congressional interference with the District’s cannabis laws—particularly the annual renewal of an appropriations rider from Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) barring D.C. from using its local tax dollars to implement a system of regulated recreational marijuana sales.

While Rep. James Comer (R-KY) oversaw the repeal bill vote, he previously signaled that he’d be open to revisiting the rider. Asked about the possibility of lifting restrictions on D.C. legal cannabis sales, he said in late 2023  “if that’s what Washington D.C. wants, yeah.”

Earlier this month, the House Appropriations Committee again advanced the underlying spending bill with the rider kept intact.

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Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) has criticized appropriators for putting forward a bill that restricts the District’s autonomy in a number of ways, including the rider to “prohibit the use of funds to commercialize recreational marijuana.”

“I am outraged at the number and scope of anti-D.C. home rule riders in the bill released today,” Norton said when the measure cleared subcommittee in July.

The congresswoman said in May that she would again again push her colleagues to join her in an effort to remove the cannabis language.

“As Congress works on the fiscal year 2026 appropriation bill, I will continue to fight to remove this rider,” she said, while referencing a statement from the White House that called the District’s move to enact local marijuana reform an example of a “failed” policy that “opened the door to disorder.”

President Donald Trump’s budget request that he released in June similarly contained the Harris rider preventing marijuana sales in D.C., despite voters in the jurisdiction voting to approve legalization in 2014. Former President Joe Biden also repeatedly requested the continuation of the D.C. cannabis rider in budget proposals during his time in office.

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.

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