LR BREAKING NEWS!!

From Eric Dondero:

The greatest advancement for pro-marijuana legalization Republicans in the last few months has been in Idaho. Other positive developments have occured in other states.

For instance, pro-marijuana advocate Bob Ehrlich is the Republican nominee for Governor. He is now leading in his race over Democrat incumbent Martin O'Malley. (Ironically, RNC Chair Michael Steele served as Lt. Gov. under Ehrlich.) Maryland is also the state where a Republican State Senator managed to get passed through committee a medicinal marijuana bill.

There has been some progress on the medical marijuana front in the New Jersey legislature as well, with a few Republicans joining in.

But it is in Idaho where the widest amount of success has occured. State Rep. Tom Trail has seen his medicinal marijuana legislation receive major support in the legislature. Now comes word from a regular reader of Libertarian Republican, that the Idaho GOP may be moving closer to backing legalization.

From LR Reader Ryan Davidson, Idahoans for Liberty:

I was asked to submit a resolution to the Republican State Convention in support of Tom's bill. I, along with 9 other co-sponsors, filed a proposed resolution which was debated in the resolutions committee in Idaho Falls. I was unable to be there when the resolution came up, as I was serving on the credentials committee at the same time.

As I heard it, the medical marijuana resolution was not adopted, but it was not voted down. It was essentially voted "return to sender" for lack of information. The fact that it was not outright voted down is a positive sign, in my opinion.

This was a project that definitely could have used more coordination and effort in order to be successful. I simply did not have the time myself to coordinate the effort. One of the reasons the resolution was voted "return to sender" was because it referenced Tom Trail's bill, but a copy of his bill was not attached. None of the other 9 co-sponsored spoke in favor of the bill at the committee. (However, some resolution committee members spoke in favor.) Given the short amount of time the committee had to debate each resolution (they had 2 hours to vote on over 40 resolutions) its possible that even if we had prepared an effective presentation, we would not have been able to give it.

This does not mean that the issue is dead until the next convention. The Idaho Republican State Central Committee meets three times a year, and they also vote on resolutions. Their next meeting will be around the time the next Legislative session begins.