TL;DR: Two cannabis bills were heard: HB 12 and SB 288. SB 288 was passed unanimously. HB 12 was passed 7-4 along party lines. Both are now headed to Senate Judiciary. If passed through Judiciary, HB 12 will be headed to the floor and SB 288 will be headed to Senate Finance.
Recap of events leading up to this
Two bills legalizing cannabis were introduced in the House: HB 12 and HB 17. HB 17 was tabled in House Health and Human Services. HB 12 went on to pass in the house 39-31.
A week ago Saturday, STBTC considered three Senate bills and HB 12, but did not take any action on any of them. HB 12 has the best chance of making it all the way through the process and had not yet been introduced in the Senate so they would have been unable to take action on that anyway. Committee and Democratic leadership put pressure on the sponsors to come back to the committee in a week with fewer bills.
The consideration of the cannabis bills originally scheduled for this Saturday was pushed to today at the request of the sponsors. I'm assuming they needed more time to get some amendments together as part of reducing the number of bills.
What happened this evening
The sponsors of Senate Bills 13 and 363 (both Democrats) both pulled their bills leaving HB 12 and SB 288 (sponsored by Sen. Pirtle who is a Republican). Sen. Pirtle had an amendment to his bill which added some Tribal cooperation language and specified that the regulatory body his bill would create would not be able to set plant limits. This bill was sent forward with a unanimous vote.
Sen. Wirth (Senate majority leader) introduced an amendment to HB 12 which was passed. I know that this amendment has changed HB 12 such that plant limits could be imposed on a temporary basis if it's determined necessary by some study. Unfortunately the amendment is not yet up on the website, and I was on a run for much of this part of the debate, so I don't totally know all of the details yet. HB 12 was sent forward on with a 7-4 vote along party lines.
Two of the Democratic Senators, Padilla and Tallman, seem like they might be reluctant to vote for either of these if they come to the floor. Senator Padilla in particular alluded many times to some events in his past involving his brother and bad experiences with marijuana. Don't really know any details.
Republican Senators Kernan and Brandt seem open to legalizing marijuana, but are much more receptive to Sen. Pirtle's bill than HB 12.
What happens now
Both bills are headed to the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Sen. Cervantes. Judiciary has been backed up, but I'm guessing that there is going to be a lot of pressure from leadership to consider these bills in a timely fashion. If HB 12 passes through Judiciary, it will head to the Senate floor. If it's passed there, since it has already been amended, it will then go on the consent calendar in the House where they will hopefully consent to the amendments made by the senate. After that it's headed to the Governor.
If SB 288 passes through Judiciary, then it also has to go to the Senate Finance Committee before it can head to the House. Assuming it passes through Judiciary, Finance, and the Senate floor, it will head to the house, get committee assignments (usually two committees, but potentially just one this late in the session) and then pass the house. If it passes the house the Senate will have to consent to any amendments made and then it can head to the Governor.
The legislative sessions ends on March 20th. Personally, I doubt SB 288 has time to make it through the rest of the process, particularly with that third Senate committed. Senate Finance is chaired by a very conservative Democrat who has refused to hear cannabis bills in the past.
Hey, if you notice I got anything wrong here, feel free to correct me. I've recalled this info to the best of my ability, but I'm far from an expert on our legislative procedure, and this is mostly from memory.
