Arguably the most sweeping presidential pardon in modern American history came 45 years ago when Jimmy Carter, on literally his first full day in the White House, pardoned thousands of Americans who resisted and evaded the draft for the war in Vietnam.
Yesterday, however, we saw the second most sweeping presidential pardon in modern American history. NBC News reported:
President Joe Biden announced Thursday he will take executive action to pardon thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law. Biden said he would also encourage governors to take similar action with state offenses and ask the Department of Health and Human Services and the Justice Department to review how marijuana is scheduled, or classified, under federal law.
“As I often said during my campaign for president, no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said in a written statement issued yesterday afternoon. “Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit. Criminal records for marijuana possession have also imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities. And while white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate rates.”
NBC News’ report added that a senior administration official, while reviewing the new policy with reporters, said thousands of people with prior convictions for marijuana possession are denied housing, employment or educational opportunities. “This pardon will help relieve those collateral consequences,” the official explained.
The Justice Department statement added, “In coming days, the Office of the Pardon Attorney will begin implementing a process to provide impacted individuals with certificates of pardon.”
It is, to be sure, a major development and a key progressive success story. But as a political matter, one of the most amazing things about the president’s move is how little his detractors had to say about it.
On a day-to-day level, Republican criticisms of Biden’s agenda are effectively reflexive: If the Democratic White House wants x, then GOP leaders are eager to tell voters that x represents a socialistic assault on everything that is good and true about America.
With this in mind, it was easy to imagine Republicans launching apoplectic broadsides in response to Biden’s sweeping and progressive pardons. The public would inevitably hear tired clichés about Democrats being “soft on crime” and failing to appreciate the seriousness of “gateway drugs.”
And yet, in the wake of Biden’s announcement, the Republican National Committee had literally nothing to say about it. The National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee were silent, too.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also completely ignored the developments.
To be sure, it’d be an exaggeration to suggest that all Republicans sat on their hands. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who routinely complains that not enough Americans are behind bars, made sure to register his disapproval yesterday. So did one of Fox News’ prime-time hosts.
But by any fair measure, the GOP apparently thought that the smart election season move yesterday would be to let Biden’s pardons go unmentioned.
Circling back to our earlier coverage, it’s extraordinary to see how much the landscape has changed in recent years. A decade ago, the total number of states allowing recreational marijuana was zero, and at the national level, elected officials wanted nothing to do with reform proposals.
Now, as NBC News’ report added, 19 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized marijuana for adults over age 21, and 37 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana. That list may yet grow: Voters in five states will decide next month whether to legalize marijuana for adults.
What’s more, on Capitol Hill, a major reform package cleared the House earlier this year — even a handful of GOP members supported it — and in the White House, Biden has now issued a sweeping pardon that Republicans didn’t bother to criticize. The far-right backlash that would’ve been inevitable in the recent past is nowhere to be found in 2022.
For decades, the United States’ “war on drugs” only moved in one punitive direction. As the latest developments prove, it’s a new day.