Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), a 2020 presidential candidate, has continued to shift away from her past as a tough-on-crime prosecutor in San Francisco.
Harris and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), are introducing legislation that would decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. That's pretty standard in Democratic circles these days, but the new bill would also expunge old convictions related to marijuana charges. Convictions for sales to minors would not be stricken from the record.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Harris' changing tune on drug offenses has not escaped the notice of critics, however. Forbes reported that Harris once laughed when asked about her Republican attorney general's support for marijuana legalization in 2014 and she did not back a 2010 California measure that would have led to marijuana legalization in the state. Of course, Harris is not the first presidential candidate to evolve with the times — and, hey, she even freely admitted that she partook herself as an undergraduate.
"As a former prosecutor who did not endorse legalization in California, this is an opportunity for her to establish a new stance on this subject," University of Denver's marijuana policy expert Sam Kamin said.
Read more about Harris' evolving views on crime here at The Week.
-
What to know before turning to AI for financial advicethe explainer It can help you crunch the numbers — but it might also pocket your data
-
Book reviews: 'The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction—and a Search for Relief' and 'Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run'Feature The search for a headache cure and revisiting Springsteen's 'Born to Run' album on its 50th anniversary
-
Keith McNally' 6 favorite books that have ambitious charactersFeature The London-born restaurateur recommends works by Leo Tolstoy, John le Carré, and more
-
ABC News to pay $15M in Trump defamation suitSpeed Read The lawsuit stemmed from George Stephanopoulos' on-air assertion that Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll
-
Judge blocks Louisiana 10 Commandments lawSpeed Read U.S. District Judge John deGravelles ruled that a law ordering schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms was unconstitutional
-
ATF finalizes rule to close 'gun show loophole'Speed Read Biden moves to expand background checks for gun buyers
-
Hong Kong passes tough new security lawSpeed Read It will allow the government to further suppress all forms of dissent
-
France enshrines abortion rights in constitutionspeed read It became the first country to make abortion a constitutional right
-
Texas executes man despite contested evidenceSpeed Read Texas rejected calls for a rehearing of Ivan Cantu's case amid recanted testimony and allegations of suppressed exculpatory evidence
-
Supreme Court wary of state social media regulationsSpeed Read A majority of justices appeared skeptical that Texas and Florida were lawfully protecting the free speech rights of users
-
Greece legalizes same-sex marriageSpeed Read Greece becomes the first Orthodox Christian country to enshrine marriage equality in law
