6 ms·

Can someone tell me why Obama didn't do this 10 years ago? Or even 6.

by googlryas 4y ago

xienze 4y ago
He wasn’t as unpopular as Biden going into a midterm election.
- r00fus 4y ago
  That's kind of amazing, all things considering both for Biden and Obama.
bdcravens 4y ago
Minimal affect. Most marijuana possession charges are state, not federal, and presidential pardons don't affect state charges.
- Supermancho 4y ago
  Same as today, so that's not a compelling reason. As mentioned by someone else, Obama did make some overtures that allowed the party to feel out the base's reactions. Legalization was always going to be a process. Right now, I believe this is typical (D) politicking. I think it's likely that this is something like...Biden needs a positive press to boost for both his approval rating and visibility within his base, for the next election cycle, with a minor symbolic gesture. Obama never needed to do that.
- rednerrus 4y ago
  If the WH's statement that this affects 6,500 people, that seems like an actual affective.
  - adolph 4y ago
    4% given a Fed prison pop of "151,283 at yearend 2020." https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/federal-prisoner-statistics-collected-under-first-step-act-2021 https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/federal-prisoner-st...
    - pavon 4y ago
      None of the pardoned individuals are serving prison time for their offenses. The main value of the pardon is that having a felony conviction makes it harder to get jobs and bars you from voting in some states. Around 8% of the US population has had a felony conviction.
      - joveian 4y ago
        It can prevent people from running or working for legal marijuana businesses in states where it is legal, meaning a history of uneven enforcement continues to affect the legal marijuana industry. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amandachicagolewis/americas-white-only-weed-boom https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amandachicagolewis/amer... I think Oregon either has made changes to address this or is close to doing so. This helps at the federal level.
      - adolph 4y ago
        Us pop: 331,893,745 % Pop w/Felony: 8% Felony pop: 26,551,499 Pardon pop: 6,500 % Felony Pardoned: 0.02% Unfortunately, the 8% of population with a felony includes state felonies, not just federal. Wikipedia claims 6,106,327 [0] as the 2016 total felony population but only includes states. 20M federal felony population seems large. In 2020 66,761 federal felonies were adjudicated with a 94.4% conviction rate [1], so annual rate of 62,755. Of those felonies "Drug" was 18,418 with a 92.6 conviction rate, so 17,055. If the total population of pardoned people is 6,500, that is a bit over 1/3 of felony drug convictions in 2020 alone. Given a conviction growth rate of about 5% over 30 years ending with 62,755, there would be a federal felony population of 936,422. That is barely 1M much less 20M. Something is off about the numbers. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_the_United_States#Recent_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_t... 1. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs20.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs20.pdf
kingkawn 4y ago
Bc he was operating under immense pressure to not be radical or risk exacerbating the racist politics aligning against him
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  This feels revisionist. Obama won by a healthy margin in 2012 and those that subscribed to the racist politics probably would not have voted for him even if he locked up every African American in the US. He had every opportunity to push for bold change and instead disappointed his base by being timid.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    “First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a ‘more convenient season.’” - Martin Luther King Jr. Losing Democrats was the concern, not Republicans; they were already lost. There are plenty of “tough on crime” Dems out there for Obama to navigate. For the same reasons, Michelle Obama had to be careful with hairstyles and how she spoke, lest she be perceived as an “angry Black lady”.
    - KerrAvon 4y ago
      I don't agree with this -- the "losing Democrats" bit -- but I don't think it should be downvoted. Michelle Obama was treated horribly. Trump's First Lady was a Russian prostitute who literally hated Christmas, and she was given the benefit of the doubt until the very last moment.
  - 4y ago
dangerlibrary 4y ago
One answer to your question is probably "because he spent his limited political capital trying to ensure everyone in America had access to healthcare." Another would be that he actually laid the groundwork for this kind of action. Obama made pursuing marijuana convictions the lowest possible priority for federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials [0], effectively saying "if states want to make weed legal, the federal government isn't going to do anything about it." After that, a number of states held referenda on legalizing weed, and most passed with broad support. This is the next logical step at the federal level - pardoning anyone who was convicted during that period and taking steps towards changing marijuana from a schedule 1 drug (where it has never belonged) to something more reasonable. [1] No president can fully legalize weed at the federal level, but they can reschedule it based on the actual cost/benefits to individuals and society. Another more cynical answer is that Obama is black, and didn't want the legacy of the first black president to also be "the one who pardoned all the drug offenders" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_policy_of_the_Barack_Obama_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_policy_of_the_Barack_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act
- googlryas 4y ago
  But you don't need political capital to make a unilateral executive decision? He could have done this after he was already a lame duck. It's not like a president can undo a pardon.
  - dangerlibrary 4y ago
    Good politicians do things they know will be popular. This isn't always a bad thing. Presidential actions can influence a lot of down-ballot races. For good or ill, both Obama and Biden are politicians, and only took the steps they felt would be popular with their constituents at the time.
  - wk_end 4y ago
    He'd be expending the political capital of his party. If he felt like this pardon would've made it harder for Democrats to get elected in 2016, that might be a reason why he didn't do it.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
It was simply not a priority then. An election is coming up, and winning it is the priority right now. That is why we suddenly have movement on Marijuana, and student loans. The timing is ridiculously suspect.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
  If you follow the news trail on this topic at all, you would be aware that the Democratic Party has been pretty loud about marihuana reform for at least a year now.
- aschearer 4y ago
  It's not suspect, it's politics. Giving your constituents what they are asking for is the name of the game. Timing it to maximize your chances for re-election is good politics. Hard to imagine it could be any other way in our current system.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    Another way to put this is let thousands of people spend years extra in jail on charges you know are morally wrong, so that you can get re-elected.
- tsol 4y ago
  He was already dangerously unpopular at a time when democrats can't afford it. I was thinking this would be an easy win for him, I honestly don't know why he waited this long. I wouldn't be surprised if he does something else high profile to try to win approval. What else would you expect
shadowgovt 4y ago
Ironically: Donald Trump. Obama's tenure as President was marked by a distinct attempt to meet the GOP as peers. It seems as though he was, mostly, a pretty strong believer (philosophically) in co-governance by all representatives of the people of the US in the federal government. "Reach across the aisle" was a frequently-used phrase at that time. And if he unilaterally pardoned people legally convicted of marijuana offenses without Congress first changing the law, what kind of message would that send about the nature of executive power in the United States of America? His political peers responded by refusing to consider a Supreme Court nomination; supporting and nominating Donald Trump, whom voters then elected; and seating three Supreme Court justices, who then overturned precedent that had protected the reproductive rights of a generation and a half of Americans. Their party platform in 2020 was "That the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda" with no other changes from the 2016 platform. No mention of policy; no mention of Congress. The modern Democratic party is under no illusions that reaching across the aisle will benefit them and is now in the tit-for-tat phase of the two-party prisoner's dilemma. If this move wins Biden's party votes going into the midterms, then forget Congress. If Congress wants a say in how the country is governed, they can get their act together and do the few structural changes that would un-deadlock the Senate and allow laws to be passed. I don't know if this is a strategy that would have worked during Obama's administration. I don't think Obama's strategies work in this era, though.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  It could have worked. The problem always was that Obama was so enthralled with the concept of bipartisanship that he didn't listen to his opponents when they told the press *in 2009* that their only goal for the next four years was to destroy his presidency. So he always bent over for the Republicans, often sabotaging things like Obamacare by pre-negotiating with his own administration to remove things he thought the Republicans would dislike. Of course, the Republicans didn't care what he did. They were going to oppose everything they could get away with opposing. (Their voters did still expect some governance in those days, instead of the full-time vengeance mode they now expect.)
  - 4y ago
guelo 4y ago
He didnt believe in it. Obama's DOJ continued raiding and shutting down California medical marijuana dispensaries until the last year of his term. In many ways Biden is more progressive than Obama.
- hirvi74 4y ago
  > In many ways Biden is more progressive than Obama As is society as a whole.
andirk 4y ago
First, consider Obama, who claims himself to have policies of a Reagan Republican, did not want to legalize marijuana. Then, after considering that, listen to all the excuses. Rescheduling marijuana was one pen stroke away from him for 8 years.
Brusco_RF 4y ago
People often forget just how quickly public opinion changed in this country. Case in point, Obama opposed gay marriage when he ran in 2008.
- acdha 4y ago
  I’d also add that this wasn’t just a mood change but a response to new laws in several states. When each of those changes happened, some people predicted the downfall of society but by now you have a number of years of evidence that the main effect is a ton of extra tax revenue. That won’t change the really committed but I know more than a few people who basically moved their position to “it’s no worse than alcohol and stoners don’t crash their cars as much” after seeing that.
socialismisok 4y ago
Obama is centrist, and even basic prison and drug policy reform is not a centrist concern. Biden is too, but the Overton window on marijuana has shifted a bit. Biden is doing the smallest tangible thing, which is great, but hardly earth shattering.
LastTrain 4y ago
Because people would have lost their shit if he'd done that.
hackerlight 4y ago
The same reason Obama was opposed to gay marriage then changed his mind. The values of society change over time. You need a critical mass of support before it becomes politically viable. That takes time. Now is the time.
guywithahat 4y ago
Weed wasn't as big of an issue back then, and I don't recall any states that had legalized it (except maybe for "medical" use) at the time. I mean Obama also opposed gay marriage when he started his term; the left has moved left incredibly quickly over the last ~10 years
- alphabettsy 4y ago
  > the left has moved left incredibly quickly over the last ~10 years Have they? Most on the left said and would still say Obama was a relatively standard Democrat and not particularly progressive, especially compared to someone like Bernie Sanders.
  - IE6 4y ago
    Yeah we don't claim Obama or Biden as our own - they are something else more akin to a conservative (see also neoliberal)

Can someone tell me why Obama didn't do this 10 years ago? Or even 6.

xienze 4y ago

He wasn’t as unpopular as Biden going into a midterm election.

r00fus 4y ago
That's kind of amazing, all things considering both for Biden and Obama.

bdcravens 4y ago

Minimal affect. Most marijuana possession charges are state, not federal, and presidential pardons don't affect state charges.

Supermancho 4y ago
Same as today, so that's not a compelling reason. As mentioned by someone else, Obama did make some overtures that allowed the party to feel out the base's reactions. Legalization was always going to be a process. Right now, I believe this is typical (D) politicking. I think it's likely that this is something like...Biden needs a positive press to boost for both his approval rating and visibility within his base, for the next election cycle, with a minor symbolic gesture. Obama never needed to do that.
rednerrus 4y ago
If the WH's statement that this affects 6,500 people, that seems like an actual affective.
- adolph 4y ago
  4% given a Fed prison pop of "151,283 at yearend 2020." https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/federal-prisoner-statistics-collected-under-first-step-act-2021 https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/federal-prisoner-st...
  - pavon 4y ago
    None of the pardoned individuals are serving prison time for their offenses. The main value of the pardon is that having a felony conviction makes it harder to get jobs and bars you from voting in some states. Around 8% of the US population has had a felony conviction.
    - joveian 4y ago
      It can prevent people from running or working for legal marijuana businesses in states where it is legal, meaning a history of uneven enforcement continues to affect the legal marijuana industry. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amandachicagolewis/americas-white-only-weed-boom https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amandachicagolewis/amer... I think Oregon either has made changes to address this or is close to doing so. This helps at the federal level.
    - adolph 4y ago
      Us pop: 331,893,745 % Pop w/Felony: 8% Felony pop: 26,551,499 Pardon pop: 6,500 % Felony Pardoned: 0.02% Unfortunately, the 8% of population with a felony includes state felonies, not just federal. Wikipedia claims 6,106,327 [0] as the 2016 total felony population but only includes states. 20M federal felony population seems large. In 2020 66,761 federal felonies were adjudicated with a 94.4% conviction rate [1], so annual rate of 62,755. Of those felonies "Drug" was 18,418 with a 92.6 conviction rate, so 17,055. If the total population of pardoned people is 6,500, that is a bit over 1/3 of felony drug convictions in 2020 alone. Given a conviction growth rate of about 5% over 30 years ending with 62,755, there would be a federal felony population of 936,422. That is barely 1M much less 20M. Something is off about the numbers. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_the_United_States#Recent_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_t... 1. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs20.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs20.pdf

kingkawn 4y ago

Bc he was operating under immense pressure to not be radical or risk exacerbating the racist politics aligning against him

AlexandrB 4y ago
This feels revisionist. Obama won by a healthy margin in 2012 and those that subscribed to the racist politics probably would not have voted for him even if he locked up every African American in the US. He had every opportunity to push for bold change and instead disappointed his base by being timid.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  “First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a ‘more convenient season.’” - Martin Luther King Jr. Losing Democrats was the concern, not Republicans; they were already lost. There are plenty of “tough on crime” Dems out there for Obama to navigate. For the same reasons, Michelle Obama had to be careful with hairstyles and how she spoke, lest she be perceived as an “angry Black lady”.
  - KerrAvon 4y ago
    I don't agree with this -- the "losing Democrats" bit -- but I don't think it should be downvoted. Michelle Obama was treated horribly. Trump's First Lady was a Russian prostitute who literally hated Christmas, and she was given the benefit of the doubt until the very last moment.
- 4y ago

dangerlibrary 4y ago

One answer to your question is probably "because he spent his limited political capital trying to ensure everyone in America had access to healthcare." Another would be that he actually laid the groundwork for this kind of action. Obama made pursuing marijuana convictions the lowest possible priority for federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials [0], effectively saying "if states want to make weed legal, the federal government isn't going to do anything about it." After that, a number of states held referenda on legalizing weed, and most passed with broad support. This is the next logical step at the federal level - pardoning anyone who was convicted during that period and taking steps towards changing marijuana from a schedule 1 drug (where it has never belonged) to something more reasonable. [1] No president can fully legalize weed at the federal level, but they can reschedule it based on the actual cost/benefits to individuals and society. Another more cynical answer is that Obama is black, and didn't want the legacy of the first black president to also be "the one who pardoned all the drug offenders" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_policy_of_the_Barack_Obama_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_policy_of_the_Barack_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act

googlryas 4y ago
But you don't need political capital to make a unilateral executive decision? He could have done this after he was already a lame duck. It's not like a president can undo a pardon.
- dangerlibrary 4y ago
  Good politicians do things they know will be popular. This isn't always a bad thing. Presidential actions can influence a lot of down-ballot races. For good or ill, both Obama and Biden are politicians, and only took the steps they felt would be popular with their constituents at the time.
- wk_end 4y ago
  He'd be expending the political capital of his party. If he felt like this pardon would've made it harder for Democrats to get elected in 2016, that might be a reason why he didn't do it.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

It was simply not a priority then. An election is coming up, and winning it is the priority right now. That is why we suddenly have movement on Marijuana, and student loans. The timing is ridiculously suspect.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
If you follow the news trail on this topic at all, you would be aware that the Democratic Party has been pretty loud about marihuana reform for at least a year now.
aschearer 4y ago
It's not suspect, it's politics. Giving your constituents what they are asking for is the name of the game. Timing it to maximize your chances for re-election is good politics. Hard to imagine it could be any other way in our current system.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Another way to put this is let thousands of people spend years extra in jail on charges you know are morally wrong, so that you can get re-elected.
tsol 4y ago
He was already dangerously unpopular at a time when democrats can't afford it. I was thinking this would be an easy win for him, I honestly don't know why he waited this long. I wouldn't be surprised if he does something else high profile to try to win approval. What else would you expect

shadowgovt 4y ago

Ironically: Donald Trump. Obama's tenure as President was marked by a distinct attempt to meet the GOP as peers. It seems as though he was, mostly, a pretty strong believer (philosophically) in co-governance by all representatives of the people of the US in the federal government. "Reach across the aisle" was a frequently-used phrase at that time. And if he unilaterally pardoned people legally convicted of marijuana offenses without Congress first changing the law, what kind of message would that send about the nature of executive power in the United States of America? His political peers responded by refusing to consider a Supreme Court nomination; supporting and nominating Donald Trump, whom voters then elected; and seating three Supreme Court justices, who then overturned precedent that had protected the reproductive rights of a generation and a half of Americans. Their party platform in 2020 was "That the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda" with no other changes from the 2016 platform. No mention of policy; no mention of Congress. The modern Democratic party is under no illusions that reaching across the aisle will benefit them and is now in the tit-for-tat phase of the two-party prisoner's dilemma. If this move wins Biden's party votes going into the midterms, then forget Congress. If Congress wants a say in how the country is governed, they can get their act together and do the few structural changes that would un-deadlock the Senate and allow laws to be passed. I don't know if this is a strategy that would have worked during Obama's administration. I don't think Obama's strategies work in this era, though.

KerrAvon 4y ago
It could have worked. The problem always was that Obama was so enthralled with the concept of bipartisanship that he didn't listen to his opponents when they told the press *in 2009* that their only goal for the next four years was to destroy his presidency. So he always bent over for the Republicans, often sabotaging things like Obamacare by pre-negotiating with his own administration to remove things he thought the Republicans would dislike. Of course, the Republicans didn't care what he did. They were going to oppose everything they could get away with opposing. (Their voters did still expect some governance in those days, instead of the full-time vengeance mode they now expect.)
- 4y ago

guelo 4y ago

He didnt believe in it. Obama's DOJ continued raiding and shutting down California medical marijuana dispensaries until the last year of his term. In many ways Biden is more progressive than Obama.

hirvi74 4y ago
> In many ways Biden is more progressive than Obama As is society as a whole.

andirk 4y ago

First, consider Obama, who claims himself to have policies of a Reagan Republican, did not want to legalize marijuana. Then, after considering that, listen to all the excuses. Rescheduling marijuana was one pen stroke away from him for 8 years.

Brusco_RF 4y ago

People often forget just how quickly public opinion changed in this country. Case in point, Obama opposed gay marriage when he ran in 2008.

acdha 4y ago
I’d also add that this wasn’t just a mood change but a response to new laws in several states. When each of those changes happened, some people predicted the downfall of society but by now you have a number of years of evidence that the main effect is a ton of extra tax revenue. That won’t change the really committed but I know more than a few people who basically moved their position to “it’s no worse than alcohol and stoners don’t crash their cars as much” after seeing that.

socialismisok 4y ago

Obama is centrist, and even basic prison and drug policy reform is not a centrist concern. Biden is too, but the Overton window on marijuana has shifted a bit. Biden is doing the smallest tangible thing, which is great, but hardly earth shattering.

LastTrain 4y ago

Because people would have lost their shit if he'd done that.

hackerlight 4y ago

The same reason Obama was opposed to gay marriage then changed his mind. The values of society change over time. You need a critical mass of support before it becomes politically viable. That takes time. Now is the time.

guywithahat 4y ago

Weed wasn't as big of an issue back then, and I don't recall any states that had legalized it (except maybe for "medical" use) at the time. I mean Obama also opposed gay marriage when he started his term; the left has moved left incredibly quickly over the last ~10 years

alphabettsy 4y ago
> the left has moved left incredibly quickly over the last ~10 years Have they? Most on the left said and would still say Obama was a relatively standard Democrat and not particularly progressive, especially compared to someone like Bernie Sanders.
- IE6 4y ago
  Yeah we don't claim Obama or Biden as our own - they are something else more akin to a conservative (see also neoliberal)