House Democrats waited until the wee hours of July 1 to override the governor’s veto of a disputed bill limiting county governments’ authority over marijuana businesses.
Senate Bill 75, as amended, largely ties the hands of county officials to impact where marijuana businesses can set up shop and what hours and days they can be open.
The bill passed the House and Senate last year without Republican support. A handful of Democratic lawmakers also opposed its passage.
House Republicans took issue with the state interfering with local authority. Governor Matt Meyer seemingly agreed, vetoing the measure last August.
In his veto message to the General Assembly, Gov. Meyer, a former county executive, raised concerns about the bill’s intent to broadly preempt local decision-making on where and how cannabis retail locations and growing operations could function.
“This bill overrides those local judgments through broad preemption, significantly curbing the authority of our counties to regulate the location, design, and operation of cannabis establishments within their borders,” the governor said. “It removes the democratic rights of local communities to regulate the location of these stores, relative to schools, child care facilities, residential treatment facilities, parks, and libraries in all three of our counties.
“While I fully support the goals of implementing a safe, equitable, and accessible adult-use cannabis market in Delaware, displacing local land use authority without offering any corresponding partnership or support is not how we build durable, effective policy or trust,” he said.
The Senate overrode the veto on January 28, 14-6, gaining the needed 60% supermajority needed for the action.
However, the House of Representatives chose not to act until after 3 AM yesterday morning, when the House sponsor of the bill, House Majority Whip Ed Osienski (D-Newark), brought it to the floor for an override vote — more than five months after the Senate acted and with only about two hours left in the legislative session.
State Rep. Shannon Morris (R-Farmington, Felton, Harrington), in photo, questioned the timing, calling it a transparent attempt to evade attention, carried out in the middle of the night when most citizens were asleep.
Rep. Osienski said they had to delay due to a court case involving an earlier law passed by legislative Democrats that also dealt with the state usurping local authority. However, on questioning from Rep. Morris, Rep. Osienski conceded that the decision had been handed down in May.
“We’ve met on at least a dozen occasions since then,” Rep. Morris said. “So why wait until now to do this?”
In the end, the House voted 25-16 to override the veto, with two Democrats joining all 14 members of the House Republican Caucus in opposition.
With the successful override, SB 75 (as amended) was enacted into law.
