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Pot fight on ballot? That's their plan
Medical marijuana supporters want voters to decide
5/27/09|TwinCities| by Jason Hoppin



Medical marijuana supporters, who finally pushed legislation onto the governor's desk in Minnesota only to see the bill vetoed, are preparing for an even bigger task next year: ensuring the right of the sick and dying to smoke marijuana by writing it into the state's constitution.

Bypassing Gov. Tim Pawlenty and putting the question straight to voters is no easy chore. Supporters of last year's Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment spent nearly $4 million to get the measure passed. Yet, medical marijuana backers say they're willing to foot the bill.

But the key question for the 2010 election might not be whether voters approve the measure — polls show medical marijuana has consistent support in Minnesota — but how the issue affects other races, including what is expected to be a hard-fought gubernatorial campaign.

"There's definitely a second layer any time you think about a constitutional amendment or a ballot question," said Mike Zipko, a political consultant at St. Paul's Goff & Howard. "You could see how someone from a progressive point of view (could use the issue) to push voter turnout even a couple of points."

The Senate had already approved versions of the bill, which originally would have let patients suffering from a list of illnesses get a state-issued identification card allowing them to buy marijuana at licensed dispensaries or to grow their own.

This session, the bill made it out of the House for the first time by a 70-64 vote. It was narrowed dramatically to affect only terminally ill patients and won a handful of Republican votes. But several Democrats voted against it, and it split St. Paul's all-DFL delegation.

Pawlenty quickly vetoed it. "While I am very sympathetic to those dealing with end of life illnesses and accompanying pain, I stand with law enforcement in opposition to this legislation," he wrote in his veto letter.

The chief sponsors of the bill issued a late-night news release promising a constitutional showdown.

"For the governor to veto this legislation, even after the House narrowed it so much that thousands of suffering patients would have been without protection, is just unbelievably cruel," said Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing.

The issue is by no means assured of landing on next year's ballot; the Legislature has often been reluctant to put questions directly to voters. And once they get there, the campaign, which includes assuring a majority cast ballots in the affirmative (a non-vote counts as a "no") can be expensive.

"The price of running a statewide campaign has just skyrocketed," said Charlie Poster, the former spokesman of Vote YES Minnesota, which supported the Legacy Amendment.

But the Marijuana Policy Project, a national group pushing the legislation, appears to have the money to launch a serious campaign. Since 2005, the group has spent nearly $900,000 lobbying the Minnesota Legislature with money raised at events like its recent fourth annual Playboy Mansion fundraiser.

"While nobody's drawn up a budget yet, our basic approach is we would spend what's needed," said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the group.

That sets up an interesting scenario. In 2004, a number of state constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage were credited with helping President George W. Bush win re-election by drawing social conservatives to the polls. Could medical marijuana be the left's version, drawing voters who aren't typically motivated to vote?

Zipko said it might, pointing to Jesse Ventura's gubernatorial victory in 1998. Many voters turned out to support a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to hunt and fish, added a vote for Ventura and left the polls, Zipko said.

"Everybody's looking for any kind of edge to get people to come out because these elections are getting closer and closer," Zipko said.

Yet when California voters approved the nation's first statewide medical marijuana law in 1996, a presidential election year, fewer people turned out than in 1992, the previous presidential election. And when Oregon voters followed suit in 1998, a gubernatorial election year, voter turnout there was also down over the previous governor's race.

Larry Jacobs, the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies at the Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs, is among the skeptics. He said the Legacy Amendment was passed through a broad coalition and posed a question that was fundamental to the Minnesota way of life.

"My sense is (medical marijuana doesn't have) the kind of intense commitment and breadth of commitment that you see with the Legacy Amendment," Jacobs said.