U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter has again introduced legislation allowing marijuana businesses to use banks, removing a hindrance that has plagued Colorado businesses in the five years since marijuana legalization.
“The fears that we had, that this was a public safety matter, have come to pass,” Perlmutter said.
The bill has nine Republican co-sponsors. Some say their support is not an endorsement of marijuana but a realization that banking creates paper trails, improves public safety and maintains “the very pillars of liberty and freedom our country was founded on,” in the words of Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson, a member of the conservative/libertarian House Freedom Caucus.
Perlmutter has introduced similar legislation several times before and it has failed to pass the House and Senate. But the political calculus has changed with Democrats controlling the House.
Perlmutter spent years fighting to get even a hearing on marijuana banking in the House Financial Services Committee without success. After Democrats took control in January, one of the first hearings in Financial Services was on marijuana banking, a stark sign of the bill’s changing odds.
Read the full story via The Denver Post.