Assembly Bill 130 / Senate bill 164 – Decriminalize Marijuana 2021-22

The legislation to decriminalize 10 grams or less of marijuana in Wisconsin now has a bill number.

Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 164 was formally introduced with lead author in the Senate Kathy Bernier (R) and lead author in the Assembly Shae Sortwell (R).

No additional co-sponsors were announced in the Senate.

In the Assembly, lead co-sponsor Robert Brooks (R) is joined by Joel Kitchens (R) and Michael Schraa (R) as the additional co-sponsors in the Republican Party. Two Democrats join the bill as co-sponsors and plan to lead their caucus on the this bill. They are David Bowen (D) and Nick Milroy (D).

As we know from past sessions, in 2017, as an Assembly Rep, Kathy Bernier (R) was one of the first Republicans to author a decriminalization bill. In 2019-20 Bernier authored a Republican Caucus version of a medical marijuana bill. Bernier has indicated she supports more reform, but is working within her caucus to design a bill to gain Republican support and to obtain a public hearing on the issue.

Republican Shae Sortwell was elected in 2018 and his first term as an assembly rep, he did sign onto to and lead both decriminalization and the Republican version of the medical marijuana bill, as well as indicated support for ending the prohibition of marijuana in Wisconsin.

Rob Brooks (R-Saukville) makes an appearance as second behind Rep. Sortwell in this latest legislative attempt. This is the first time Republican Rob Brooks has signed onto legislation since elected in 2014. I feel this is a huge win, as Rob Brooks represents 1/3 of the Senate District of cannabis hater Duey Stroebel (R-Saukville).

Additional co-sponsors Michael Schraa (R) and Joel Kitchens (R) were also on the 2017 decriminalization bill, receiving the labels as some of the first Republicans to sign onto any marijuana reform. Schraa went onto to endorse the Republican version on medical marijuana, whereas Kitchens came over the original medical marijuana led by the Democrats. Joel Kitchens actually was a co-sponsor of both versions of medical marijuana legislation in 2019-20.

Just to clarify, the two versions of medical cannabis in 2019-20 can be broken down to the Democrat version of allowing home grows and smoking products. The Republican version would not allow home grows or smoking products and was labeled more as a creation of a medical program bill. Both bills did attract co-sponsors from each side, so technically both versions were bi-partisan. Neither bill received a public hearing and died in committee. The last time medical marijuana legislation received a public hearing was in 2009.

Decriminalization is an important first step. The burden placed on local resources, from police focus, man-hours for arrests, paper work, and court appearances, to the court system dockets and public defender costs, would be much better spent on serious, violent crimes. When the bill was first introduced, we created a blog article about the legislation with talking points on why supporting this bill makes sense.

Now, more then ever, we need you to contact your elected officials about this important piece of legislation and ask them to again considering co-sponsoring this piece of legislation. Additional co-sponsors have been added onto bills throughout the legislative sessions in the past. The more elected officials publicly supporting this legislation will help Wisconsin bring decriminalization of marijuana to a public hearing and floor vote.