But advocates for marijuana legalization hope a federal regulatory shift could eventually change the minds — and votes — of some state policymakers who have been reluctant to embrace weed.

“It is very common for a state legislator to tell me, ‘Well, I might be able to support this, but … I’m not going to vote for something that’s illegal under federal law,’” said Matthew Schweich, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates for cannabis legalization.

Although a proposal to reclassify marijuana would not make it legal, “it is a historic and meaningful change at the federal level that I think is going to give many state lawmakers a little less hesitation to support a bill,” Schweich added.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has proposed to shift marijuana from a “Schedule I” drug, which includes heroin and LSD, to a less tightly regulated “Schedule III” drug, which includes ketamine and some anabolic steroids. Federal rules allow for some medical uses of Schedule III drugs. But the proposed change faces a lengthy regulatory process, which may not be complete until after the presidential election.

In the meantime, the proposed federal change could add fresh arguments for supporters of ballot measures seeking to legalize marijuana. Florida voters will decide on a constitutional amendment allowing recreational cannabis this November. Public votes could also be held in several other states, including South Dakota, where supporters plan to submit signatures Tuesday for a third attempt at legalizing recreational marijuana.

Following two previous failed attempts, a Nebraska group is gathering signatures to get two measures onto this year’s ballot: one to legalize medical marijuana and another to allow private companies to grow and sell it.

In North Dakota, criminal defense attorney Mark Friese is a former police officer who is backing a marijuana legalization ballot initiative. He said the proposed federal reclassification could immensely help this year’s initiative campaign. North Dakota voters rejected legalization measures in 2018 and 2022 but approved medical marijuana in 2016.

“The bottom line is the move is going to allow intelligent, informed discussion about cannabis legislation instead of succumbing to the historical objection that marijuana is a dangerous drug like LSD or black tar heroin,” Friese said.

Others aren’t so sure the reclassification will make a difference.

Jackee Winters, chairperson of an Idaho group backing a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana, said it’s tough to get would-be supporters to sign their petition.

“People are literally afraid to sign anything in Idaho that has to do with marijuana,” she said. “They’re afraid the cops will be coming to their house.”

The proposed federal change may have little affect in 24 states that already legalized recreational marijuana for adults, or in an additional 14 states that allow medical marijuana. But advocates hope it could sway opinions in a dozen other states that either outlaw cannabis entirely or have limited access to products with low levels of THC, the chemical that makes people high.

Georgia has allowed patients with certain illnesses and physician approval to consume low-THC cannabis products since 2015. But until last year, there was no legal way to buy them. Eight dispensaries are now selling the products.

The Georgia Board of Pharmacy last year also issued licenses for low-THC products to 23 independent pharmacies, but the federal DEA in November warned pharmacies that dispensing medical marijuana violated federal law.

Dawn Randolph, executive director of the Georgia Pharmacy Association, said a federal reclassification of marijuana could open the way for pharmacists to treat marijuana products “like every other prescription medication.”

In other states, such as Tennessee, elected leaders remain hesitant to back either medical or recreational marijuana. Tennessee Senate Speaker Randy McNally, a Republican, previously said he wouldn’t support changing state law until the federal government reclassifies marijuana.

Illinois pot businesses could gain tax benefits, easier loan access under DEA reclassification

But after reports about the DEA’s recommended reclassification, McNally still held off on supporting any push to legalize medical marijuana.

Removing marijuana as a Schedule I drug “would only start the conversation in my mind. It would not end it. There would still be many issues to resolve if the downgrade to Schedule III happens as proposed,” he said Thursday.

A proposal to legalize medical marijuana died in a Kansas Senate committee without a vote this year, and an attempt to force debate in the full Senate failed by a wide margin. The strongest and most influential opposition came from law enforcement officials, who raised concerns that any legalization could invite organized crime and make it difficult to assess whether people are driving under the influence.

Kansas Bureau of Investigation Director Tony Mattivi considers the DEA effort to reschedule marijuana “misguided and politicized,” KBI spokesperson Melissa Underwood said.

The head of the South Carolina state police force also has opposed efforts to legalize medical marijuana, saying it opens the door to other drug use. A legalization bill backed by Republican state Sen. Tom Davis passed the Senate this year but has stalled in a House committee.

“It’s difficult to rewire a lot of people who have been conditioned to think of marijuana in a certain way,” said Davis, who vowed to push a medical marijuana bill again next year if reelected.

Although not fully embracing medical marijuana, Iowa and Texas both have laws allowing limited access to some cannabis products with low levels of THC. Some Texas cities have passed ordinances allowing small amounts of marijuana. But a similar effort in Lubbock, home to Texas Tech University, was derided in a Facebook post by Republican state Rep. Dustin Burrows as part of “nationwide effort by the left to undermine public safety.”

In Wyoming, a decade of pro-marijuana efforts through ballot initiatives and legislation has gotten nowhere. Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, has been ambivalent about legalizing medical marijuana and opposes legal recreational pot. The GOP-led Legislature didn’t even debate the latest bill to decriminalize marijuana and legalize medical marijuana.

Yet one organizer, who helped unsuccessful petition efforts in 2022 and 2023, hopes federal reclassification of marijuana nudges more lawmakers to support legalization.

“Resistance will be a lot less palpable,” legalization advocate Apollo Pazell said.

Parson’s commutation converted the remainder of Reid’s three-year prison sentence to house arrest, subject to several conditions. Reid had been sentenced in November 2022 after pleading guilty to driving while intoxicated causing serious bodily injury. He is the son of Chiefs coach Andy Reid.

Parson is a longtime Chiefs season ticket-holder holder who celebrated with the team at its recent Super Bowl victory parade in Kansas City. A Parson spokesman said the governor considered several factors when making his commutation decision.

“Reid had completed his alcohol abuse treatment program and has served more prison time than most individuals convicted of similar offenses,” Parson spokesman Johnathan Shiflett said.

Reid’s house arrest will continue until Oct. 31, 2025, with requirements for weekly meetings with a parole officer and peer support sponsor and attendance at behavioral counseling. He also will be required to work at least 30 hours a week and complete 10 hours a month of community service, among other things.

The Chiefs declined to comment about Parson’s commutation of Reid.

Prosecutors said Reid was intoxicated and driving about 84 mph (135 kph) in a 65 mph zone when his Dodge truck hit the cars on an entrance ramp to Interstate 435 near Arrowhead Stadium on Feb. 4, 2021.

A girl inside one of the cars, Ariel Young, suffered a traumatic brain injury. A total of six people, including Reid, were injured. One of the vehicles he hit had stalled because of a dead battery, and the second was owned by Ariel’s mother, who had arrived to help.

Reid had a blood-alcohol level of 0.113% two hours after the crash, police said. The legal limit is 0.08%.

The Chiefs reached a confidential agreement with Ariel’s family to pay for her ongoing medical treatment and other expenses.

An attorney who represented Ariel’s family did not immediately respond to messages Friday.

Reid’s sentencing reprieve was one of three commutations and 36 pardons announced Friday by Parson, who also denied 63 clemency requests.

Parson, a former sheriff, has now granted clemency to more than 760 people since 2020 — more than any Missouri governor since the 1940s. Parson has been been working to clear a backlog of nearly 3,700 clemency applications he inherited when taking over as governor in 2018, but he also has considered some new requests.

Many of those granted clemency by Parson were convicted decades ago of drug crimes, theft or burglary and had completed their prison sentences long ago.

But two notable exceptions were Mark and Patricia McCloskey. The St. Louis couple who gained national attention for waving guns at racial injustice protesters were pardoned by Parson on July 30, 2021, just six weeks after Mark McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault and Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment.

___

Associated Press writer Dave Skretta in Kansas City, and Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.

In the first elections held with 2020 census data, Democrats battled back with their own gerrymandering that shaped districts to their advantage and essentially evened the outcome. Though Republicans won control of the House from Democrats, the closely divided chamber more accurately reflects the ratio of Republicans to Democrats among voters nationally than at any time in recent years, according to a new Associated Press analysis.

“On the one hand, we have fairer, more representative outcomes. But it looks like we have more gerrymandering happening,” said Doug Spencer, a law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who administers the All About Redistricting website.

The AP’s analysis found that Republicans won just one more U.S. House seat in 2022 than would have been expected based on the average share of the vote they received nationwide — an insignificant edge in determining the GOP’s 222-213 seat majority.

A similar situation played out in state capitols in the 2022 elections. The AP found that Democrats and Republicans notched a nearly equal number of states with House or Assembly districts tilted in their favor — a sharp contrast to the sizable Republican edge during the previous decade.

The difference is not just that Republicans gerrymandered less but that “more Democrats picked up the practice,” Spencer said.

A lot is at stake. Districts drawn to the advantage of one party can help it win, maintain or expand majorities, which in turn can affect the types of laws enacted on divisive topics such as abortion, guns, taxes and transgender rights. That’s evident this year, as Republican- and Democratic-led states move in opposite directions on many of those issues.

The dissatisfaction once voiced most loudly by Democrats in states gerrymandered by Republicans is now also rising from Republicans in such places as rural Macoupin County, Illinois. A Republican represented the former coal mining county in Congress during the past decade. But a Democrat won the redrawn district in 2022 after it got transformed into a slender snake-like shape — with a head in the twin university cities of Champaign and Urbana and a new tail in the Democratic suburbs of St. Louis.

Republican-leaning Macoupin County resembles a bulge in the middle — the only entire county remaining in the 13th District.

“We’re tied now to people – boat anchors up to the north and boat anchors in the south – that we have very little in common with, and we’re not happy,” said Tom Stoecker, the Macoupin County GOP chairman.

Illinois’ congressional districts had the largest partisan slant nationally, helping Democrats win three more seats than expected based on their percentage of votes, according to the AP’s analysis. Among statehouse chambers, the largest partisan tilt was in the Nevada Assembly — again favoring Democrats.

Republicans still reaped rewards in some places. Texas Republicans won about two more U.S. House seats than would have been expected based on their percentage of votes. A long-running GOP tilt also continued in the Wisconsin Assembly.

The AP analyzed the effect of redistricting on the 2022 elections using an “efficiency gap” formula intended to spot cases of potential gerrymandering. The test — designed by Eric McGhee, a researcher at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, and Harvard Law School professor Nick Stephanopoulos — identifies states where one party is extraordinarily efficient at translating votes into victories. That can occur when politicians in charge of redistricting pack voters for their opponents into a few heavily concentrated districts or spread them among multiple districts to dilute their voting strength.

Previous AP analyses found that Republicans benefited from a strong edge under districts drawn after the 2010 census. The GOP won about 22 more U.S. House seats than expected based on its share of the votes in 2016 — about 16 extra seats in 2018 and about 10 excess seats in 2020. By comparison, the one-seat GOP tilt in the 2022 election was essentially a political wash.

“By many metrics, we had the fairest congressional map and the fairest state legislative map in decades, and that’s a truly great thing for democracy,” said John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which has challenged Republican-drawn maps in court.

Bisognano attributes the change primarily to four states — Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Under congressional maps drawn by Republicans, those states combined in 2016 to elect 39 Republicans and just 17 Democrats — about nine more Republicans than expected based on their share of the votes. But in 2022, under maps adopted by courts and Michigan’s new independent commission, those states combined to elect 26 Republicans and 29 Democrats. In a reversal, Democrats carried about one more seat than expected based on their share of the votes.

In each of the two most recent midterm elections, the AP’s analysis identified 15 states where a political party won at least one more congressional seat than would have been expected based on its votes. Twelve of those favored Republican in 2018.

But the redistricting gains were more evenly split last year. Democrats gained at least one more congressional seat than expected from their vote percentage in eight states — California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico and Washington. Meanwhile, Republicans gained at least one extra seat in seven states — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, New York, Texas and Wisconsin.

The new Illinois districts were drawn by the Democratic-dominated state Legislature and signed into law by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, despite a pledge during his 2018 campaign to veto any maps drawn by politicians. Pritzker said the maps — which added a second predominantly Latino district while maintaining three predominantly Black districts — would “ensure all communities are equitably represented.”

Under the new districts, Illinois Democrats widened their 13-5 congressional advantage to a 14-3 majority — flipping one Republican seat and merging others. The state lost one seat due to declining population.

Republican Rep. Rodney Davis was drawn out of the 13th District he represented for a decade and placed in the heavily Republican 15th District. He lost in a GOP primary to Rep. Mary Miller, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. The reshaped 13th District was won by Democrat Nikki Budzinski, a former aide to Pritzker and President Joe Biden.

“That district was drawn in a very gerrymandered way to maximize the Democrat turnout,” Davis told the AP.

Numerous more politically neutral alternatives could have been drawn, said Sheldon H. Jacobson, director of the Institute for Computational Redistricting at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

“This was just a horrendous situation and really doesn’t represent the people of Illinois,” Jacobson said.

Fair representation also has been called into question in Nevada, where the Democratic advantage from redistricting was so large that it could have swayed control of the state Assembly. Though Republican candidates received more total votes, Democrats won a 28-14 majority last fall — seven more Democratic seats than would have been expected, according to the AP’s analysis.

A lawsuit brought by affected residents and several Republican elected officials alleged the new districts were “an intentional extreme partisan gerrymander” that illegally diluted votes. But a judge said there was no clear standard to weigh partisan gerrymandering claims under the Nevada Constitution — echoing a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that federal courts also have no business deciding partisan gerrymandering claims.

The Reno area’s Somersett golf community had been part of a Republican-controlled Assembly district, but the new maps split it into two. A Democrat now represents part of the subdivision while the rest was placed in a rural Republican-led district that stretches hundreds of miles to the Oregon and Idaho borders.

“It was really bad for our community,” said Jacob Williams, president of the Somersett Owners Association, who ran unsuccessfully in a Republican primary for the state Assembly. “It was quite deflating.”

Pero ninguna lidió directamente con el tema dominante del 2020: el coronavirus. Eso se debe a que el proceso para colocar propuestas en las boletas comenzó, en la mayoría de los casos, antes del estallido del brote.

Dos estados tuvieron enmiendas antiaborto con resultados diferentes.

Los votantes en Luisiana aprobaron una medida que afirma que no hay un derecho constitucional en el estado al aborto, algo que pudiera tener especial importancia si la Corte Suprema anula la decisión que autoriza el aborto nacionalmente.

En Colorado, en contraste, los votantes derrotaron una propuesta para prohibir los abortos después de 22 semanas a menos que la vida de la mujer embarazada esté en peligro. Propuestas similares fracasaron en el estado en 2008, 2010 y 2014.

Varios estados tuvieron en las boletas propuestas sobre derecho al voto.

En Virginia, los votantes aprobaron una enmienda constitucional que retira el poder de los miembros de la legislatura, bajo control demócrata, para trazar distritos electorales a su favor sobre la base del censo. En lugar de ello, el estado creará una comisión bipartidista de legisladores y ciudadanos para desarrollar un plan de trazado de distritos que la legislatura puede aprobar o rechazar, pero no cambiar.

Virginia es el sexto estado en las dos últimas elecciones generales en aprobar medidas diseñadas para prevenir la manipulación de las circunscripciones electorales por políticos para beneficiarse a sí mismos o a sus partidos.

Los votantes en Missouri aprobaron una propuesta colocada en las boletas por la legislatura controlada por los republicanos para revocar un modelo único nacionalmente que habría usado a un demógrafo no partidista para trazar los distritos electorales para conseguir “justicia partidista” y “competitividad”. La medida devuelve esas tareas a comisiones bipartidistas y mueve los términos “justicia partidista” y “competitividad” al final de la lista.

En Florida, los votantes aprobaron una medida para aumentar gradualmente el salario mínimo a 15 dólares por hora para el año 2026. La medida coloca a Florida junto con al menos otros siete estados — California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nueva Jersey y Nueva York— y Washington, D.C., que ya han implementado medidas para elevar gradualmente el salario mínimo a 15 dólares por hora.

Hubo propuestas fiscales en la boleta electoral en más de una docena de estados. Se aprobaron aumentos de los impuestos al tabaco en Colorado y Oregón. Los votantes de Colorado también aprobaron un ligero recorte de impuestos sobre la renta.

En California, Uber, Lyft y otros servicios de transporte y entrega basados en aplicaciones prevalecieron en su costosa lucha por mantener a los conductores clasificados como contratistas independientes. La iniciativa electoral enfrentó a las potencias de la llamada economía colaborativa, incluidos DoorDash, Postmates e Instacart, contra los sindicatos. Fue la medida electoral de California más cara de la historia: se gastaron más de 220 millones de dólares, la mayoría por parte de las compañías que funcionan a través de apps.

La medida crea una exención a una ley estatal que hubiera hecho que los conductores fueran elegibles para los beneficios que conlleva ser empleados de la empresa. Uber y Lyft, con sede en San Francisco, habían amenazado con retirarse de California si perdían.

Hace apenas una semana, David McGraw estaba cocinando diariamente para centenares de comensales en uno de los restaurantes ilustres de Nueva Orleans. Ahora está cocinando para sí mismo, en casa, luego de ser despedido junto con centenares de miles de personas en Estados Unidos a causa de la crisis causada en la economía por la pandemia del coronavirus.

Se espera que las cifras del Departamento de Trabajo en Estados Unidos, que se publicarán el jueves, van a romper el viejo récord del mayor número de nuevas solicitudes de prestaciones por desempleo presentadas en una sola semana. Hay más desempleados repentinos en el país que durante la Gran Recesión y más que después de desastres naturales mayores, como huracanes, incendios e inundaciones.

Sin embargo, McGraw y otros como él, no necesitan las cifras oficiales para entender las nuevas realidades de la vida en uno de los epicentros en Estados Unidos de la pandemia del COVID-19.

“Toda la ciudad, despedida. Todo el mundo”, dice McGraw, con una exageración que a veces no lo parece. “Todos los que trabajábamos en un restaurante estamos despedidos”.

Restaurantes, hoteles, aerolíneas, fabricantes de automóviles e instalaciones de espectáculos han sido severamente golpeados en momentos en que ciudades, estados y países enteros han ordenado el cierre de toda la actividad no esencial e instruido a sus ciudadanos a quedarse en casa, con el objetivo de prevenir la diseminación del coronavirus.

Las precauciones han afectado la economía global. Compañías en Europa están despidiendo trabajadores al paso más rápido desde la crisis financiera global de 2009, según sondeos de gerentes de negocios.

Las estadísticas oficiales para Europa no han salido aún, pero las empresas han estado anunciando decenas de miles de despidos, tanto permanentes como temporales. El aumento del desempleo pudiera no ser tan pronunciado como en Estados Unidos, porque es más difícil despedir a empleados en Europa, donde muchos gobiernos están ayudando financieramente a las compañías para que mantengan a sus trabajadores en licencia parcialmente pagada.

Algunos economistas proyectan que la cifra de nuevos pedidos de prestaciones por desempleo en Estados Unidos será de varios millones. “Va a ser un aumento astronómico”, dijo Constance Hunter, presidenta de la Asociación Nacional de Economistas de Negocios y principal economista en la firma de contabilidad KPMG. “No tenemos nada así registrado en la historia”.