6 Days of Cannabis in IL
Day 5: Introduction of Emerging Equity
Legislators applaud the Bill for its innovative approach, but there is not much conversation around the associated risks. Discussing risk isn’t something that legislators should shy away from because risk is inherent to any policy innovation in the American Federalist system.
The impetus of the American Democrartic process is policy experimentation, and with it, a set of potential risks that must be addressed in an evergreen system of policy reforms. The American Legislative Exchange Council writes that on the topic of innovation: “States have the opportunity in our national balance of government power, to address policy challenges through innovation and experimentation … these “laboratories,” and taking the risks to create a better tomorrow provides a best practices blueprint for other states and the federal government…even when the creative goes astray, the experience provides valuable insight for other states as they grapple with their challenges.”
Policy innovation is necessary to make the American system of governance work. However, the lack of acknowledgment of the risks associated with the Illinois approach to cannabis legitimization reduces the awesomeness of the legislature’s work. The State has taken a risk that has the potential to transform the role of the legislature throughout the United States. Additionally, clearly identifying risks of the comprehensive approach to Equity in HB1438 prevents legislative tendency to self legitimize while also lending itself to a more appropriate framework to monitor the impact of HB1438. In his 2007 article Legislation and Legitimation: Congress and Insider Trading in the 1980s, Professor Thomas Woo uses a case study of congressional response to the perceived problem of insider trading as a means to explain the risk of Legislative Self Legitimacy.
Woo points out that Legislators made an assumption that insider trading was responsible for issues related to investor confidence. Subsequently, Congress passed legislation that did not actually affect the root cause of the issue and only served to qualify congress as relevant by demonstrating that Congress was ‘doing something’.
“Refram[ing] a complex, inchoate problem (such as vague economic uncertainty) as a narrow, more easily addressed one (such as insider trading). Having presented the newly defined problem to the public, Congress then sets out to address it. According to the old cliche, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail. In focusing on insider trading, however, Congress chose to reframe economic problems as law-enforcement "nails" that it could more easily solve with its legislative "hammer" (Woo, 585).”
Legislative Self Legitimacy is a risk associated with HB1438 because the legislature is using an incongruent assessment of the Bill to describe its work. The Findings and intentions of the Social Equity Program is clearly described, but the comprehensive legislative remedy prescribed is not one of Social Equity. As described earlier, there are at least 5 observations that make this Bill far more robust than what the study of Social Equity in Public Administration has produced. A more appropriate assessment of HB1438 may be found in the creation of a new framework for measuring the impact of equity initiatives in policies that attempt to resolve generational state-sanctioned harms on communities through the creation of new markets. This assessment is Emerging Equity.
Emerging Equity is defined as pursuing social equality through existing or new markets by prioritizing free-market principles and equal access to the industry by legislative design and in consideration of both suppliers and consumers. There are at least five reasons why this is an important distinction to make in assessing HB1438:
Implications for Legitimizing or De-Legitimizing Markets by acknowledging market failure in the context of societal impact.
Legitimization: The creation of new technology, social media and the internet of things has brought unprecedented connectivity and, with it, completely new forms of commerce. Simultaneously, as new technology is legitimized, and social interaction evolves, there is an opportunity to disrupt the transfer of systemic racism, sexism, and discrimination into these new fields. As legislatures legitimize technology markets, Emerging Equity provides a framework for legislatures to assess and institute preventative measures to fundamentally disrupt cycles of oppression.
De-Legitimization: Simultaneously, Emerging Equity in the context of markets also provides the opportunity for Legislatures to de-legitimize practices and market norms where they should be confronted. For example, the carceral system has disproportionately affected Black and Latino Americans, and increasing evidence suggests that private prisons lobby for more punitive laws to support their bottom line. An Emerging Equity framework may give legislatures the data, tools, and framework to disrupt markets such as the prison industrial complex.
Creates Public/Private Partnerships in addressing systemic inequality.
Social Equity is exclusively a government function. Emerging Equity centers free-market principles, and thus requires firms to participate in the equity process. For example, HB1438 requires Medical Dispensing Firms, who were granted early access to the cannabis market, to adopt a social equity inclusion plan which can be a grant, donation or incubation of a startup cannabis business. This creates shared responsibility between private and public actors to be accountable in disrupting systems of oppression.
A more palatable form of Reparations.
Reparations are increasingly a hotly debated topic as it relates to slavery in America. There are many arguments against Reparations, but a common feature is that the linkage between slavery and the current condition of Black Americans is fuzzy. However, it is not as easy to argue against the clear linkage between incarceration, which disproportionately affects Black Americans and the socio-economic condition of formerly incarcerated citizens. Simultaneously, the carceral state has clear linkages to slavery. Emerging Equity can be a successful legislative framework in connecting modern modes of oppression in capitalism, that is often subtle, to advancing Reparation initiatives.
Creates a new function of Legislatures and government that work towards a more perfect union.
Emerging Equity is a framework that fits perfectly within neo-liberal interpretations of economics and legislative function. HB1438 is debatably a neo-liberal policy because it creates a market. Although this argument has limits, insomuch as HB1438 creates a heavily regulated market, it is still an improvement from a market that was prohibited altogether. Similarly, legitimizing markets with an Emerging Equity lens is both pro free market and pro social equality.
Relies on Market Principles and Value Creation.
Arguably, the greatest barrier to social progress in America is the conflict between individual interests and socio-economic interest in terms of race and class. Dennis Chong, in his paper Values Versus Interests in the Explanation of Social Conflict describes the conflict between values and material interests: “cultural theories that people develop relating politics and economics to their morality and way of life provide the rationale for their defense of the status quo.” Emerging Equity aligns social progress and material private interest by tying progress in one domain with progress in the other domain.
HB1438 introduces an Emerging Equity Framework that is distinctively different than any equity initiative ever created in the American legislative or Public Administrative system. This is risky because it is experimental and completely without precedent. But if successful, the framework may result in an era of new policies that merge traditionally disparate and competing interests into a union that could rapidly produce equality in ways that the Western world has never seen before.
It is necessary to highlight the dimensions on which Emerging Equity should be observed so that other legislatures can adequately replicate and advance the model. The Categorical Assessment of Emerging Equity can be understood as:
