Financial sector’s work on SAFE Banking Act shows together, everyone achieves more

The U.S. House of Representatives took an historic vote on legislation to make it easier and safer for cannabis businesses – and the businesses that serve them – to engage in the mainstream financial services sector.

Just a few years ago, if someone said this legislation would get a hearing in Congress much less a vote in the House of Representatives, I might have given you a funny look.  But the story of how this bill advanced through the House represents some of the best practices of financial services lawmaking.

Reps. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.), Denny Heck (D-Wash.), Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) proved to be tenacious sponsors who were open to making the changes necessary to drive a large, bipartisan vote. Their efforts were supported by a unified financial services sectors led by credit unions, banks and their associations working together to help Congress and their industries understand that the cannabis banking legislation wasn’t about making cannabis legal, but rather about making sure that legal cannabis business can bank safely.

 

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