This report from Marijuana Moment, published on 4 November 2026
Democrats won big in Tuesday’s midterm elections, retaking majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives—a development that advocates say stands to boost efforts to reform federal marijuana laws.
The House under Democratic control has previously passed bills to federally legalize marijuana on two occasions, most recently in 2022.
Advancing cannabis reform in the Senate has been a taller task, however, even under Democratic control—given the chamber’s rules that give the minority party the power to filibuster bills that doesn’t have support from 60 members. That has been true even for incremental reforms that enjoy broad bipartisan support such as legislation to ease cannabis businesses’ access to banking services.
Marijuana reform has evolved significantly as an issue since the last time Democrats controlled Congress, however, with more state laws coming on board and President Donald Trump’s administration taking steps to advance the rescheduling of cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Given that context, advocates see opportunity for expected incoming House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to grasp onto the issue of broader federal marijuana legalization as an alternative to Trump’s incremental steps.
Jeffries and Schumer have both sponsored legislation to federally legalize cannabis by removing it from the CSA—including a bill that they partnered in 2019 on called the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act.
Schumer later joined with other Democratic senators on a more comprehensive legalization and regulation bill called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, while Jeffries teamed up with a Republican lawmaker on a proposal lay the groundwork for federal marijuana legalization by creating a commission to study the issue and make recommendations on a regulatory system for cannabis that models what’s currently in place for alcohol.
As of Wednesday morning, Democrats appeared poised to have won a sizable majority in the House and a Senate majority of somewhere between 54 and 56 seats, with two races yet to be called. If Democrats decide to prioritize the popular issue of marijuana reform in the 120th Congress that begins in January, they would likely need support from a handful of pro-reform Republican senators to advance any proposal to Trump’s desk.
The president, for his part, endorsed a state-level marijuana legalization initiative that appeared on Florida’s ballot in 2024, While the measure fell short of the 60 percent threshold needed to enact a constitutional amendment in the state, it did get majority support. Meanwhile, though his administration isn’t pushing broad federal marijuana legalization at this point, it is taking steps on the more modest reform of rescheduling cannabis to acknowledge its medical uses.
“Some two thirds of Americans support ending marijuana prohibition, and policies that punish responsible consumers and patients are increasingly out of step with voters across the political spectrum,” Morgan Fox, political director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), told Marijuana Moment.
“Unfortunately, Republican leadership chose to ignore public sentiment and let popular cannabis policy legislation languish this session. Hopefully Democrats will not make the same mistake, and will provide the necessary leadership and bipartisanship to pass substantive, sensible reforms in the 120th Congress.”
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