UPDATE: The U.S. House voted, 222-209, on Wednesday evening to pass the continuing resolution with the inclusion of the THC restrictions on hemp language. Trump signed it later in the evening on Nov. 12. That story is here.
As the U.S. House tees up a key vote on Wednesday afternoon to end the longest federal government shutdown the nation has faced, at least 13 Republican representatives oppose language surrounding hemp.
That number could be a pivotal roadblock to reopening the government.
Arizona Democratic congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva is expected to be sworn in on Nov. 12, before the House votes on a Senate-passed continuing resolution to end the shutdown that began on Oct. 1. Once Adelita is sworn in, the Republican majority will be trimmed to five seats, 219-214, with two vacancies in the lower chamber.
This means the House needs 217 votes to gain a simple majority on legislation to reopen the government: Should Republicans lose three votes within their party, then they’ll need to rely on Democrats to break party lines to end the shutdown.
The problem? Hemp could be a deciding factor in breaking up a unified GOP vote.
U.S. House Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., and 12 of his Republican colleagues previously spoke out in opposition to a federal ban on intoxicating hemp products that was under consideration earlier this year.
Comer led a bipartisan coalition of 27 representatives – 13 Republicans and 14 Democrats – in asking House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to strike anti-hemp provisions from a previous version of the fiscal 2026 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
“If the language contained in the FY26 Agriculture-FDA Appropriations Bill were to become law, it would deal a fatal blow to American farmers supplying the regulated hemp industry and small businesses, and jeopardize tens of billions of dollars in economic activity around the country,” Comer and his colleagues wrote in a September letter to Johnson.
Instead of incapacitating an industry that supports 320,000 American jobs, generates $28.4 billion in market activity and produces roughly $1.5 billion in state tax revenue, the bipartisan lawmakers argued for regulation over prohibition: They backed a plan to restrict hemp product sales to those 21 and older while also mandating standardized packaging and labeling, as well as third-party testing.
Comer, in particular, has championed the hemp industry since his tenure as Kentucky’s Commissioner of Agriculture began in 2011.
While it’s unclear if Comer will once again fight to remove similar hemp language from being included in legislation to reopen the government, Rep. Thomas Massie, also a Republican from Kentucky who signed the letter, appears steadfast in his pursuit to keep intoxicating hemp products legal.
“I detest the tactics that are being used to try to get this ban enacted into law,” Massie told Politico this week. “Kentucky benefits from hemp production, and I fully support Senator Rand Paul’s efforts to strip the unrelated hemp ban from the Senate funding bill.”
The continuing resolution that the Senate passed on Nov. 9 and finalized the next day intends to fund most government agencies until Jan. 30; however, it also includes three full-year funding bills – aka the minibus package – for agriculture, military and legislative branch appropriation measures.
Specifically, the Senate included language to prevent “the unregulated sale of intoxicating hemp-based or hemp-derived products, including delta-8 [THC], from being sold online, in gas stations, and corner stores.”
This language – which would change the definition of hemp to ban hemp-derived cannabinoid products from containing synthetic cannabinoids, more than 0.3% total THC, or more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container – aims to close an unintended “loophole” in the 2018 Farm Bill that led to the proliferation of intoxicating hemp products nationwide.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., offered an emergency amendment on Nov. 10, in an attempt to strike the intoxicating hemp product ban from the proposed funding bill. He was unsuccessful.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was the lone Senate Republican to join Paul in supporting his amendment, saying that he believed regulating hemp and cannabis products should “rest with each individual state.”
This came as a White House official told NBC News that President Donald Trump supported the government reopening package’s inclusion of the hemp product language.
On the House side, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, joined Massie in blasting the Senate for including the hemp language. The two represent potential Republican defectors in the upcoming House vote to reopen the government based on their hemp viewpoints.
“Should we really be regulating this from the federal level?” Crenshaw wrote on X. “We’ve had the debate already in Texas. I’m sure we will continue to have it. Passing Paul’s amendment would allow states to keep having that debate.”
Other GOP House members who signed the September letter opposing a hemp product ban include: Andy Barr, R-Ky.; Nancy Mace, R-S.C.; James Baird, R-Ind.; Tim Moore, R-N.C.; Earl L. “Buddy’ Carter, R-Ga.; Derrick van Orden, R-Wis.; Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis.; Tom McClintock, R-Calif.; Glenn Grothman, R-Wis.; and Russell Fry, R-S.C.
As Paul pursued his unsuccessful fight to remove the hemp language in the Senate, House Speaker Johnson accused him of “gumming up the works” and holding up reopening the government because he has a “couple of little parochial priorities.”
Paul fired back.
“This is hogwash. Complete misleading the American people, and it’s irresponsible,” Paul wrote on X. “Lawmakers — including folks on the House side — are trying to shoehorn a massive change to federal hemp law into a government funding bill that has nothing to do with reopening the government.
“It is a shady maneuver that makes funding contingent on wiping out an entire industry. I am not asking for anything other than removing this provision and debating it on its own, in daylight, with transparency.”
Paul claimed that the federal hemp provision would disrupt 23 state laws that regulate hemp “responsibly.”
Johnson and his fellow House GOP leaders remain confident that the government funding package to end the shutdown will clear their chamber and land on Trump’s desk.
But will that package include the hemp-related provisions?
