The “Octo­ber sur­prise” deliv­ered by Pres­i­dent Biden last week would have been huge­ly con­tro­ver­sial a few years back, and imme­di­ate­ly seized upon by a Demo­c­ra­t­ic president’s right wing oppo­nents as a fan­ning of the nation’s moral decay.

The 46th Pres­i­dent deliv­ered a par­don to all peo­ple with a non-vio­lent con­vic­tion under fed­er­al mar­i­jua­na laws. Pres­i­dent Biden also set in motion a recon­sid­er­a­tion of marijuana’s clas­si­fi­ca­tion under fed­er­al law. Under present pol­i­cy, absurd­ly, it is a Sched­ule 1 offense in the same cat­e­go­ry as hero­in and LSD.

A POLITICO/Morning Con­sult poll found 65% approval for the par­don, with 40% of those sur­veyed in strong sup­port. An even high­er lev­el of approval, 69%, greet­ed the prospec­tive reclas­si­fi­ca­tion of cannabis. More than two thirds of those sur­veyed had heard a lot or some­thing about the exec­u­tive actions.

Once more, Wash­ing­ton, D.C., was catch­ing up with Wash­ing­ton State.

A decade ago, with pas­sage of Ini­tia­tive 502, the Ever­green State became the first U.S. state to legal­ize recre­ation­al use of mar­i­jua­na and the first to autho­rize recre­ation­al mar­i­jua­na sales. Our legal­iza­tion took effect three hours before weed became legal in Colorado.

The state’s vote to legal­ize was not defined as a social rev­o­lu­tion, but rather a mod­est use of intel­li­gence. Strong sup­port came from the med­ical and legal com­mu­ni­ties. The ratio­nale: Exist­ing laws were wide­ly ignored and enforce­ment unfair­ly and inequitably hit hard­est at peo­ple of col­or, while legal­iza­tion would take mon­ey from orga­nized crime and put it in state coffers.

A moment of pride is in order.

Our state has act­ed in a sen­si­ble and humane way, backed by the pub­lic, at a time when such actions were still anath­e­ma to much of the coun­try. Just recall the con­tro­ver­sy, a few years back, when pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Bill Clin­ton fessed up to smok­ing mar­i­jua­na (but tried the dodge “I didn’t inhale”).

A clas­sic exam­ple of Wash­ing­ton out front was pas­sage, in 1970, of Ref­er­en­dum 20 which – with con­di­tions – legal­ized abor­tion. The vote pre­ced­ed by three years the Roe vs. Wade deci­sion of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rea­son and empa­thy pre­vailed over closed-mind­ed­ness in the R‑20 vote.

The dri­ve to legal­ize was spurred on by death of women in botched abor­tions, as well as injus­tice and inequal­i­ty. Well-known clin­ics in Seat­tle served well-off women. Some women wish­ing to end preg­nan­cies (e.g. future Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jolene Unsoeld) booked trips to Japan.

Oppo­nents erect­ed bill­boards show­ing a fetus and the slo­gan “Kill Ref­er­en­dum 20, Not Me.” A noto­ri­ous Hal­loween prank saw some­one climb up a Uni­ver­si­ty Dis­trict bill­board and spray paint: “Hap­py Moth­ers Day.”

Wash­ing­ton vot­ed to strength­en pro­tec­tion of abor­tion rights in 1991.

The 2012 elec­tion saw Wash­ing­ton, with Mary­land and Maine, be the first to legal­ize mar­riage equal­i­ty by pop­u­lar vote. Mass­a­chu­setts was the first state where same-sex cou­ples could wed, but by virtue of a state Supreme Court deci­sion. Wash­ing­ton had its pio­neer­ing role, vot­ing in 2009 to legal­ize domes­tic part­ner­ships. Again, it seemed sim­ply the sen­si­ble thing to do.

On the day mar­riage equal­i­ty became legal, day­long wed­dings were per­formed at Seat­tle City Hall before elect­ed lead­ers serv­ing as officiants.

King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court (now Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court) Judge Mary Yu offi­ci­at­ed at the first wed­ding a minute past mid­night. Seat­tle First Bap­tist Church wel­comed a mass ear­ly evening ceremony.

In 2008, Wash­ing­ton fol­lowed Ore­gon in vot­ing to legal­ize Death with Dig­ni­ty. The chief backer of Ini­tia­tive 1000 was ex-Gov­er­nor Booth Gard­ner, who suf­fered from Parkinson’s Dis­ease. The mea­sure passed by a land­slide with 57.8% of the vote.

What has put Wash­ing­ton in the fore­front of pro­gres­sive social change?

A belief in pri­va­cy, that the gov­ern­ment should butt out of pri­vate deci­sions, is unusu­al­ly strong here. Indeed, it was Yaki­ma-raised U.S. Supreme Court Jus­tice William O. Dou­glas who defined a gen­er­al right to pri­va­cy in the 1966 Gris­wold v. Con­necti­cut decision.

For the most part, Wash­ing­ton has been bless­ed­ly free of influ­en­tial reac­tionary peo­ple and insti­tu­tions. No pow­er­ful church­es resist­ing the legal­iza­tion of con­tra­cep­tives. No preach­ers of dis­crim­i­na­tion like Jer­ry Fal­well, Pat Robert­son and Franklin Gra­ham stig­ma­tiz­ing those with whom they disagree.

The Pacif­ic North­west was ear­ly in sup­port of women’s rights. I grew up at a time when Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon and Ida­ho sent four women to Congress.

At an ear­ly Seat­tle anti-Viet­nam War protest, I lis­tened to an aged Jeanette Rankin, the Mon­tana con­gress­woman who vot­ed against U.S. entry into both World War I and II. (Rankin was the sole vote against going to war in 1941.)

As well, we have a younger pop­u­la­tion here.

A big major­i­ty of mil­len­ni­als and Gen­er­a­tion Z have jet­ti­soned homo­pho­bia, long the most endur­ing of social prej­u­dices. Young activists have been a dri­ving force behind Washington’s three suc­cess­ful gun safe­ty ini­tia­tives – par­tic­u­lar­ly after the 2018 mas­sacre at Park­land’s Mar­jo­ry Stone­man Dou­glas High School — passed by vot­ers in the face of inac­tion by Con­gress and the Wash­ing­ton State Legislature.

We’ve led the way, as well, in mak­ing it eas­i­er and more acces­si­ble to vote.

No won­der Wall Street Jour­nal edi­to­ri­al­ists a while ago dubbed us the most dan­ger­ous cor­ner of the country’s “Left Coast.” Where Wash­ing­ton leads, Wash­ing­ton, D.C., fol­lows, as evi­denced by Pres­i­dent Biden’s big announce­ment on mar­i­jua­na pol­i­cy a full ten years after the approval of Ini­tia­tive 502.