Last verified: April 2026
The Conservative Case for Expungement
The right-of-center argument for cannabis expungement draws from core conservative principles, and it has been championed by some of the most influential organizations on the American right.
Americans for Prosperity, the advocacy network funded by the Koch family, has become one of the most active proponents of criminal record reform. Under the leadership of Mark Holden, Koch Industries' former general counsel, the organization spent seven figures on advertising campaigns supporting Clean Slate and expungement legislation.
Right on Crime, a project of the American Conservative Union, and the Cato Institute have produced research showing that expungement leads to a 4% reconviction rate (far below the general population) and a 23% wage increase for recipients. These numbers appeal directly to fiscal and free-market arguments.
The conservative case rests on four pillars:
- Fiscal responsibility — the U.S. spends more than $80 billion annually on corrections. Reducing the collateral consequences that push people back into the system saves taxpayer money.
- Limited government — permanent criminal records for minor offenses represent government overreach that follows citizens for life
- Redemption — the belief that people who have served their sentence deserve a second chance, rooted in faith-based and constitutional principles
- Labor market efficiency — criminal records remove productive workers from the economy, reducing GDP and increasing dependence on government programs
This coalition has produced legislative results. Pennsylvania and Utah passed Clean Slate automatic record-sealing laws with near-unanimous Republican support.
Progressive Prosecutors
On the other end of the political spectrum, a generation of progressive prosecutors has used their elected authority to clear cannabis records on a massive scale:
George Gascón cleared 125,000 cannabis convictions in Los Angeles County and had previously cleared 9,000 in San Francisco as District Attorney there. His approach used technology and bulk review to process records at scale rather than waiting for individual petitions.
Larry Krasner in Philadelphia implemented a 71% diversion rate for cannabis cases, effectively ending prosecution of simple possession and redirecting cases toward dismissal and expungement.
Kim Foxx in Cook County co-authored elements of the Illinois Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, using her position as State's Attorney to shape the state's expungement framework from inside the prosecutorial system.
Rachael Rollins in Suffolk County (Boston) adopted a policy of declining to prosecute cannabis offenses entirely, removing the front end of the pipeline that creates records in the first place.
Public Opinion
The political support for expungement reflects broad public consensus:
- Pew Research Center (2025) — 88% of Americans support some form of legal cannabis
- 66% support releasing people currently incarcerated for cannabis offenses
- 61% support expunging cannabis criminal records
A YouGov/CBS poll from April 2023 found bipartisan support for expungement across all party identifications:
- 68% of Democrats support cannabis expungement
- 52% of Independents support cannabis expungement
- 45% of Republicans support cannabis expungement
This level of support across party lines is unusual in American politics and helps explain why expungement legislation passes in both blue and red states.
The Corporate Tension
The cannabis industry itself occupies an awkward position in the expungement debate. On one hand, companies fund expungement clinics and social equity programs. On the other, the industry spent $5.8 million on lobbying in 2019 alone, and its advocacy priorities have historically focused on market expansion and banking access rather than criminal justice reform.
The poster case for this tension is John Boehner, the former Speaker of the House who opposed cannabis legalization throughout his career before joining the board of Acreage Holdings, a cannabis company. The man who helped maintain the federal prohibition that created millions of criminal records now profits from the industry those records locked people out of.
This does not mean industry support for expungement is insincere. Many companies and executives are genuinely committed to the cause. But the structural tension — between an industry that benefits from prohibition-era scarcity and the people whose records reflect that prohibition — remains unresolved.
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