At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Department of Justice, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) pressed Attorney General Pam Bondi on the need to resolve marijuana’s ongoing conflict between state and federal law.

“People have spoken,” Tillis said. “Many red states, even your home state and my home state, are trending towards legalizing it. We’ve got to get it solved at the federal level, we’ve got to capture revenue, it needs to go back to federal law enforcement, and we need to have a lot more focus on unsafe and inconsistent practices across the states. So if I could get that I’d appreciate it.”

Tillis’ remarks reflect a growing bipartisan acknowledgment in Congress that marijuana legalization has expanded far beyond blue states. His call to modernize federal law and direct tax revenue toward enforcement highlights the tension between a patchwork of state markets and marijuana’s current Schedule I status under federal law.

Bondi, a former Florida attorney general who now serves as U.S. Attorney General under President Trump, did not commit to a specific policy change during the exchange. However, the acknowledgment by a Republican senator from a traditionally conservative state signals increasing pressure on Congress to act on marijuana reform at the national level.