Our View - Thursday
- Equal justice
- Crack sentencing disparity faces scrutiny
After too many years of inattention, Congress may finally be getting ready to correct one of the most harmful mistakes it made in the 1980s during the period of legislative hysteria over the phenomenon of crack cocaine. The House Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee held hearings Tuesday on bills to reform the disparity in sentencing for possession of crack and powder cocaine.
Back in the 1980s, when crack cocaine seemed to be decimating neighborhoods and wrecking lives at an alarming rate, many people believed it was more addictive and more dangerous than powder cocaine. That turned out not to be the case, but while it was the conventional wisdom, Congress enacted laws mandating longer sentences for crack possession than for powder cocaine.
It takes 5 grams of crack cocaine (two sugar packets) to get a five-year sentence versus 500 grams of powder. Fifty grams of crack triggers a 10-year sentence, but it takes 5,000 grams of powder to trigger a 10-year sentence.
That’s a ratio of 100 to 1. And while it was not part of the intention, the disparity has harmed blacks more than any other group. By and large (there are exceptions to every rule) blacks who use cocaine tend to use crack, while white Americans are more inclined to use powder. So blacks have received much longer prison sentences for offenses that, chemically speaking, are identical.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission, after years of study, has recommended and put into place a modest reduction in this disparity, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that judges can give sentences that fall below the guidelines.
But the problem originated in legislation and must be corrected by legislation. It now looks as if it could happen this year, despite the distractions offered by the election.
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., who chairs the crime subcommittee, has introduced a bill to eliminate the crack/powder disparity altogether. Three other bills, including one from Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, would do the same with a few different wrinkles. In the Senate, Democrat Joe Biden of Delaware, along with Republicans Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Orrin Hatch of Utah have also introduced reform bills.
Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which coordinated lobbying efforts on behalf of reform, told us after a day of visiting various members that “we were surprised how much support there is for reform on the Hill, and members of Congress were surprised at how much support there is in the rest of society.”
The thinking among reformers is that Biden, Sessions and Hatch will come up with a compromise that can pass the Senate. The House hearings are likely to be followed by House action as well. The question is whether both houses can muster veto-proof majorities. We urge Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar, along with Rep. Doug Lamborn and the rest of Colorado’s congressional delegation to support this minor reform to a law that treats similar offenses quite differently.
- Nader (yawn) throws hat into the ring
So, Ralph Nader, the regulation advocate cleverly disguised as a consumer advocate, is running for president. Again. Democrats who thought he set things up for the 2000 election, when he ran as a Green Party candidate, to be stolen are gritting their teeth already, but the likelihood of the master manipulator of the media doing much more than adding a few colorful quotes to the general election process this time around seems limited.
For starters, Nader is not seeking the national nomination of an established party but will seek ballot access state by state, looking for a Green Party endorsement here, a Reform Party nod there, and perhaps an independent or populist party line elsewhere. And he complains about different states’ varied requirements that hinder an independent’s chances of getting on the ballot. Thus it will be difficult for him to be on the ballot in all 50 states, and therefore difficult to be a national factor.
In addition, insofar as turnout in primary elections is an indicator, Democrats are fired up this year and convinced that after eight years of George W. Bush, this is their time. If Democrats were dispirited or notably dissatisfied with their candidates, many of them might be tempted to swing toward Nader. But the Democrats this year will be the first major party to nominate either a woman or a black for the top position, and that should keep interested those voters inclined to lean left.
Nader claims that the major candidates in both parties have ignored issues such as corporate crime, worker rights, military spending and foreign policy. To be sure, we’ve seen less serious discussion of military spending and foreign policy than we might have liked, but that seems to have been driven more by voter interest than candidate neglect. Funny thing about voters; they want to hear about issues near and dear to them, not what the candidates want to talk about.
And the candidate who sounded most interested in corporate crime, John Edwards, never gained much traction among Democrats, so we’re a little doubtful that ordinary Americans are as fired up about the subject as Edwards and Nader.
Of course, this has been the interminable election season that has proved all the pundits wrong at least a few times, from premature dancing on John McCain’s political grave to counting Hillary out before New Hampshire to the rise of Barack Obama over a passel of more-experienced contenders. So any prediction must be conditional.
Offhand, however, we suspect that if the Libertarian Party nominates somebody reasonably serious, it will draw more votes from the Republicans than Ralph Nader will from the Democrats.
