Political Quotes

“I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas, Sheila Jackson Lee, for yielding and for her tremendous leadership on the criminal justice reform effort over the years. I also want to thank all of the members of the House Judiciary Committee, in particular, Chairman Goodlatte, as well as Jerry Nadler and, of course, Cedric Richmond and Karen Bass, who were phenomenal assets to this effort. Let me thank my good friend Doug Collins, who has been a tremendous force of nature as it relates to making sure that this Congress did something about overcriminalization in America. From beginning, middle, and end, it has been an honor to work with Mr. Collins on a wide variety of things in this great body, in particular, on this effort to break the back of the prison industrial complex. I thank Doug Collins for his tremendous leadership. In 1971, President Nixon declared drug abuse public enemy number one. It was the beginning of the failed war on drugs. At that point in time, there were less than 350,000 people incarcerated in America. Today, there are 2.2 million. We incarcerate more people in the United States of America than any other country in the world. We have 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated individuals. It is a scandal. It is a stain on our democratic society. It is not a Democratic problem or a Republican problem; it is an American problem.…”