Sheila Jackson Lee: “I leave my colleagues with a simple challenge. The simple challenge is: Read the Constitution. Vagueness can be the…”

“I leave my colleagues with a simple challenge. The simple challenge is: Read the Constitution. Vagueness can be the death of us. This bill is that kind of death, and I would hope that we would have the opportunity to do this as it should be: constitutionally sound and in a bipartisan way to save lives. Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. We support victims of crime, especially those who are victims of violent crime. But classifying particular offenses as crimes of violence has tremendous consequences for the individuals accused of committing them. This bill dangerously leads to over-criminalization and we should not take lightly the task of amending the definition of ``crime of violence.'' At Rules on Wednesday, we addressed over-criminalization and mass incarceration. Rep. Torres aptly stated that we should not proceed with haste, which will further exacerbate the over crowdedness in our prisons. Rep. Bucks responded that we should build more prisons to address that problem. Even conservative groups that work with these very complicated and important criminal justice reform issues, like the Koch Foundation and Right on Crime, do not agree that building more prisons is the answer.…”