Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, S. 1789, the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, is a bipartisan compromise that was negotiated and drafted by Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It then passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate by unanimous consent. The legislation will reduce the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine in Federal law from 100-to-1 down to 18-to-1. The crack penalties, under present law, for example, it only takes five grams of crack to trigger a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence, but for powder cocaine it takes 500 grams to trigger the same 5-year mandatory sentence, a 100-to-1 ratio. This disparity is particularly egregious when you consider that the Sentencing Commission has concluded that there is no pharmacological difference between the two forms of cocaine, and that 80 percent of the crack defendants are black, whereas only 30 percent of the powder cocaine defendants are black. The crack penalties also create bizarre sentences when you consider sentences such as the 24 \1/2\-year sentence given to Kimba Smith for behavior that was just inferentially involved with her boyfriend's cocaine dealing. The legislation moves the threshold amount for the 5-year mandatory minimum from five grams to one ounce, reducing the disparity from 100- to-1 to 18-to-1.…”