Political Quotes

“I am frequently asked what we can do to repeal some of the mandatory minimum sentences which frequently impose bizarre, Draconian, and unreasonable sentences. Sometimes these requests come from relatives or friends of people, women whose boyfriends deal drugs, and the young lady does not deal drugs, does not use drugs, but she is around the boyfriend enough so that there is no question, she probably broke the law, took a message, drove a car to a meeting, so prosecutors can show she was involved, but not involved to the point where she ought to serve 20-some years, more than bank robbers serve. When they ask what they can do about these kinds of Draconian sentences, I tell them the first thing they have to do to repeal the existing mandatory minimums is to stop passing new ones. Today we are going to pass a new set of mandatory minimum sentence laws. If anybody asks in the future where these mandatory minimums come from, Members can point to bills like the one today.”