Mass Incarceration

Tonight’s House passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act represents an important step toward reforming our broken criminal justice system. But much, much more remains to be done in the days, and months and years ahead to ensure that every American receives equal justice under the law. We hope that this bill will be strengthened in the Senate because we cannot continue to accept this epidemic of injustice. We must reform the system of injustice that treats Americans differently because of the color of their skin or where they live.

Once an American is eligible to vote that right should never be taken away. Washington, DC joins Maine and Vermont in making a stand for the most important and sacred right we share, our right to vote.

Every American deserves fair and impartial law enforcement, free of racial bias, but too many do not receive it. And too often racially biased law enforcement ends in tragedy. The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 is an important step in rooting out systemic racism in law enforcement and we commend the House for passing the legislation. More will need to be done, but we must first take this first important step to addressing a national disgrace.

President Trump’s executive order on police reform is a small but woefully inadequate step toward addressing the huge problem of police brutality which has spurred national outrage in the wake of the ongoing violence against Black communities. The scope of the problem demands comprehensive reforms, not piecemeal gestures from a man who stoked the fires of civil unrest with his inflammatory rhetoric in response to nationwide protests. This is the same man whose administration ordered a violent police assault on peaceful protestors in Lafayette Square to accommodate a photo op for the President.

Today, Common Cause released a new report on the impact of denying voting rights to people with past felony convictions and what must be done to strengthen their voting rights. “Zero Disenfranchisement: The Movement to Restore Voting Rights” documents the racist history of felony disenfranchisement laws, the new movement to repeal them, and provides several personal stories of individuals affected by these voter suppression efforts.