JOHN CORNYN LEADS GOP CONGRESS ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM (2nd CHANCES)

JOHN CORNYN LEADS GOP CONGRESS ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM:


GOP TAKES ACTION TO GRANT EX-OFFENDERS OPPORTUNITIES FOR 2ND CHANCE.


**** Senator John Cornyn Aims To Sway Fellow Republicans On Criminal Justice

Senator John Cornyn, a former Texas judge and attorney general, is a devoted believer in the criminal justice overhaulawaiting its moment in the Senate. Now, he just has to convert doubting Republican colleagues.

Mr. Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican and a main author of the criminal justice legislation, which would cut some sentences and ease re-entry after prison, is working to address fears from fellow Republicans that passage of the bill could set loose some dangerous offenders and diminish the party’s law-and-order image.

Acknowledging the deep skepticism, Mr. Cornyn said in an interview that his job was to educate Republicans who were only beginning to focus on the legislation and to make clear that it would not throw open the gates of federal prisons.

“Nobody is getting out of jail free, which is some of the characterization that is out there,” said Mr. Cornyn, who describes himself “as conservative as they come.”

For months, momentum has been building for a comprehensive criminal justice package aimed at easing mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders. The effort has been driven by an unusual right-left alliance that includes the conservatives Charles G. and David H. Koch and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved its plan on a strong bipartisan vote in October, and companion legislation is moving in the House. But Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, has not committed to bringing the legislation to the floor. Mr. McConnell has been cautious on the issue, and other Republicans have expressed increasingly vocal opposition, with the latest resistance coming from Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas.

Mr. Cornyn’s primary role in writing the legislation, combined with his spot near the top of the Republican leadership ladder, has made him a critical player in determining whether the legislation advances this year.

“He is the reason it is happening, in my opinion,” said Mark Holden, the general counsel for Koch Industries and the company’s point man on criminal justice issues. “He is the driving force.”

But it is unclear how far that drive will go. In a development first reported by Politico, opposition to the legislation boiled up at a closed party lunch last week, with Mr. Cotton taking a strong position against the bill. Mr. McConnell, one attendee said, reminded senators of the case of Willie Horton, the Massachusetts felon who committed violent crimes while on furlough and became an issue in the 1988 presidential race.

“I don’t believe we should allow thousands of violent felons to be released early from prison, nor do I believe we should reduce sentences for violent offenders in the future,” Mr. Cotton said in an interview. He said that the criminal justice legislation was being driven by a “myth” of mass incarceration of low-level, nonviolent offenders in federal prisons, and that most prisoners had already cut their sentences under plea bargains.

Some senators said Mr. Cornyn and other Republican backers of the legislation may have misread the willingness of their colleagues to embrace the criminal justice movement and had too much faith that others would be swayed by the support of conservatives such as Senators Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Mike Lee of Utah.

“John has some work to do, big-time work,” to secure enough support to persuade Mr. McConnell to go forward, said one Republican senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal party matters.

Mr. Cornyn, who became enthusiastic about the issue after successful changes to the criminal justice system in Texas, where he was a judge for 13 years, said discussions had begun on the staff and senator-to-senator levels to clear up misconceptions. 

He noted that sentencing provisions in the measure would apply to about 5,000 offenders — far fewer than in earlier sentencing proposals — and that those now serving time would have to reappear before the same judge and prosecutor to win a reduction in time served.

“Some people are now realizing for the first time that they may have to vote on this thing, so they need more information,” said Mr. Cornyn, who added that he would be asking colleagues what changes might be needed to win their backing.

He said that Mr. McConnell would like to lessen the party divisions before deciding to devote weeks of scarce Senate floor time to the criminal justice proposition.

“This is all part of his calculation, and we are trying to work with him and all my colleagues and figure a way to get this done,” Mr. Cornyn said. “It is not the kiss of death if you don’t do this in 2016, but I would like to. I think we have a window here.”

Another part of the calculation is the 2016 battle for the Senate and the vulnerability of some Republican incumbents in swing states.

Some analysts have suggested that it could help Republicans by broadening their appeal to independents, Democrats and minorities who believe that the criminal justice system is unfairly tilted.

Mr. Cornyn said he agreed. “It doesn’t hurt to show that you actually care,” he said. “This is a statement that is not just symbolic, but actually shows that you care about people. It doesn’t hurt to show some empathy.”

Sources:  NY Times,  Politico,  Youtube

REPARATIONS EQUAL FAIR OPPORTUNITIES FOR 21st CENTURY BLACK AMERICA (AFFIRMATIVE ACTION)

@Reparations

REPARATIONS EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR 21st CENTURY BLACK AMERICA:

BLACK VOTERS NEED TO ABANDON THE IDEA OF REPARATIONS & FOCUS ON FAIR OPPORTUNITIES.

~ Reparations are defined as Monetary Compensation from the Federal Govt for current BLACK descendants of previously enslaved BLACK Human Beings.

While it's true several other ethnic groups received types of Reparations from the U.S. Federal Govt due to centuries of Institutional Racism, it's highly unlikely 21st century BLACK American citizens will ever receive Reparations in monetary form.

The only in-kind type of Reparations awarded BLACK American citizens was via AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, which is a Federal program.

However considering the growing number of SCOTUS legal challenges opposing AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, it's clear this Federal program will soon become extinct.

So what can BLACK American citizens realistically expect to receive as a substitute for Reparations?
What about FAIR OPPORTUNITIES?

I'm referring to real OPPORTUNITIES.

Complete OPPORTUNITIES to receive a proper Education, to become gainfully Employed, to become Homeowners and Small Business owners without fear of unnecessary REGULATIONS & TAXATION.

Complete OPPORTUNITIES for real Legal Representation, and for Ex-Offenders to become Employed ("Ban the Box") immediately after being released.

When Human Beings are granted a true FAIR OPPORTUNITY to SUCCEED in life, they have no one to blame for Failure but themselves.~


*** Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Hits Bernie Sanders Over Slavery Reparations They Don’t Support

For social justice-minded liberals of a certain age, it has always been an impossible dream that something as politically radioactive as slavery reparations would ever become an issue in a presidential campaign, but here we are.

For good or for bad, insurgent Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders is feeling the heat over his offhand dismissal of reparations in a recent interview, and now, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s campaign has surfaced the issue on national television as a means of attacking Sanders.

It all began about a week ago when Sen. Sanders was asked if he would support slavery reparations. He quickly responded in the negative:

No, I don’t think so. First of all, the likelihood of getting through a Congress is nil. Second of all, I think it would be very divisive.

I think the real issue is, when we look at the poverty rate among the African American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African American community, the incarceration rate within the African American community, we have a lot of work to do.

So I think what we should be talking about is making massive investments in rebuilding our cities and creating millions of decent paying jobs, and making public colleges and universities tuition free, and working on child care.

Basically, targeting our federal resources to the areas that it is needed the most.

And where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African American and Latino.
That response drew intense pressure from The Atlantic‘s Ta-Nehisi Coates, who penned a viral essay asking “Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations?”

On Wednesday night’s All In, Coates explained why Sanders’ response perturbed him, and also why it took nearly a week for him to publish the piece:

When I see somebody just wave away reparations on pragmatic concerns, when your campaign itself is not based on pragmatism, when your campaign is based on, as I said before, what is politically imaginable. And that’s a really, really good thing, I’m defending that, by the way. I’m not against that. I’m for candidacies based on that.

That’s the tonal difference. It’s not that, hey, we have a bunch of great ideas here, but only some of them look like they can actually happen. or some look more likely to happen than others, so these are the ones we’re going to advocate.

First of all, they didn’t even return my numerous calls or my e-mail. So let’s start there, there was no even back, you know — back channel conversation about that at all. They just, you know, left it be and felt it shouldn’t be responded to. That’s fine, but then I have to write what I think about that.

The reaction from Sanders supporters has been vitriolic, and sounds an awful lot like the summation being given by unlikely Sanders defender Tucker Carlson on Fox News, who described someone named “Tah-Nah-HEE-zee Coates” as a “Clinton minion”:

How worried are they? They’re sending minions to make the case Bernie sanders is bigot.

There is piece of a Hillary minion saying Bernie Sanders is, in effect, a racist because he is not for reparations.

I don’t know many “Hillary minions” who would attack Chelsea Clinton in defense of Bernie Sanders, and of course, Coates said nothing to remotely suggest that Bernie is a bigot or a racist, unless that’s what “anti-racism moderate” means.

The timing of this brouhaha is bad for Sanders, but then it wasn’t Coates who gave that quick “no” and then refused to engage followups. As has been his pattern with Black issues, Sanders has handled this poorly.

Not content to just let the flaming tire around Bernie’s neck burn, though, the Hillary Clinton campaign decided that they were the right messengers to press this attack, and not because he’s wrong about reparations, but because it demonstrates a political weakness.

Here’s Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon on CNN:

"We’ll see over the coming weeks if he can explain these plans that he has laid out on health care.

He hasn’t said how he would achieve a single payer system. He couldn’t even get a public option with an entirely Democratic congress. When it comes to something like reparations, he dismisses it as completely unfeasible."

Now, aside from the fact that they are appropriating this serious issue to score cheap political points, which is, itself, not a good look for a campaign that has had to work hard to fight off an entire Samsonite showroom’s worth of baggage with Black voters (and largely succeeded), there’s also the inconvenient fact that Hillary’s position on this issue is nearly identical to Bernie’s.

When Hillary was asked about reparations, she managed to articulate almost the exact same position, but managed to make it sound like a “yes.”:

I think we should start studying what investments we need to make in communities to help individuals and families and communities move forward. And I am absolutely committed to that.

There are some good ideas out there. There’s an idea in the Congressional Black Caucus about really targeting federal dollars to communities that have had either disinvestment or or no investment, and have had years of being below the poverty level.

That’s the kind of thing I’d like us to focus on and really help lift people up.

Now, as Coates explained, there is a major qualitative difference between the two candidates’ responses, which forms the entire basis of his legitimate critique, but substantively, there is no difference.

That makes the Clinton campaign the wrong folks to press this attack, unless they want to explain why their position is exactly the same as Bernie’s.

They’d be better off sitting this one out, and so would those Hillary supporters who haven’t uttered the word “reparations” since they fried the starter in their Audi, but now behave as though this is a lifelong crusade.

They’re going to be put to the test when this issue becomes part of the debates, because if Clintonworld thinks Republicans are drooling to put Bernie in an ad with a hammer and sickle, they’ve got a steel cucumber in their pants over the prospect of Hillary in a red, black, and green dashiki.

As for Sanders, he ought to at least explain why he was so quick to dismiss reparations when he’s happily advocating for forty acres of health care and a college tuition mule, because on its face, it seems to indicate a real difference in the way these two candidates think about racial justice.

And Sanders’ supporters ought to ease up on Coates, because they’re not helping their guy. It’s not a “smear” to quote someone accurately and ask for an explanation.

It’s to his credit that he has begun a discussion about an issue he’s long championed, but unfortunately, that discussion will be more about how the issue of reparations makes candidates look than it will be about reparations themselves.


Sources: Mediaite, Racism Review, Youtube

EX-OFFENDERS DESERVE A 2ND CHANCE - BAN THE BOX

EX-OFFENDERS DESERVE A 2ND CHANCE - BAN THE BOX:

HOW CAN MEN PAY CHILD SUPPORT & BE FATHERS IF THEY CAN'T GET JOBS??

Granting Ex-Offenders a second chance in life by Hiring them to WORK and Expunging their Criminal Records, is good for America's economy.

Assisting Ex-Offenders to become gainfully EMPLOYED reduces Recidivism and Crime.

It will also help to rebuild Communities destroyed by Incarcerated Men who are FATHERS because those Men who are FATHERS will be given OPPORTUNITIES to Pay CHILD SUPPORT and actively engage in the lives of their Children.

~ BAN THE BOX: U.S. CITIES, COUNTIES, AND STATES ADOPT FAIR HIRING POLICIES:

Nationwide, over 100 cities and counties have adopted what is widely known as “ban the box” so that employers consider a job candidate’s qualifications first, without the stigma of a conviction record. 

These initiatives provide applicants a fair chance by removing the conviction history question on the job application and delaying the background check inquiry until later in the hiring.

Momentum for the policy has grown exponentially, particularly in recent years.

There are a total of 19 states representing nearly every region of the country that have adopted the policies —California (2013, 2010), Colorado (2012), Connecticut (2010), Delaware (2014), Georgia (2015), Hawaii (1998), Illinois (2014, 2013), Maryland (2013), Massachusetts (2010), Minnesota (2013, 2009), Nebraska (2014), New Jersey (2014), New Mexico (2010), New York (2015), Ohio (2015), Oregon (2015), Rhode Island (2013), Vermont (2015), and Virginia (2015).

Seven states—Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island—have removed the conviction history question on job applications for private employers, which advocates embrace as the next step in the evolution of these policies.

Federally, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) endorsed removing the conviction question from the job application as a best practice in its 2012 guidance making clear that federal civil rights laws regulate employment decisions based on arrests and convictions.

The Obama Administration’s My Brother’s Keeper Task Force also gave the movement a boost when it endorsed hiring practices “which give applicants a fair chance and allows employers the opportunity to judge individual job candidates on their merits.”

Fair-chance policies benefit everyone because they’re good for families and the local community.

At a recent event in Oakland for employers to discuss reentry issues, one business owner spoke to the personal benefit he finds from hiring people with records. “I’ve seen how a job makes all the difference,” says Derreck B. Johnson, founder and president of Home of Chicken and Waffles in Oakland. “When I give someone a chance and he becomes my best employee, I know that I’m doing right by my community.”

This resource guide documents the states, Washington D.C., and the over 100 cities and counties—that have taken steps to remove barriers to employment for qualified workers with records. Seven states, Washington D.C., and 27 cities and counties now extend the fair-chance policy to government contractors or private employers.

Of the localities, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Columbia (MO), Montgomery County (MD), New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, Portland (OR), Prince George’s County (MD), Rochester, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington D.C. extend their fair-chance laws to private employers in the area.

A chart summarizing all the policies is at the end of this guide.

To support your state and local efforts to enact a fair-chance policy, check out NELP’s Fair Chance – Ban the Box Toolkit, which provides a step-by-step guide for advocates on how to launch a “ban the box” campaign.

Embedded in the Toolkit is a range of resources to draft a law, to build your network, to support your outreach, and even to develop your media outreach.

Post Sources: NELP, YouTube