Eddie Bernice Johnson's courageous stand for '94 crime bill shows she's wiser than her progressive

[TexasTowelie]

Eddie Bernice Johnson’s courageous stand for '94 crime bill shows she’s wiser than her progressive critics


There is an old saying that you can’t fully understand a problem unless you’ve lived through it. And this applies to the growing furor over lawmakers who voted for the 1994 federal crime bill. Democratic progressives have weaponized the vote for the bill as a litmus test to determine views on criminal and racial justice reform.

As exhibited on the last Democratic presidential debate stage, liberal progressives relentlessly demand a pound of flesh from anyone who supported the measure, including Joe Biden, the bill’s author and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time. By doing so, they paint a vote for the bill as a rejection of reasonable criminal justice reform.

Nothing can be more myopic. That’s why we are pleased that U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, dean of Texas’ congressional delegation, isn’t playing this game. Johnson is one of the few Democrats still in Congress who voted for the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act during a time when Americans were demanding greater safety in their communities.

She says today, correctly, that the bill was a proper response to deadly crack cocaine and violent crime epidemics of the time. “I’m not sorry,” Johnson recently told the Texas Tribune. “If the circumstances were the same today as they were back then, I would do the same thing.”

Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2019/07/25/eddie-bernice-johnsons-courageous-stand-94-crime-bill-shows-wiser-progressive-critics

Please read the entire editorial.

[oasis]

1. The More You Know 🌈

You have to have been in the situation. Justice for victims should be the number one consideration.

[Blue_true]

21. I saw the news from my safe Surburban neighborhood.

Kids sitting on the stoop at their homes or walking to school shot and killed by stray bullets from some drug dealer rivalry. People putting thick plywood over their windows to slow a bullet if one came. Drive by shootings where shooters blasted bullets everywhere, if you were an innocent caught in it, good luck to you. A few truly violent people holding entire neighborhoods hostage.

That was the environment that people that crafted the crime bill lived in. Was there some cowardice, yes, republicans were projected to take the House in the upcoming election and democrats wanted to look tough on crime, hence the three strikes nonsense. But overall the bill addressed some very real problems.

[oasis]

22. A plea for a remedy produced an imperfect bill. Certainly nothing

a lawmaker should get hammered about decades later.

[Recursion]

2. I think people who weren't alive during the 90s crime wave may not grasp

just how incredibly violent the country was at that point. That's why shows like Law & Order took off then: the number of murders in that one precinct would be ludicrous today but was realistic at that point.

[BlueWI]

23. And I doubt if more than a few people on DU

weren't politically aware in the 1990s. Judging from the opinions here on many subjects, we don't strike me as a millennial friendly site.

I remember the trends regarding crimes in the 1990s. There was actually a pretty consistent drop in crime rates through most of the 1990s. There was a lot of organized crime and real suffering among victims, but the actual data shows a downward trend for much of the decade.

[treestar]

37. Then could the bill have had that effect?

It was in 1994, so it could get some credit for that drop in crime.

[BlueWI]

38. Well, if you pass a bill in 1994 the impact is at least a year out.

By then, the 1990s are half over, and trend lines are already pointing to historic reductions in the crime rate.

And are you suggesting that the bill had a positive impact, or not, and with what evidence? I am open to your doing your own research and sharing why the bill had such an impact beyond the well documented racially discriminatory impact of mandatory minimums and differential sentencing for crack vs. powder cocaine, which no one seriously disputes.

[treestar]

39. I need more time for my research

it just seemed to be an open question. It had many different provisions in it.

[treestar]

36. Yes, the cable channels starting all those crime shows too

and the shows on forensics.

And crime has gone down since then.

[Cha]

3. I'm so grateful to

Rep Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas, for endorsing Joe Biden!

Eddie Bernice Johnson’s courageous stand for '94 crime bill shows she’s wiser than her progressive critics

Thank You, Rep EBJ!!

Mahalo, TexasT

[OneBro]

4. Nope.

It was cowardly to support such an ill-conceived, racist bill in 1994, and it is boldly offensive to stand up in 2019 and pat yourself on the back for such a festering mark in US jurisprudence.

Yes, plenty of black “leaders” supported the legislation, but Maxine Waters was sounding the alarm early and loudly that the law would bring mandatory sledgehammers upon heads in the black community, while keeping the “let’s not ruin his future” approach in the white community.

This is no less offensive than patting one’s self on the back in 2019 for having lazily voted for the Iraq War simply because it was the safest thing to do politically.

The original vote in ‘94 was bad enough, but the stubborn refusal to acknowledge such poor judgment suggests a predictable future of continued poor judgment.

[Cha]

5. No it wasn't "Cowardly".. that's a gratuitous

ugly insult.

[OneBro]

6. You don't have to agree with my summary.

You have the right to agree with the ‘94 vote and it’s predictable results, and I have the right to view it as a vile travesty which I believe resulted from cowardice.

Anyone, especially political leaders, unwilling to do what’s right in the face of votes such as the ‘94 crime bill and the vote on the Iraq War, is a coward. You may feel free, of course, to embrace them as brave heroes.

[Cha]

7. I'm just saying.. you lose by

jumping on with your ugly insults.

There're differences of opinion but you've already lost by insulting those who don't agree with you.

[OneBro]

8. Fair enough.

You disagree, thus call my use of the word “cowardly” an “ugly insult” when I referred to votes I believe lacked courage.

At a time when Democrats are fighting to reverse the devastating effects of the ‘94 crime bill, to suddenly hear other Democrats praising the bill is (insert appropriate word or phrase).

Sigh.

I ain’t mad at ya Cha. Caring, community minded Democrats can certainly disagree at times. These two issues just cut a bit close to the bone, even after all these years.

Best wishes.

[Kahuna7]

17. As someone who has lived in a high crime area for most of my life...

I don't view it as a travesty. I see the devastation of the families who have to live with the loss of their loved ones due to the depraved indifference of violent criminals. My sympathy is with them, not so much with the families of the criminals paying for their crimes.

[oasis]

19. +1

[OneBro]

25. Have you no sympathy for DUI victims?

Mandatory life sentences for anyone and everyone convicted of driving under the influence (of alcohol, narcotics, etc.) would certainly go a long way to curb this scourge on all communities.

[Kahuna7]

27. Reading is fundamental...

[OneBro]

28. So is logic.

🧐

[Kahuna7]

29. Which you have none of. Go peddle your hyperbole somewhere else...

I'm busy

[treestar]

35. read the article - the bill had good in it too

and if you remember back then, crime was the obsession of the country. I don't think terms like "cowardly" need to be used just because people don't agree and didn't agree 25 years ago. "Doing what's right" is not always agreed upon as to what that is.

[betsuni]

9. Here's what Bernie Sanders said about the bill he voted for:

"It is my firm belief that clearly, there are people in our society who are horribly violent, who are deeply sick and sociopathic, and clearly these people must be put behind bars in order to protect society from them."

It was the opinion at the time.

[Cha]

10. Here's something else BS said at the time..

He voted in favor of at least one amendment allocating more money for prison funding, though 49 Democrats voted against it, including now Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the current House Judiciary Committee chairman, Jerrold Nadler of New York. The amendment gave $10.5 billion more in grants to states for prison construction, a feature that remains one of the bill’s most contentious legacies 25 years later.

“On balance, its positive initiatives to control crime outweigh the negatives,” Sanders said in an August 11, 1994 speech on the House floor, according to the congressional record. Eleven days later, Sanders was quoted on the front page of the Burlington Free Press calling it "a step forward for Vermont and for the nation in addressing the horrendous problem with crime and violence.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-has-dodged-criticism-crime-bill-vote-while-others-n1020726

Thanks, betsuni

[betsuni]

14. "Bernie Sanders' strong record of supporting tough on crime legislation."

http://web.archive.org/20061018180921/http:/www.bernie.org/truth/crime.html

"Sanders: strong on funding police and anti-drug programs."

[NYMinute]

11. So predictable

[OneBro]

26. Which?

Predictable that EBJ and Waters could disagree on such an important bill, or predictable that you find this all so hilarious that the best you can do is an emoji?

[NYMinute]

31. Opposition to the crime bill's history is predictable

It is coming from people who want to hurt Joe Biden over a non issue.

[OneBro]

40. Ah. I doubt that they'll get any traction.

Joe Biden has plenty of cover from PLENTY of black leaders who also supported the crime bill at the time. While I believe the bill was a low point in American jurisprudence, I think for anyone to accuse Biden of racism for supporting the bill would be the height of foolishness.

Still, I wouldn't call it a "non-issue" because the law is still in force and there are still plenty of people who got life sentences for relatively minor crimes or minor involvement (such as being a girlfriend in the car when the dealer boyfriend got arrested). Current Democratic work to undo such gross injustices becomes all but impossible so long as other Democratic leaders are suggesting that the crime bill was actually a good thing.

[oasis]

12. K and R

[bigtree]

13. she's embarassingly wrong

...and she'd be one of the only Dems to 'do it again.'

Knowing everything we know about its effect on the community, incarceration rates, sentencing disparities? What a silly thing to say.

Pulling a handful of black folks in front of the camera to defend that bill isn't going to change the reality or the perception.

She'd really do these again?

- Subsidies for state prison expansion
- A brutally inflexible federal three-strikes law ensuring that record numbers of prisoners would remain locked up for nonviolent and second-tier felonies
- Abolition of federal Pell grants for prisoners’ college tuition, ensuring that paroled offenders return to their communities without having had a chance to advance their education past high school
- Enthusiastic promotion of mandatory minimum sentences
- 13-year-old offenders tried as adults
- A vastly expanded federal death penalty, imposed just as growing numbers of states were backing away from capital punishment
- A tidal wave of military gear arriving at local police departments, bigger than the arsenals of many nations
https://www.thenation.com/article/nothing-about-the-1994-crime-bill-was-unintentional/

[loyalsister]

16. I hope not!

Defending the crime bill without at least acknowledging that it predictably exacerbated racial disparities in an existing racist criminal justice system is itself a defense of white supremacy.

A person does not have to be a bigot, or even white, to protect the superior position of white people.

[Cha]

15. I trust what Congresswoman

Eddie Bernice Johnson has to say about this, having been there, than those trying to tear her down with their own agenda.

If progressives are honest with themselves, they would concede that the bill also included money to fight violence against women, an assault weapons ban and other long-standing, popular progressive talking points. Federal dollars were made available to local communities to hire more police officers and resources to track sexually violent offenders, too

Another is Johnson, who this week endorsed Biden for the party’s presidential nomination. She is a testament as a lawmaker of having to deal with ambiguous complexities of criminal justice policies in the heat of the moment, standing by her convictions and not wavering with the revisionist political winds.

[oasis]

18. The rising intensity of crime in the inner cities had to be dealt with.

Drive by shootings, home invasions, street corner drug sales, armed robbery, assaults and, not least of all, WITNESS INTIMIDATION "snitches get stitches". Many members of the AA community felt like prisoners in their own homes.

While our justice system is in need of reform, I'll always stand with the VICTIMS of crimes.

Thanks Cha, for taking up for Rep. Johnson.

[Cha]

20. Rep Eddie Bernice Johnson is easy

to stand up for!

It's so obvious those who are trying to take down Biden with this have their own wee cherry picking agenda.

Thank You, oasis!

[highplainsdem]

24. K&R

[Kurt V.]

30. yikes. Doubling down on being wrong

[aikoaiko]

32. People can disagree about the 1994 Crime Bill, but to do it again...

...knowing what we know is absurd.

[Gothmog]

33. Eddie Bernice Johnson is an amazing woman and is well respected in the Texas Democratic Party

[treestar]

34. There was a lot more to that bill than meets the eye

I remember that era. Crime was then what terrorism is today. Everyone was concerned with it.