Last week, Bill Clinton got into a heated exchange with #BlackLivesMatter over his Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. BLM contends that the 1994 bipartisan bill encouraged states to open new prisons, get tougher on small-time drug offenders and adopt “truth-in-sentencing laws,” all of which caused a dramatic rise in incarceration rates for young black males.
But while Bill and his wife, Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, have faced criticism for the bill—and have apologized and apologized and apologized for it—Clinton’s top competitor, Bernie Sanders, hasn’t. Sanders also voted for the bill, supported it and spoke out in defense of being tough on drug offenders. Yet he has faced very little push back from the same liberal crowd.
Sanders, who claims to be a law enforcement reformer, now says he was “conflicted” about the 1994 bill and it’s partner, the Omnibus Crime Bill of 1994, but ultimately approved the measures because of an assault weapons ban included in the package (though that provision was far from the star of the bill).
Until 2006, however, according to Yahoo News, Sanders was quite proud of his vote, and used it as proof that he was dedicated to keeping control of America’s crime rate. And while he gave an “impassioned” speech on the Senate floor calling for prison reform right before the bill passed, Sanders had no problem registering two “yea” votes for the Violent Crime Act and its successor, with the bill’s expansion of the prison system clearly spelled out.
And while Sanders has spoken at length about rolling back long prison sentences for drug crimes, he doesn’t have the same commitment to leniency when it comes to gun offenders. In 1998, years after the Violent Crime Act passed and its impact on prison population was evident, Sanders voted for the Minimum Sentences for Gun Crimes Act, which created mandatory minimum sentences of more than a decade for crimes committed while possessing a weapon.
To top it off, the Vermont Senator, who now speaks regularly about “police reform” on his campaign website and in speeches, voted against the 1995 Local Government Law Enforcement Block Grants Act, which would have prevented local governments from purchasing tanks so that their local police departments could issue parking violations and crush poorly parked vehicles from the comfort of an armored personnel carrier.
While Bill Clinton has been on a cross-country apology tour, desperately trying to convince minority voters that he and his wife have changed their minds on mass incarceration, Bernie Sanders has been doling out hugs and kisses to his oblivious electorate. Perhaps progressives should take a closer look.