Bernie Sanders has dodged criticism for crime bill vote while others have not

[tishaLA]

<...> 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.” <...>

Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, a D.C.-based research and advocacy group, said Sanders’ past public statements in support of the broader bill haven’t “gotten much attention and I don’t think he’s (Sanders) had to answer for it so far.” <...>
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-has-dodged-criticism-crime-bill-vote-while-others-n1020726

[Demsrule86]

1. He ran on it in 2006 also.

[HerbChestnut]

2. He has not been dodging criticism.

He was criticized for it in 2015-16 and has been criticized for it again this election cycle. That said, there is a huge difference between voting for a bill you don't entirely agree with and actually *authoring* that bill.

[George II]

8. Sanders did originally agree with the bill, which wasn't authored by Biden.

[melman]

12. "which wasn't authored by Biden"

Yes it was.

@ 0:12

[George II]

13. SENATOR Biden authored the HOUSE Crime Bill?

[HerbChestnut]

16. Did you watch the video?

Joe literally says, "I drafted the bill."

Edit: Corrected quote.

[George II]

17. Yes, he drafted the Senate bill, the House bill was different and authored by someone in the House.

The two bills went to conference committee to be reconciled, and then went back to both houses for final votes.

[HerbChestnut]

18. Great, so he authored the bill.

There is such a thing as co-authorship.

[George II]

20. But if you read what I said, the House bill and the Senate bill were different. They had to go to..

...conference committee to get a single bill that the two houses could vote on.

Biden drafted the Senate bill, for which the Senators voted. Someone else drafted the House bill, for which the Representatives (including BS) voted. Senators don't vote on House bills, Representatives don't vote on Senate bills.

Two bills, two sets of provisions.

Incidentally, although BS said the reason he supported and voted for the House bill was because it contained an assault weapon ban, in fact the House bill did NOT contain an assault weapon ban. The Senate bill (for which he did NOT vote) contained the assault weapon ban. It was only after the two bills went to the conference committee that the eventual final bill contained the assault weapon ban.

So let's review - Biden drafted the Senate bill, not the House bill. Someone in the House wrote the House bill for which BS voted because it had an assault weapon, even though it didn't.

[HerbChestnut]

21. The original house bill was basically a shell document that looked nothing like the Senate revisions

Last edited Mon Jun 24, 2019, 06:53 PM - Edit history (1)

It's all public information. The original bill in the house was a few pages long that changed some things about community policing. It was just an amendment to another crime bill from 1968. The revised Senate version, the one Joe Biden wrote, was a completely different animal. You can follow the progress of the bill here:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/3355/text/ih

George, your characterization of Bernie's votes here are taken way out of context. Like most people, I have mixed feelings about the crime bill for many of the common reasons, but if we're going to have a debate on the subject then we at least should be honest about it.

Edit: Grammar

[LanternWaste]

11. That difference being nothing more than plausible deniability.

"huge difference between voting for a bill you don't entirely agree with and actually *authoring* that bill."

That difference being nothing more than plausible deniability.

[Me.]

3. True & True

[George II]

4. On top of voting for it in the first place, 1995 there was a debate among lawmakers....

....about the disparity of penalties for crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine. Crack penalties (blacks were more often arrested on crack charges) were much higher than those for powder penalties. The US Sentencing Commission recommended that Congress eliminate the disparity by lowering the crack penalty to be equal to the powder penalty.

https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/training/annual-national-training-seminar/2009/016b_Road_to_1_to_1.pdf

Most Democrats were in favor of this. However, Sanders wanted to equalize he penalties by RAISING the powder penalty. To him in 1995, a year after the 1994 Crime Bill was passed, some penalties weren't strong enough!

From James Carter IV, Jimmy Carter's grandson:

Link to tweet

Had Sanders' idea gone through, many many more people would have been added to the "mass incarceration" from which he's now disavowing himself.

[tishaLA]

7. I didn't know that. Thank you for the information nt

[George II]

9. See further information in post #6, too. Facts matter.

[Otto Lidenbrock]

15. Jimmy Carter's grandson

The man who uncovered Romney's 47% footage

[MineralMan]

5. Well, Sanders isn't the current leader.

So, nobody's focusing on him and trying to find ways to knock him down a notch or two. Biden is the leading candidate, so people are looking for things to attach to him that might lower his polling numbers.

Who is doing that? His opponents, mostly, and those who don't support his candidacy in the media and elsewhere.

The leader is always the target. Nobody is targeting Sanders, because he's not the leader and because nobody expects him to become the leader.

Simple, huh?

[George II]

6. Another interesting fact - He says that the reason he voted for the House bill was because...

....it contained a ban on assault weapons (he was in the House in 1994) However, the House bill didn't contain a ban on assault weapons.

The ban was in the Senate bill, and became part of the final bill after review by the House and Senate conference committee. Joe Biden didn't write the House bill, for which Sanders originally voted.

[Vegas Roller]

10. The devotees always give Senator BS a pass

His votes for the NRA against the Sandy Hook parents is a prime example.

[aikoaiko]

23. If you're talking about PLCAA, his vote on that was in 2005, 7 years before Sandy Hook

He wasn't voting against Sandy Hook parents.

[SouthernProgressive]

14. He always gets a pass from the HA Goodman crowd.

Considering his poll numbers, I'm pretty sure the rest of the people are paying attention.

[betsuni]

19. He said this in support of the bill:

"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."

Calling drug dealers sociopaths good. Calling them super predators bad.

[Gothmog]

22. Good article-

[aikoaiko]

24. Bernie specifically criticized that the crime bills would put too many people in jail

but voted for it for VOWA.

All of this was an old-school attempt to attract votes from lawmakers who otherwise might be skeptical — and it succeeded at winning over some Democrats. Bernie Sanders, for one, criticized an earlier version of the bill, written in 1991 but never passed, for supporting mass incarceration, quipping, “What do we have to do, put half the country behind bars?” But he voted for the 1994 law, explaining at the time, “I have a number of serious problems with the crime bill, but one part of it that I vigorously support is the Violence Against Women Act.”

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/20/18677998/joe-biden-1994-crime-bill-law-mass-incarceration