CHANGE IN CRACK COCAINE SENTENCING A RARE VICTORY FOR BIPARTISANSHIP

When President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act on Tuesday,
it represented more than just the reversal of a law that punished
black defendants more harshly than whites. It was also a rare victory
for bipartisanship.

In 1986, amid the explosion of the crack cocaine epidemic, Congress
mandated that anyone caught with 5 grams of crack receive a minimum
sentence of five years in prison, the same as the penalty for
possessing 500 grams of powder cocaine. The law has led to severe
racial inequities in sentencing, since crack predominates in poorer
and African-American communities. According to the advocacy group
Families Against Mandatory Minimums, blacks comprise 82 percent of
defendants sentenced to federal prison for crack cocaine, and the
average length of their sentences is 37 months longer than those for
powder cocaine.

Under the new law, the disparity will be significantly reduced, though
unfortunately not eliminated. It will take 28 grams of crack -- the
level presumed to indicate drug dealing -- to trigger the five-year
minimum sentence.

In this political environment, it's hard to imagine any politician
willing to risk being labeled as soft on crime, yet not a single
lawmaker opposed the measure. It was the right thing to do, and
Congress did it. Imagine that.