CHANGE IN CRACK COCAINE SENTENCING A RARE VICTORY FOR BIPARTISANS

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.