If the Obama administration succeeds in its new drive to rein in mandatory minimum prison sentences, it will be a sign Democrats have carried out a kind of political exorcism — finally putting to rest any lingering anxiety over the “soft on crime” label that terrorized the party back in the 1980s and 90s.
There are signs the country may be ready to bury the trope that savaged Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988, and which Bill Clinton managed to ride to power in the 1990s via an unflinchingly tough approach to criminal justice and the death penalty.
Now street crime — and fear of it — is waning, bulging prison populations are a ripe target for budget hawks, and Republicans have largely substituted the soft-on-terrorism mantra for the garden-variety violent-crime version they used to bash Democrats a couple of decades ago.
However, there are reasons to doubt how committed President Barack Obama is to the issue. He did little on the subject during his first four years in office, and has sometimes seemed wary of the potential racial overtones of the first African-American president of being identified as an advocate for leniency toward the disproportionately black population in U.S. prisons.
As Attorney General Eric Holder outlined the sentencing reform plan in San Francisco Monday, he peppered this speech with references to Obama. He insisted that the president is fully on board with his plan to avoid charging some low-level drug dealers with offenses that lead to “draconian” prison sentences, and vowed to work with Congress on measures to give judges more discretion in sentencing.
(QUIZ: How well do you know Eric Holder?)
“These are issues the president and I have been talking about for as long as I’ve known him – issues he’s felt strongly about ever since his days as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago,” the attorney general said. “The president and I agree that it’s time to take a pragmatic approach.”
Stalwart critics of mandatory minimums welcomed Holder’s speech, but said they’re not counting on the White House to do heavy lifting to make sentencing reform legislation a reality.
“In general, I think the message is very positive,” said Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. “Do I think the president will support it? Yes, but I don’t think he’ll go out on a limb…I don’t think he’s probably going to work very hard on it.”
One supporter of mandatory minimums said Holder’s announcement that he’s instructing prosecutors not to file charges that carry minimum sentences against some low-level offenders largely encompasses a change in sentencing law made back in 1994 known as the “safety valve.”
(WATCH: Eric Holder’s remarks at American Bar Association)
“It’s less than meets the eye,” said William Otis, who spent 18 years as a federal prosecutor. “It’s not now and has never been the case that all low-level drug offenders are being swept up and charged with minimum mandatory sentences….It’s actually not going to change the on-the-ground reality very much at all.”
A Justice Department official insisted Holder’s move does go further than existing law, by allowing some of those with more than minimal criminal backgrounds to escape mandatory sentences and by not requiring defendants to come forward with full details on their actions.
Stewart said she thinks the action will have an impact, but more is needed. “I, of course….don’t think it goes far enough to address the underlying mandatory minimums writ large. Holder’s comments only address drug crimes and don’t take account of other people subjected to mandatory minimums,” such as those charged with having a gun or even ammunition in their possession.
Holder’s move amounts to a bet that criminal justice reform can divide budget hawks and tough-on-crime types in the Republican caucus, much as the GOP has split in recent months over cuts to the defense budget.
The attorney general noted Monday that many states have cut back on mandatory sentences in recent years, in part due to budget woes.
“Although incarceration has a significant role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state, and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable,” Holder said. “It imposes a significant economic burden — totaling $ 80 billion in 2010 alone — and it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate.”
New strategies, he said, have “attracted overwhelming, bipartisan support in ‘red states’ as well as ‘blue states.’ And it’s past time for others to take notice.”
Some in Congress certainly have — but there’s little sign that the issue has yet achieved the kind of consensus that it’s found at the state level. Powerful Democrats like Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and Sen. Dick Durbin are in favor of major reforms, but so far the main support on the Republican side has come from Tea Party favorites like Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah.
Paul himself made clear Monday that his legislation faces an uphill battle in Congress.
Holder"s "mandatory minimums" gamble
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