Elizabeth Warren’s Criminal Justice Reform Plan Takes Aim at Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
en. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has released a criminal justice reform plan that takes direct aim at two of her chief rivals seeking the 2020 Democratic nomination: former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.
While she does not mention Biden or Harris by name, Warren’s plan confronts two past political positions which have come back to haunt her contenders on the presidential campaign trail. Warren targets the controversial 1994 crime bill, which Biden helped write, as well as school truancy, an issue which Harris took a firm approach to as a prosecutor in California.
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Warren called for a repeal of the bulk of the 1994 crime bill, which passed with Biden’s support when the future vice president was still a senator from Delaware.
“The 1994 crime bill exacerbated incarceration rates in this country, punishing people more severely for even minor infractions and limiting discretion in charging and sentencing in our judicial system,” Warren writes in her proposal, which was posted Wednesday to Medium. “That punitive ‘tough on crime’ approach was wrong, it was a mistake, and it needs to be repealed. There are some sections of law, like those relating to domestic violence, that should be retained — but the bulk of the law must go.”
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