Monday, March 31, 2008

Dear Supporter,

Support is growing for ending the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity, which creates enormous racial inequities in the federal justice system and leads federal law enforcement agencies to waste taxpayer money on locking up low-level, nonviolent offenders. But there's one big problem: senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee are dragging their feet on producing a bi-partisan compromise bill. Unless the Committee passes reform within the next few weeks, there might not be enough time left this year to move it through the rest of the Senate and then the House.

We have an ambitious plan to put grassroots pressure on committee members--but we need to raise $3,000 to do it. The plan is to call 28,000 supporters like you in ten key states, and ask them to call their senators. In a one-two punch that we hope will flood pivotal Senate offices with calls from constituents, these calls will be made the same day we send targeted e-mails to supporters in those states asking them to call the Senate. While voters rock Senate offices with calls, we'll be working behind the scenes to get key clergy, civil rights activists, business leaders and others to privately ask senators to pass this reform.

Will you give $10, $25, $50, $100, or $500 so we can make these calls? Any amount will help.

Here are the states and senators we will target if we raise the money:

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions (R) 
California Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) 
Illinois Senator Richard Durbin (D)
Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy (D)
Nevada Majority Leader Harry Reid (D)
New York Senator Charles Schumer (D)
Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R)
Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter (R)
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch (R)
Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy (D)

If you’re in one of these ten states, then you may get an e-mail and/or a phone call from us on Wednesday asking you to call the Senate. Please take action, even if you called the Senate earlier this year. With enough pressure we can spur these senators to action and get a reform bill out of the Judiciary Committee.

More Information

--Even though 66% of crack users are white, blacks make up more than 80% of federal defendants sentenced for crack cocaine offenses. No other federal law is more responsible for gross racial disparities in the federal criminal justice system.

--While it takes just five grams of crack cocaine (about several sugar packets worth) to receive a mandatory minimum five-year sentence, it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine to receive the same sentence. 50 grams of crack cocaine triggers a mandatory ten-year sentence, but it takes 5,000 grams of powder cocaine--5 kilos--to receive that much jail time.

--Although the crack mandatory minimums were enacted to punish major traffickers, so-called kingpins, the vast majority of people subjected to them are low-level offenders. A recent report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that almost 70% of federal crack cocaine defendants had only low-level involvement in drug activity.

--There are three bills in the Senate to reduce or eliminate this disparity. The Senate Judiciary Committee had hearings on the issue a month ago. Democrats and Republicans on the committee are in negotiations to produce a bi-partisan, compromise bill, but those negotiations have stalled. If we put enough pressure on committee members we believe we can convince them to pass a reform bill within the next couple of weeks.