Subject: Joe Biden’s Role in ’90s Crime Law Could Haunt Any Presidential Bid - NYTimes.com
From: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 07:34:14 -0400

Joe Biden’s Role in ’90s Crime Law Could Haunt Any Presidential Bid -
NYTimes.com

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/us/politics/joe-bidens-role-in-90s-crime-law-could-haunt-any-presidential-bid.html?_r=0&referrer=

Joe Biden’s Role in ’90s Crime Law Could Haunt Any Presidential Bid

WASHINGTON — When Joseph R. Biden Jr.
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/joseph_r_jr_biden/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
became the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1987, a few months
ahead of his first and ultimately unsuccessful presidential campaign, he
told aides his goal was to enact legislation that would take a
comprehensive approach to reducing crime.

As the ranking minority member of the committee since 1981, Mr. Biden had
helped pass two bills establishing mandatory minimums for drug offenses.
But as chairman, facing high violent crime rates, a crack cocaine epidemic,
and accusations by Republicans that his party was soft on crime, Mr. Biden
wanted holistic reform.

The effort, which defined much of his time as committee chairman,
culminated in the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, a
sweeping, bipartisan bill that touched nearly every aspect of American law
enforcement that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/bill_clinton/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
.

More than two decades later, that legislation is once again the subject of
fierce debate — this time, as a bipartisan coalition of activists and
lawmakers seeks to undo the era of mass incarceration they say the 1994
crime bill helped create.

Eric D. Schwerin
[email-masked]

Sent from my iPhon