Justice reform a bipartisan effort | Rand Paul

Rand Paul | Guest Contributor

Apparently, the Courier-Journal would prefer to stoke the flames of partisanship and division rather than engage their readers in an honest discussion of the problems plaguing our criminal justice system.

In a recently printed guest editorial, the Courier turns an issue with significant bipartisan support into a partisan attack on a Republican.

For my entire public life, I have worked with both Democrats and Republicans to eradicate the racial injustices of the war on drugs. I have co-authored a variety of bipartisan bills to reform criminal justice on all fronts.

I’ve advocated to end mandatory minimum sentencing, which has too often unfairly dealt out decades-long sentences for nonviolent offenses.

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I’ve supported second chances legislation to allow nonviolent offenders to expunge their records after a period of good behavior.

With Democrat Corey Booker, I introduced a bill to end solitary confinement for juveniles, and I’ve introduced bills addressing the militarization of our police force, body cameras for police, and civil asset forfeiture procedures.

I've introduced bipartisan legislation to restore voting rights to those who have served their time. I even traveled to Frankfort to testify before Kentucky’s General Assembly as they worked on state legislation to restore voting rights.

I have made these issues an important part of my work in the Senate because we cannot afford to let the current system run its destructive course on the most vulnerable members of our society.

Yet for that work, the thanks I get from the liberal media is to print attacks that discount years of bipartisan efforts to make our criminal system more just.

When the media refuses to even acknowledge one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement, is it any wonder that our political system is so polarized?

Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve been under fire for supporting an issue that is probably one of the best chances we have for finding bipartisan compromise in Washington.

I went out of my way to compliment President Obama on criminal justice reform, a President with whom I disagreed on many, many fronts. I have great working relationships with those across the aisle on this issue.

This newspaper does a disservice to reform efforts by continuing to let their editorial pages serve as a bastion of partisanship.

I urge the media to delve a bit deeper before allowing one of our best chances at bipartisanship to be sullied by petty partisan attacks. The Courier-Journal’s readers deserve better.

Rand Paul is the junior senator from Kentucky.