Back in late April 2015, roughly 18 months before a big election, the Brennan Center for Justice released this fascinating publication (running 164 pages) titled "Solutions: American Leaders Speak Out on Criminal Justice." That 2015 publication had nearly two dozen leaders, mostly prominent political figures with big histories and/or plans, discussing a variety of criminal justice reform topics from a variety of perspectives. In my original post about this great 2015 collection, I expressed concern that former Prez Bill Clinton was tasked with authoring the forward and that former Prez George Bush was not a contributor to the collection. Others noted, quite rightly and tellingly, that Hillary Clinton's essay in this collection was filled "with platitudes and self-aggrandizing references" within a "shallow discussion" that was "especially embarrassing compared to Ted Cruz's." I also noted here that the seven GOP political leaders included in the collection had set forth an array of reform priorities and proposals that made me optimistic for potential future bipartisan reforms.
Fast forward four years, and the Brennan Center for Justice is at it again. Specifically, this morning it just released a 2019 version of timely criminal justice essays, this time under the title "Ending Mass Incarceration: Ideas from Today’s Leaders." Interestingly, this new must-read collection is a bit shorter (only 112 pages), and it feels a lot more titled toward the left. Specifically, as noted above, the 2015 collection had essays from seven prominent GOP politicians as well as two additional essays from past or present leaders of right-leaning advocacy groups (not to mention tough-on-crime Democrats like both Clintons and then-VP Joe Biden). The new collection of essays, though it does include pieces by Jared Kushner, Mark Holden and Holly Harris, fails to have any essays from any elected Republicans or would-be presidential aspirants other than those running for the Democratic nomination. Given that then-VP Joe Biden appeared in the last volume, I would have liked to now see an essay by current VP Mike Pence on these topics. Notably, interesting Dem voices like Cory Booker and Kamala Harris got a chance to do repeat performances in this latest volume, but interesting GOP folks like Rand Paul and Rick Perry do not. And many folks running for Prez on the Dem side are included, but we do not hear from folks like William Weld or John Kasich or any other distinctive right leaning voices.
I would not be surprised if the Brennan Center tried to get more GOP voices involved and ultimately had their requests for contributions denied. So my goal here is not to fault the efforts in putting together this still very important volume. I just think it important and significant (and perhaps telling) that the essays here do not appear nearly as bipartisan as they did back in 2015. But that reality makes this collection no less significant, and I am looking forward to finding time soon to read (and perhaps blog about) all these essays here.
Prior related posts about 2015 volume:
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