Bill Clinton at Chicago DNC: Former president who signed 1994 tough-on-crime law to address softened party
Former President Bill Clinton and then-Senator Joe Biden's 1994 crime law is back in the spotlight as both leaders speak at the Democratic National Convention this week in Chicago.
Democrats' 1994 crime law is back in the spotlight as its sponsors, President Biden and former President Clinton, take the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week.
Three decades ago, when Biden was a U.S. senator representing Delaware, he authored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which Clinton signed into law with the intent to crack down on illegal drugs and violent crime.
Critics say that resulted in mass incarceration because it put life sentences on the table for nonviolent drug offenders and enforced the so-called "three-strike" rule for offenders. Biden has since called the legislation a "mistake."
Biden and Clinton "wanted us to put forth really tough crime policy, which makes sense, but it wasn't fair policy," Gianno Caldwell, Fox News political analyst and founder of the Gianno Caldwell Institute for Public Safety, told Fox News Digital. Caldwell's 18-year-old brother, Christian, was fatally shot in a Chicago shooting in 2022. No suspects have been named in connection with his murder.
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"You have many people go to jail for crack cocaine. And we're not talking about just selling it. We're talking about using it. And folks who use powder cocaine, or regular cocaine, they were let go. They weren't put in the same set of circumstances as the mostly Black folks who were using crack cocaine at the time," Caldwell explained. " … Democrats didn't care about that at all. They just wanted to ensure that particular people were put in jail."
Alice Johnson, the woman Kim Kardashian helped free after Johnson was sentenced to life in prison for trafficking cocaine in Memphis in 1997, was directly impacted by the 1994 law. Former President Trump ultimately granted Johnson clemency in 2018.
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Cadlwell noted that he is a proponent of "tough-on-crime" laws when they involve violent offenders, specifically.
"The Clintons and the Bidens have a history that they refuse to look in the mirror and see that they've caused a lot of the chaos that we've seen in our country today," Caldwell added.
In more recent years, Democrats have generally become softer on crime, with policies and proposals including bans of foot pursuits in various blue cities and states, turning certain felonies into misdemeanor crimes, eliminating cash bail, halting the death penalty and, famously, calls to defund the police.
Progressive district attorneys backed by billionaire George Soros have also pushed for early releases and bail reform. The Minnesota Freedom Fund, which helps offenders post bail, received support from Vice President Harris after George Floyd's murder by police in 2020, but the fund later freed a convicted criminal who would go on to be accused of murder.
Former President Trump, who made law and order a top priority during his four years in office, in addition to his general support for law enforcement, criticized the 1994 law during a roundtable discussion in Detroit on Sunday at the predominantly Black 180 Church as his campaign announced a new Black voter coalition.
"Look, the crime is most rampant right here and in African-American communities," Trump said Saturday in Detroit. "More people see me, and they say, ‘Sir, we want protection. We want police to protect us. We don’t want to get robbed and mugged and beat up or killed because we want to walk across the street to buy a loaf of bread.’"
The former president noted that Biden wrote the crime bill.
"[H]e walks around now talking about the Black vote. He’s the king of the ‘super predators,’" Trump said during the event.
Now, the law is back in the spotlight as its biggest supporters gather in one of the most crime-ridden cities in the United States.
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Chicago had one of its worst years for violent crime in 2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic, with murders reaching a 25-year-high. Homicides have decreased since then but still remain higher than before 2020. According to the Chicago Police Department, 2021 ended with 797 homicides — the most since 1996.
"I can't think of a better place than Chicago to highlight the Democratic failures, which has some of the most comprehensive gun control laws on the books. Still a violent city. Migrant crime. The education system is in ruins in Chicago, the state of Illinois. You can think of any number of issues that the Democrats championed and said this is the right play for the country," Caldwell said. "You can use it as a microcosm … because many of these same policies have passed in Chicago, and you see how they're doing."
Caldwell added that he loves Chicago's "beautiful" downtown, but "even in a beautiful city, you've got your greatest potential here in graveyards."
