And here too i will refer to my fathers 1959 address. He worried then about californias dangerously overcrowded prisons. A he talked about identifying those prisoners who should never be released to prey again on an innocent public, but he also said, we should also determine whether some prisoners are now kept confined after punishment has served its purpose. We face these same questions today what purposes should punishment serve and for how long should a person be confined to jail or prison, for a few days a few years or for life . In response to a large increase in crimes beginning in the 1970s, the legislature and the people, through ballot initiatives, dramatically lengthened sentences and added a host of new crimes and penalty enhancements. Today, californias legal codes contain more than 5,000 separate criminal provisions and over 400 penalty enhancements, an arcane and complex mix that only the most exquisitely trained specialist can fathom. And funding has grown proportionatel
Official is someone who is either elected or appointed by their party and runs for office as the candidate for their party or is appointed by someone who was elected as a candidate of their party. That is to say, the chief election official in most states is in that sense a partisan. This creates an inherent conflict of interest between the chief Election Officials responsibility to serve the interests of all voters to create a level Playing Field and that officials interest in serving his or her party and advancing through the ranks of his or her party. It is a problem that is, by the way, well recognized among other democratic countries, which is why the chief Election Authority in most countries enjoys some degree of insulation from partisan politics. This, however, is unfortunately a lesson that we in the United States have yet to learn. Next let me give a little bit of historical context. For most of this countrys history, racial minorities, most notably africanamericans, have bee
Legislative agenda. The most Diverse Congress industry poised to take power and a wave of new lawmakers is arriving on capitol hill. Republicans called it the ranks. And that spirit, the hill should look at the quirks of the voting members and the new congress. There is a Record Number of female lawmakers, alongside 430 men following the departure of michael grimm. You taught senator tim scott is part of the largest black republican lass in Congress Since the reconstruction era. There will be 46 black lawmakers and the new congress. Hispanic lawmakers will have 33 in the house and 30 senators. That is Peter Sullivan reporting on that. The 114 Congress Gavels in tomorrow at 9 00. Next, we hear from former white house officials and the obama bush, and Clinton Administrations. This would not happen without pat griffin. He has been a background of being an assistant director and assistant to be president under clinton. He organized this and he came up with the idea several months ago and i
And so one of the things at the very basic level we need to do is just get more people participating. Its hard to run a good democracy with less than one in five people participating. And what that tends to do is bring out the people who are the most focused and organized and generally the most ideological. And its going to take a while to shift that around. The political scientists will tell you thing that is dont make sense to me but theyre pretty consistent on it that moving to more early voting doesnt actually show an increase in turnout. Which again i thought it would. But do you know why we have voting on tuesdays . Because about 200 years ago most people liked to go to church and a lot lived too far from county seat to get there too far on monday. So you go to church on sunday, ride your horse and vote on tuesday. Chris rock said do you know why . Because they dont want us to vote. There is a strong sentiment that hard working folks who dont have an ability to control their own