The unjust murders of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement officers, including recently Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Louisville’s own Breonna Taylor, and the appallingly disproportionate  response to peaceful protests, have brought Americans into the streets. While it is the duty of our youth to cry out against the pain of injustice, it’s on us as leaders to find healing solutions. An unprecedented moment calls for unprecedented action.

At the heart of my campaign for US Senate in Kentucky is the promise of economic and social justice for all. 

Today, I am proposing something that has never been attempted before: A congressionally appointed Criminal Justice Overhaul Commission, composed entirely of people of color, to draft a comprehensive plan to address police brutality and racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

This Commission will have a binding mandate at the time it is formed, so that no matter how difficult, expensive, or controversial the Commission's recommendations may seem, Congress will have to adopt them. Too often in the history of the United States, coalitions of timid, two-faced, and apathetic lawmakers have claimed to support people of color, only to later bemoan that it's just too difficult, too expensive, or too controversial to ever actually pass any legislation for them. The threshold of Congressional passage is high, and under my proposal, Congress would have to pass new legislation to reverse or prevent the commission’s recommendations from becoming law. For once, the usual burdens of legislative dysfunction will fall upon the oppressors rather than the oppressed, to stop progress rather than promote it.

Some will call this radical, but it is only commensurate with the draconian and regressive trend of increasingly militarized policing and mass incarceration seen over the last fifty years.

Since the “War on Drugs” began in the 1970s, incarceration has increased 700% in America. The police have been told they’re at war for so long, they’ve begun to believe it, and we now have the highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world. With the advent of for-profit prisons in 1985, political contributions from that industry have increased over time, proportionately matching the number of those incarcerated, encouraging elected officials to sustain this system. We’ve turned imprisonment into an industry with people of color being the raw materials. They are recycled and reused, transforming them from a citizen to a commodity. 

With that history in mind, the Overhaul Commission is the only option we have left. It will provide detailed solutions that encompass every facet of our legal system, to make sure racial bias is addressed and kept in check.

To that end, the Commission must include representation from, but should not be limited to: 

• Public defenders
• Civil rights lawyers 
• Community activists
• Mental health experts
• LGBTQ (especially, historically under-represented transgender women of color)
• Economists
• Disabled people of color
• Low income people of color
• Public housing experts
• Members of every federally recognized minority race, including First Nations and Native Americans
• Experts in the following:
  
  • policing, trial procedure, sentencing, incarceration, parole, and juvenile justice

The binding mandate may appear to be the most far-reaching component of this proposal, but it is by far the most necessary. Congress must agree to implement all of the Commission's recommendations at the time the Overhaul Commission is formed.

Mayors and police chiefs have tried implementing piecemeal policies. Where some cities see enormous progress, failures elsewhere still constitute a national crisis. They need guidance. Where the Commission recommends action that falls outside the constitutional powers of Congress, it will formally advise or incentivize states to adopt those actions.

A major step forward is not a journey complete, and we will continually need to reassess and adjust our course based on solid data. Congress should also agree on a set period of time after which it will analyze the impact of the Commission's recommendations and vote to reauthorize. 

Unlike the crises of COVID-19 or climate change, we have the ability and the moral obligation to address the root causes of racial injustice immediately. We can put the marginalized in a position of power, we can endure a restructuring of our judicial system, and a profound and true justice can finally be served from the halls of Congress.

When I'm a Senator, I will fight every day for this to be passed. I hope my future colleagues beat me to it.