On Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder outlined how the Obama Administration would address mandatory minimum sentencing. The Administration plans to let U.S. Attorneys develop more flexible guidelines for filing federal charges, change the Justice Department's charging policies so that non-violent drug offenders get fewer mandatory minimum sentences, and expand the compassionate release program's eligibility criteria so that older, non-violent inmates can get out a bit earlier. The Executive branch has the power to do these things (so spare me the AMURIKAN CAESAR!!!! bit, right-wingers), but Congress will have to do more as well. Hence S. 619/H.R 1695, the Justice Safety Valve Act, which would give federal courts more discretion to vary from mandatory minimum laws, you know, like judges ought to be able to do. FAMM still helps you tell your Congressfolk to support S. 619. Also, S. 1410, the Smart Sentencing Act, would cut mandatory sentences for drug crimes and apply the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactively; I have no email tool for that, but you can always call your Congressfolk.
Meanwhile, a mere three years after the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill passed, the SEC is apparently still debating whether and how to enforce the Dodd-Frank requirement that publicly-traded corporations disclose executive pay in relation to those corporations' workers' pay. What's the hang-up? Big corporations don't want to have to disclose the money, that's why! Probably they think it's some sort of First Amendment issue, that no one has the right to know what I make, but the SEC does have the right (indeed, the duty) to protect shareholders, and shareholders want to know how much money their executives make, and not just because executives get paid in their money. And it's been almost five years since the banksters took a dump all over the economy; why, exactly, should they still get veto power over the people's will as expressed to and by their representatives in Congress? USAction helps you tell the SEC to implement regulations forcing publicly-traded corporations to disclose executive pay.
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