WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last Friday, U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., co-sponsored the EQUAL Act, a bipartisan sentencing reform bill that would eliminate the federal sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine.
Lummis, along with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders from both chambers, renewed efforts to correct a historical wrong that has resulted in thousands of Black men serving disproportionately long sentences of incarceration.
Lummis’ sponsorship of the EQUAL Act was applauded by leading law enforcement, conservative and civil rights organizations, according to a news release.
Jenna Bottler, executive director of the Justice Action Network, the country’s largest organization advancing bipartisan criminal justice reform at the state and federal levels, said in the news release: “Justice Action Network thanks Senator Lummis for her support for the EQUAL Act, and her commitment to the core belief that all people should be treated fairly under the law. If passed into law, the EQUAL Act would rectify one of the worst vestiges of the so-called ‘War on Drugs’ and fix an unjust drug sentencing disparity that has caused thousands of people, most of whom are Black men, to be unfairly imprisoned for decades.”
