0 to describe the 1986 anti-drug act. steep penalties for crimes involving all sorts of drugs, crack, cocaine, heroin, pcp, even marijuana. the triggers were arbitrary as the bill was cobbled together, a bidding war broke out. democrats would say 20 grams should be the threshold. republicans would say, no, we're tougher, make it ten grams. democrats would come back, how about five? this is where the notorious crack powder sentencing disparity came from, setting mandatory sentencing threshold at 1/100th the level. the intent was to crack down on drug traffickers but it would explode federal prisons. this is all a necessary back drop for the speech that eric holder delivered this past monday. >> it's clear as we come together today that too many americans go to too many prisons for far too long for truly no good law enforcement reason. it's clear at a very basic level, the 20th century criminal justice solutions are not adequate to overcome our 21st century challenges. again, it is well past time to implement common sense changes that will foster safer communities from coast to coast. >> the main common sense change that holder announced in that speech is an order to federal prosecutors not to specify the quantity of drugs found on certain nonviolent offenders. in other words, to stop triggering harsh automatic sentences spelled out in the anti-drug abuse act of 1986 for low-level offenders. some of the reaction to holder's speech wasn't that surprising. >> you're telling me these thugs on the street deserve our pity, our slack? you're telling me that? >> there was also this after holder's speech -- actual conservatives voicing actual support for what eric holder was saying. here's a piece from national review. on behalf of conservatives, governors and lawmakers around the country as well as justice antonin scalia, we hartley welcome mr. holder what may be a trail we can travel together. there's a lot of people on the right talking this way because the prolific of strict mandatory laws have produced soaring incarceration rates, which have come with a price tag, which is why deeply red states like texas have embraced the same kind of approach eric holder talked about this week. why some very conservative politicians in washington, like kentucky's rand paul and utah's mike lee were calling for federal sentencing reform even before holder spoke up. we watched play out this week a break from the norm since barack obama became president. there was knee-jerk reaction but support from republicans, and a lot of republicans who said nothing. is it a bigger break than that even. voices in 1986 and for years after 1986 pleading with americans to rethink that law. but there wasn't much room for them in either party. modern republican party was built on being tougher than the liberal softies on the other side. democrats became obsessed with disproving that claim. it's where stiff mandatory sentenci sentencing, three strikes and you're out, where the incarceration of more than 2.4 million americans, it's where it all comes from. the question is whether we've reached a new place, whether the tougher on crime imperative that drove both parties for a generation is giving way to a new consensus, one that doesn't automatically assume that the most punitive response is the best response. one that leaves room for what eric holder called common sense. have the politics of crime changed and have they changed for good? i want to ask my panel. i'm here with eleanor cliff, contributor to "newsweek" and daily beast. congressman akeem jeffries from democrat, republican strategist reverend joe watkins, former white house aide to george h.w. bush, and author of "let's get free: a hip-hop theory of justice." thank you for joining us today. you know, what struck me most listening to eric hold ther week, as i said, was you have -- this is a democratic administration, eric holder comes out and embraces themes not too long ago in american politics would not have just been suicidal, my first question is, paul, how significantly have ching things changed? >> a sea change. i saw "the butler," the heroic civil rights movement from lynching, jim crow, if we think about african-americans and criminal justice system of 1930s, '40s, '50s, those were the good old days. now disparity is worse. more blacks in the criminal justice system than slaves in 1950s. one out of three black men on his way to prison, so something has got to be done. that's why the attorney general was stepping up. >> i mean, eleanor, thinking back to -- we showed 1986 in there, you can go through bill clinton embracing three strikes and you're out in the 1990s, what has changed culturally and politically to allow this kind of space? >> well, there's an opening there. the republicans have now moved on to tough on terrorism and they're not obsessed with tough on street crime. street crime has plummeted. i know celebrity murders make the news, and chicago has certainly had more than its share of murders, but bill big cities overall are safer than they once were. the political touchstones, 1988, the race, george h.w. bush against michael dukakis, that was seared into every big "d" democrat mind. >> willie horton. >> that's right. the tactics we used in that, dukakis and democrat party was portrayed as soft on crime. bill clinton comes along 1992, takes time off the campaign to go back home to preside over the capital punishment of a mentally retarded it -- >> ricky ray -- >> right. who wanted to save his dessert until later. now, clinton in his defense has said he wasn't mentally retarded when he shot -- i think he shot a cop. >> turned the gun on himself. >> then turned the gun on himself. so that was clinton's rationale. that event turned democrats away from soft on crime. now there's a shift. republicans want to save money and they see how this is crippling -- the cost of incarceration is crippling cities and states and the federal government. i think there's a wonderful political opening here. you have right and left joining together. in cases people put behind bars for 10, 20 years for reel really minor crimes where they don't hurt anybody, just hurt themselves. it's heartbreaking. >> you mentioned the willie horton event. i want to illustrate for anybody who has forgotten, what the political climate was like just a generation ago. this is the infamous willie horton ad. it wasn't technically the bush ad that ran against dukakis, but it basically was. >> bush and dukakis on crime. bush supports the death penalty for first degree murderers. dukakis allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. one was willie horton who murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him 19 times. despite a life sentence horton received ten weekend passes from prison. horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbed the man and repeatedly raping the girlfriend. weekend prison passes, dukakis on crime. >> now, joe, i mean, from the bush sr. white house, not from -- >> i was in that campaign, too, although hi nothing to do with that commercial. i was in that campaign. >> talk about what that tapped into back then and the veins if that still exists today? >> i think some still exists today. when it comes to violent crime where people do really heinous things -- mean, that's still -- no matter what color you are, what group from which you come, you are upset when you see people do terrible things to other folks. anybody that murders folks, rapes folks s not well thought of in society and ought to be put away. everybody would agree on that. but we do have a chance to do something together that is republicans and democrats with regards to changing this sentencing, this stiff sentencing for nonviolent offenders, for people who have small amounts of drugs. and it's not just the cost of having 2.3 or 4 million people in prison because it's an own russ cost for anybody but it's the cost of lives, human lives. i think so many young people, african-american and latino men whose lives have been shattered forever by virtue of a prison term. if we could save them and help them not go to prison. if we could find some other way to -- some other punitive measure that doesn't put them behind bars and rob them of an education and support their families, that's a good thing. >> congressman, i wonder if you can speak to the legacy of that ad in terms of shaping democratic policy for the last generation because eleanor started to touch on this, too, when you look at what the clinton administration actually achieved in the 1990s, also at the state level, democrat controlled states in the late '80s and '90s, really, enacted these punitive measures because of fear of what happened to michael dukakis happening to them? >> the legacy of what we're dealing with now is overincarceration, overcriminalization came from bipartisan efforts on the left and right enacting tough on crime pieces of legislation. perhaps some was fueled by political expediency and fear among some members of the democratic party not to be perceived as soft on crime, given the fact that you had reprehensible ad says such as that to grate political effect in order to advance republican candidates for office. the good news is that the facts on the ground have changed substantially. the crack cocaine epidemic is over. crime throughout big cities all across america has been reduced dramatically. the prison population is clearly unsustainable fiscally. many have come to view it as morally reprehensible. as everyone on the panel has said today, we really have a meaningful opportunity on both the left and the right to come together and do what's right for america. reduce overcriminalization we've been experiencing in this country for decades. >> i want -- >> we'll pick that up after this break. >> all right. ne... boris earns unlimited rewards for his small business. can i get the smith contract, please? 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