Cory Booker: 1994 crime bill was a ‘mistake’

In a newly-published interview, Sen. Cory Booker said that a 1994 crime bill supported by then-Sen. Joseph R. Biden was a “mistake,” joining other 2020 Democratic presidential contenders in criticizing the legislation.

Mr. Booker said that he “sincerely” loves Mr. Biden, the current front-runner in polling on the Democratic presidential primary field, but that people make mistakes.

“We should all agree with … conviction: that bill was a mistake,” Mr. Booker told HuffPost in an interview published Thursday. “Good people signed onto that bill. People make mistakes.

“But let’s all conclude that that crime bill was shameful, what it did to communities like black and brown communities like mine [and] low-income communities from Appalachia to rural Iowa. It was a bad bill,” he said.

Mr. Booker pointed to incentives in the bill to increase mandatory minimum sentences and build prisons and jails.

“From the time I was in law school to the time I was mayor of the city of Newark, we were building a new prison or jail every 10 days in America while the rest of our infrastructure crumbled, overwhelmingly putting people in prison for nonviolent drug offenses … so that bill was awful,” he said.

Mr. Biden has defended the bill, while other Democratic contenders such as Sen. Kamala Harris, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have criticized it.

Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3-ranking House Democrat, said this week that people should be careful in their criticisms, suggesting that Republicans were responsible for many of the elements in the bill that Democrats find unpalatable.

Mr. Booker’s comments were recorded over Memorial Day weekend, before Mr. Clyburn had said his piece.