Bipartisan support for criminal justice reform has come

On a debate stage where the Vice Presidential candidates didn’t seem to agree on much at all, there was one notable exception: Criminal justice reform.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) spoke poignantly about the need to address racial disparities in sentencing, and the fact that blacks and Latinos get punished for the same crimes at much higher rates than whites.

For his part, Gov. Mike Pence stated unequivocally:

{mosads}“We need to adopt criminal justice reform nationally. I signed criminal justice reform in the state of Indiana, and we are very proud of it. I worked when I was in Congress on the Second Chance Act. We have got to do a better job recognizing and correcting the errors in the system that do reflect institutional bias in the criminal justice system.’

Where Secretary Clinton and Mr. Trump diverged wildly on policing and criminal justice during their debate, Senator Kaine and Pence were able to find some common ground.

“At the risk of agreeing with you, community policing is a great idea,” Pence stated. This brief exchange offered a glimpse into what might have been: Not so long ago, there was real hope that criminal justice reform could actually emerge as an area of agreement between the two Presidential candidates. With bipartisan legislation in Congress, backed by Paul Ryan, and candidates with an interest and track record on the issue running in the Democratic and Republican primaries, this wasn’t such a pipe dream.

Imagine that: A national contest where the candidates competed for who had the best, forward thinking solutions to solve a big problem that impacts millions of Americans, especially people of color.

Much of that hope dissipated when Mr. Trump chose to throw down the gauntlet and call for “law-and-order” as a central part of his campaign message. Painting a bleak picture of life in African American and Latino communities while calling for aggressive policing tactics like stop-and-frisk, which would do more to bolster fear, anger and resentment than further public safety.

Mr. Trump has largely avoided any thoughtful discussion of justice reform, even the types of reform that have become a staple for red state governors and a rallying cry for conservatives opposed to big, ineffective government bureaucracies. Instead, Mr. Trump’s campaign has relied on outdated tough on crime rhetoric, offering little in the way of policy proposals that would reduce our severely overcrowded prison system or tackle mental health care and drug addiction.

Earlier in the cycle, the Trump campaign launched an attack ad against Jeb Bush which many likened to “the infamous ‘Willie Horton’ attack ad that George H.W. Bush used to defeat Michael Dukakis.’ And on the eve of yesterday’s Vice Presidential debate, the Republican National

Committee released a self-proclaimed “Willie Horton-style attack ad” featuring a list of defendants Tim Kaine represented as a pro bono defense attorney for death penalty cases.

For her part, battling critiques that have tied her to the 1994 Crime Bill, Secretary Clinton has called for “end to end” criminal justice reforms like ending to systemic racism, fixing mandatory minimum sentencing, and expanding second chance programs.

Neither Kaine nor Pence have perfect track records on criminal justice. But last night, their openness to change, dialogue, and bipartisan agreement on criminal justice reform was heartening and hopeful.

The truth is that, in voicing support for reform, Pence and Kaine are reflecting not just a growing political consensus, but a growing consensus among voters as well: 75 percent of voters in the battleground state of Florida believe “criminal justice reform is important and the prison population is costly.” 86 percent of voters in Kansas say they would support “reducing non-violent drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor as a way to reduce the prison population in the state.” Research from the Pew Research Center found support for death penalty lowest in more than four decades.

These aren’t anomalies but follow a well-documented trend in public opinion on criminal justice over the last several years.

Let’s hope that this moment of agreement between two vice presidential candidates moves us beyond soft-on- crime versus tough-on- crime rhetoric in this election cycle – a false dichotomy that Kaine and Pence might help relegate to the history books.

Haney is the  president of the San Francisco Board of Education and a co-founder of #cut50, a bipartisan criminal justice reform organization. Follow him on Twitter @MattHaneySF

The views expressed by Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.