Outgoing President Bill Clinton, writing in today's New York Times, has urged the new Bush administration and Congress to complete the nation's unfinished business of mending U.S. race relations, beginning with ending criminal justice abuses and ensuring voting rights.
"We don't have a moment to lose", Clinton said.
Writing on the eve of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, Clinton said he would be on that day sending a message to Congress outlining the unfinished business of building One America. He called it a concrete set of challenges and recommendations that I hope will be helpful ... to the 107th Congress and the new administration.
Clinton singled out the administration of criminal justice as the key area of concern for minorities even as debate roared over the looming confirmation hearings for President-elect George W. Bush's nomination of Republican John Ashcroft to be attorney general. An amalgam of civil rights and women's groups are decrying Ashcroft's conservative record on racial relations and abortion rights.
If you are white, you most likely believe the system is fair, Clinton wrote. If you belong to a minority group, you most likely feel the opposite. If we want to keep crime coming down, we need to instill trust in our criminal justice system. Clinton, who leaves office on Saturday when Bush is sworn in as the nation's 43rd president, suggested that racial profiling be outlawed, followed by a re-examination of the nation's federal sentencing policies, particularly mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders.
Citing the need also for voting rights reform, he alluded to the contested election in Florida, where a number of voting irregularities were reported by blacks in the November election, which was narrowly won by Bush over Democrat Al Gore.
"In the presidential election of 2000, too many people felt the votes they cast were not counted, and some felt there were organized efforts to keep them from the polls", Clinton wrote.
"We must do more to ensure that more people vote and that every vote is counted." He urged the new administration to appoint a nonpartisan presidential commission on electoral reform, headed by the likes of former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
Clinton suggested such a panel could investigate voting disparities and make recommendations to Congress on uniform standards for voting and vote counting. It should also work to prevent voter suppression and intimidation, he added.
Specifically, he suggested that Election Day be made a national holiday and the right to vote be given back to ex-offenders who have served their time.
REUTERS