Are better crack sentences on the horizon?

This USA Today article, entitled “Lawmakers consider lessening crack penalties,” provides some encouraging news for those hoping for congressional action on crack sentencing.  Here are a few details:

Momentum is building in Congress to ease crack cocaine sentencing guidelines, which the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics say have filled prisons with low-level drug dealers and addicts whose punishments were much worse than their crimes. 

Federal prison sentences for possessing or selling crack have far exceeded those for powder cocaine for two decades. House Crime Subcommittee chairman Robert Scott, D-Va., a longtime critic of such sentencing policies, plans to hold hearings on crack sentences this year. In the Senate, Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama is drawing bipartisan support for his proposal to ease crack sentences. “I believe that as a matter of law enforcement and good public policy that crack cocaine sentences are too heavy and can’t be justified,” Sessions says. “People don’t want us to be soft on crime, but I think we ought to make the law more rational.”…

Sessions’ bill would lessen the sentencing disparity by increasing punishments for powder cocaine and decreasing them for crack. Crimes involving crack would still draw stiffer sentences, but the difference would not be as dramatic. The bill has drawn support from Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar, a former state attorney general from Colorado, Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, a former state attorney general from Arkansas, and Republican Sen. John Cornyn, a former Texas Supreme Court justice and attorney general. In the House of Representatives, two bills calling for Congress to equalize the sentences for powder cocaine and crack were filed in January.

“We’re going to address all the mandatory minimums,” said Scott, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. “The crack cocaine is probably the most egregious because of its draconian number of years for relatively small amounts.” Opposition to weaker sentences has come from police, prosecutors and law enforcement agencies such as the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

UPDATE:  Marc Mauer and Kara Gotsch of The Sentencing Project have this new commentary, entitled “Seeking Justice In The Drug War,” that calls for congressional action on crack sentencing.  Here is the final paragraph:

With champions for criminal justice reform like Rep. John Conyers,D-Mich., and Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., heading the judiciary committees in Congress, the opportunity to redress the misguided crack sentencing policy is upon us.  Hearings before both committees are long overdue in this arena and would provide the necessary evidence to dispel the misinformation and hysteria that clouded the public debate on crack cocaine in the past.  These myths have done a disservice to developing responsible drug policy, while exacerbating the tragic racial disparities that plague our prison system.  Now is the time for congressional attention and action.