ADVOCACY
America’s War on Drugs has hit the fifty year milestone.
An Associated Press review of federal and state incarceration data shows that, between 1975 and 2019, the U.S. prison population jumped from 240,593 to 1.43 million Americans. Among them, about 1 in 5 people were incarcerated with a drug offense listed as their most serious crime.
– Bloomberg news
In order to conduct such a vast inhumane operation, the United States Constitution has been reduced to a mere contingency for the targeted citizens.
The racial disparities reveal the war’s uneven toll. Following the passage of stiffer penalties for crack cocaine and other drugs, the Black incarceration rate in America exploded from about 600 per 100,000 people in 1970 to 1,808 in 2000. In the same timespan, the rate for the Latino population grew from 208 per 100,000 people to 615, while the white incarceration rate grew from 103 per 100,000 people to 242.
– bloomberg news
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) announce a draft bill that would decriminalize marijuana on a federal level, on Wednesday, July 14th, 2021. Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP Images
In my comments to the drafting committees, I rejected the notion that the CAOA even remotely represents an adequate remedy. Decriminalization alone is woefully insufficient to satisfy the constitutional mandate for an adequate remedy. More accurately, the atrocities conducted under the guise of a “national emergency” violated the constitutional rights of the drug war’s citizen targets.
To be clear, national, state, and local decriminalization efforts, absent an adequate remedy, is a critical component to perpetuate America’s unconstitutional drug war for another fifty years.
– Samuel kenyatta giles
Feel free to review my comments to the CAOA drafting senators.
SKG_CAOA_Letter-2.0-redacted
ADEQUATE HOUSING
In the United States, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, codified under the Tax Reform Act of 1986, has allocated over $8 billion annually, leveraged over $100 billion in private capital, and has provided over 3 million affordable housing units to low- and moderate-income households. However, for the first time in the history of the LIHTC program, when I requested the courts to review the purported discriminatory housing practice of Adams County Housing Authority, (now known as Maiker Housing Partners) the federal courts elected to usurp Congress. How so? By shifting the foundation of the LIHTC program – the tenant income determination method – the courts excused ACHA’s flagrant discriminatory practices.
By permitting landowners to shift away from the long standing “annual income” mandate, landowner’s can cloak their intent to curate tenants based on protected class. In other words, landowner’s can reject your housing application based on your protected class, but can fabricate a seemingly neutral rationale to excuse the rejection.
This case undermines the very intent behind the low-income housing legislation. The court’s persuasive authority kicks open the door for high-income business owners to deduct themselves into qualifying for low-income housing. Thus, according to the Tenth Circuit, former President Donald Trump having reportingly paid only $750 in taxes would qualify for low-income housing.
Feel free to review my request for legislation to address this matter.
Request-for-New-Legislation-1.0