Right, Left Get Along -- Outside Washington
The old law, which spurred a national trend of similar laws, demanded a life sentence for a third conviction of any felony. That meant even such minor third strikes as stealing a pair of socks could jam the state's badly overcrowded prison system with yet another convict for life.
The new law will put away for life only hard-core criminals such as murderers, rapists and child molesters for any third felony offense. For everyone else, the third strike must be a "serious or violent" felony.
Right on Crime, a prominent conservative justice reform initiative, supported the law, which was drafted by a partnership of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a group of Stanford University law professors.
How prominent is Right on Crime? Its signatories include former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese.
Yes, that's the same Ed Meese who, as President Ronald Reagan's attorney general, described the American Civil Liberties Union as part of the "criminals' lobby." But when asked more recently about the ACLU, he cheerfully replied, "If they want to join us, we're happy to have them." Maybe we can all get along.
Cash-strapped states and small-government conservatives appreciate measures that can save money without increasing crime rates. Alternative sentencing for small-time offenders and drug rehabilitation for nonviolent drug offenders make great fiscal sense and reduce the abuses that the Legal Defense Fund fights against.
But Norquist has long built coalitions around a simple but critically important concept, he told me in an interview last year: Don't let ideological differences on other issues stop you from cooperating wherever your interests overlap.
It's refreshing to see ideological opposites find ways to get things done. It's too bad the political left and right haven't been getting things done that smoothly in Washington.
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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage(at)tribune.com.
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