You got excellent conservative criminal justice planks into the RPT platform!
Delegates approved quite a few #cjreform items worthy of readers’ attention:
Raise the Age. Calls on the Lege to raise the age of adult criminal culpability from 17 to 18.
End debtors prisons. The party wants to “end the incarceration of individuals because they cannot pay tickets, fines, and fees for Class C misdemeanors, including traffic citations.”
Abolition of the Driver Responsibility Program. Includes a call to “immediately restore the driver licenses of the citizens whose licenses were suspended by the DRP and to cancel their debt.”
Quicker processing of rape kits. The party wants crime labs sufficiently funded to reduce rape-kit processing times to 90 days.
Opposition to warrantless government surveillance. Two planks on this, one with general wording, and one calling on the Legislature to require a warrant for the government to access cell-phone location data.
Civil penalty for pot possession. The party endorsed reducing penalties for low-level marijuana possession from a Class B misdemeanor to a civil offense (essentially, a $100 ticket).
Remove cannabis from list of Schedule 1 drugs. This was a plank aimed at Congress.
Medical marijuana. The party wants to “allow doctors to determine the appropriate use of cannabis for certified patients.”
Militarization of police. Calls for “reporting and training standards” for military equipment obtained by police from the federal 1033 program, as well as a requirement that the elected governing body approve any application to the program with a formal vote.
Indigent defense. Calls on the Legislature to end the unfunded mandate to provide constitutionally required legal representation for people who can’t afford a lawyer providing the necessary funding from the state to the county.
Moreover, several items that were in the 2016 platform made it in again:
No arrests for Class C misdemeanors (except when necessary to prevent family violence)
Require a criminal conviction for asset forfeiture
Eliminate red-light cameras and other photo-enforcement systems
Listen to experts from the Conservative Coalition Research Institute, Young Republican Federation, Empower Texans and the Texas Public Policy Foundation discuss criminal justice platform priorities!
Who and what!
Scott Henson, host of the Just Liberty podcast “Reasonably Suspicious,” has gathered some of the state’s leading experts on conservative criminal justice policy to talk about the solutions currently proposed for inclusion in the Texas GOP platform.
You will hear from Representative Jason Isaac, President of the Conservative Coalition Research Institute, Dr. Derek Cohen, Director of Right on Crime, Mr. Charles Blain, Executive Director of Restore Justice USA, a project of Empower Texans and Mr. John Baucum, Chairman Emeritus of Texas Young Republican Federation. If you want to save it for later, download it to your phone!
You probably know other people who support common sense justice reform. Take a moment to share Just Liberty with them. You can share our website on Facebook or Twitter using the links below.
