This week, Sen. Rand Paul caught flak for delaying passage of an anti-lynching bill, seeking specific changes to the bill’s overly broad definition of lynching. Rather than rebut the libertarian-leaning Kentucky Republican’s points or try to win him over with any argument, the widespread response from liberal commentators was to smear Paul as racist — blatantly ignoring his long record of pro-black criminal justice reform advocacy.
Sen. Kamala Harris called Paul’s actions “absolutely disgraceful.” One prominent Democratic strategist called Paul a “racist little shit,” receiving more than 13,000 “likes” on the vulgar tweet.
Left-wing partisan and so-called conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin smeared Paul as “the anti-anti-lynching senator.” A liberal legal activist said, “his actions amount to acceptance of racial violence, which continues to this day.”
One liberal commentator wrote to Paul that “as an alleged libertarian, the only personal freedoms you are interested in protecting are those of white men like yourself.” Another disturbing tweet that encouraged violence against Paul received 38,000 “likes.”
I interviewed Paul in light of this controversy to discuss his views on criminal justice and his long record as a pro-reform Republican — before it was popular.
“I was always for letting people live their lives the way they want to live so long as they’re not hurting anybody else,” he told me. “So I was never a big fan of putting people in jail for drug use and things like that. I think as I looked at the issue more, I became more aware of some of the racial disparities in the war on drugs. … It’s all of the criminal justice system, but the war on drugs is a big part of the problem.”
During his time in the Senate, Paul has introduced or co-sponsored bills to reclassify certain nonviolent minor drug charges as misdemeanors, eliminate mandatory minimums, reform civil asset forfeiture, end the transfer of military equipment to the police, ensure humane treatment of pregnant prisoners, promote police body cameras, and more.
In an unusual twist for a conservative Republican, Paul told me about how a year or two after being elected, he read Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, a work widely celebrated among liberals that helped launch criminal justice reform into mainstream Democratic Party politics. The senator told me that he didn’t agree with all the sweeping claims about racism the book makes, but he did realize that with the “tough on crime” bills in the late 1980s and 1990s, “Joe Biden, conservative Democrats, Bill Clinton, and Republicans … they locked up a generation of primarily young black men.”
“I became more aware of the racial aspect to this,” Paul continued. “I was never quite in the same place as some from the Left who think all of it is about racism. … It’s too easy an answer. There still can be racism. … But, to me, it was more an issue of racial disparities, based on socioeconomics.”
“The rich [white] kid smoking marijuana in his dad’s basement, the police aren’t coming there,” Paul said. “Whereas, if you’re in an [urban] neighborhood … the police will be there more. So I think the numbers get racked up on African Americans.”
The senator spoke about his influence on the Trump administration, saying that libertarian-leaning Republicans deserve at least partial credit for the Right’s drastic shift on criminal justice issues that culminated with President Trump’s signing of the landmark criminal justice reform bill the First Step Act. But there’s much more to be done.
Paul told me one of his highest reform priorities was eliminating “mandatory minimums,” draconian criminal justice statutes that tie judges’ hands and force them to issue harsh sentences even in cases with substantial mitigating circumstances. Mandatory minimums, while in general poor policy, disproportionately hurt African Americans.
“It’s incredibly important that every case be seen in its unique [context],” Paul said, citing the jarring example of Weldon Angelos, who was sentenced to 55 years in prison due to mandatory minimums on marijuana and firearm charges. “Can you imagine how unfair [that] is? The mandatory sentences, the three strikes and you’re out thing, they really need to be completely gone.”
“I’ve told Republicans over and over, we say we’re the party of family values … but you can’t value families if the dad’s locked up,” Paul said. “I visited Ferguson in 2015 right after the Michael Brown shooting. … There were 40 young black men for every 100 black women.”
We turned the conversation toward the current unrest, and Paul’s long-standing commitment to demilitarizing the police came up.
According to the Heritage Foundation: “The Department of Homeland Security has handed out anti-terrorism grants to cities and towns across the country, enabling them to buy armored vehicles, guns, armor, aircraft, and other equipment. Federal agencies of all stripes, as well as local police departments in towns with populations less than 14,000, come equipped with SWAT teams and heavy artillery.”
Now, conservatives are debating whether or not there’s a role for the military in quashing the ongoing riots, as well as revisiting the issue of militarized policy more broadly in light of recent abuses. Paul’s position hasn’t changed.
“I dislike the rioting and looting as much as anyone. … It’s just horrific,” the senator said. “At the same time, the army’s a bad idea. When you have a riot, when you have thousands of people out, you do have to have [police] out in force. … But I don’t think [the answer] is tanks.”
Hey @CoryBooker and @KamalaHarris lynching is already illegal but slapping someone is not lynching, We shouldn’t conflate someone who has an altercation with minor injuries, with lynching, That’s my opposition to this without my amendment to fix it. https://t.co/vmyuk55Dcc
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 5, 2020
I brought up the anti-lynching bill and the vitriolic backlash against Paul’s position.
“It’s a symptom of how angry the world is that no one is even willing to listen to your argument, they immediately condemn you as something you’re not,” he replied with a sigh.
“My whole point on this bill is exactly my point on criminal justice reform in general: the unintended consequences,” the senator said. “If they make [minor acts of violence like slapping] ‘lynching,’ it’s an insult to Emmett Till. But [critics] don’t quite get it. … They just want me out of the way because they want their day in the sun to get patted on the back.”
“It’s a horrific thing. … I’m not [a racist] and don’t want to be classified by anyone like that,” Paul continued. “When someone accuses you of that, it’s horrific … and it’s incredibly unfair. Among Republicans, there’s probably not been a Republican that’s more concerned about the over-incarceration of young black men [than me].”
No one can actually argue with even a shred of credibility that Paul supports lynching. If one took even 30 seconds to read beyond a headline, one would see his many explicit statements denouncing it in no uncertain terms.
Paul doesn’t even oppose the anti-lynching bill. All he did to incur so much ire was ask for lawmakers to do their job and define terms specifically and properly in bills they’re going to pass before making them law.
You can certainly agree or disagree with the senator’s position on the anti-lynching bill or believe that it’s not a hill he should have chosen to die on. But to call Rand Paul “racist” is to ignore the entirety of his legislative career.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is the Eugene S. Thorpe Writing Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education and a former fellow at the Washington Examiner.
