Amy Klobuchar on criminal law

Presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar has an excellent op-ed up at CNN-- you can read it here. Yeah, I'm very happy that she name-checked me and Rachel Barkow, but she also included two really essential reforms as part of her platform.

First, she urges the use of a clemency board to take the clemency process out of the DOJ. Second, she suggests appointing an advisor on criminal law from outside of the DOJ, which would help address a huge problem that Rachel and I explain here-- the way in which the DOJ, a building full of prosecutors, effectively serve as the president's only advisors on criminal law.

Tomorrow night she will be on the Van Jones show on CNN at 7, and I expect these proposals will come up-- Jones has been a real mover on the subject of criminal law reform, after all.

I'm a fan of Klobuchar, and even stood out in the cold when she announced her candidacy (something I had publicly encouraged). I was also pretty public in hoping that she would take a pro-active stand on criminal law reform, and now she is doing so. Klobuchar may not be the early leader, but she is doing a lot of things right-- and it is the leader at the end, not the beginning, who wins the race.