NAACP president urges Biden to deliver on 'critical promises' before leaving White House
NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson is calling on President Biden to take action on "critical promises" before leaving the White House later this month.
Johnson in a Wednesday op-ed in TheGrio urged Biden to take action aimed at promoting transparency in policing, offering clemency for drug offenders with long sentences and eliminating student loan debt.
Police accountability has been a front-line issue for Johnson and the group following a number of high-profile police brutality incidents involving members of the Black community.
“Since the beginning of his administration, the Department of Justice has also opened more than a dozen pattern-or-practice investigations of systemic misconduct with law enforcement agencies,” Johnson wrote Wednesday.
“We are urging President Biden to include the findings of those investigations in the public database, delivering on his promise to bring about more transparency and accountability in policing.”
Biden signed a 2022 executive order that created a database to track law enforcement misconduct in an effort to propel federal investigations of wrongdoing. Johnson pushed for the administration to offer more transparency on the data it shares publicly.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have long pushed for legislation limiting qualified immunity for police amid other stipulations through the dormant George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. The bill is named after George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020.
Johnson’s additional requests included an overhaul of thousands of cases recommended for clemency by the NAACP and the elimination of student loan debt ahead of President-elect Trump’s inauguration.
“Granting clemency to those serving sentences that would be much shorter if they were sentenced today must be a top priority for the president,” Johnson wrote.
“For instance, although the current Department of Justice has ended the widely condemned crack vs. powder cocaine sentencing disparity, far too many Black Americans who were sentenced before the policy changed remain incarcerated.”
He noted that Black people make up about 14 percent of the total U.S. population but account for 39 percent of those in federal prison.
“Clemency is about so much more than pardoning any individual. It’s about strengthening communities and reuniting families,” Johnson wrote in his op-ed.
Biden commuted the sentences of more than 30 inmates on death row in recent weeks and in 2022 pardoned many federal and D.C. offenses for simple marijuana possession.
Johnson urged Biden to take additional action on student loans through one of his final acts in office, an issue that the administration has long pushed and wrestled over in the courts.
“Now, with just weeks left, President Biden has the opportunity to minimize the financial hardships that so many Americans will feel under Donald Trump by alleviating — or canceling altogether — the burden of student debt,” Johnson wrote.
He declared that these three executive actions would lead the country to a “more perfect union, and ensure a freer and safer America for all.”
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.