What? PA House passes broad mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenders

An unlikely issue is finding consensus among liberals and conservatives, progressives and the tea party.
After decades of experimentation, mandatory minimum sentencing laws have failed in every respect.  For this reason, leaders of all political persuasions are moving public policy in this country away from mandatory minimums.
Unfortunately, some in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives are not keeping up with the times, wrote Pat Nolan the Director of the American Conservative Union Foundation's Center for Criminal Justice Reform and Julie Stewart the president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums in a op-ed at PennLive.
Just one week after an organization of 130 major city police chiefs, sheriffs, state and federal prosecutors, and state attorneys general called on federal and state lawmakers to repeal mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, the Pennsylvania House rushed headlong in the opposite direction.
Without the benefit of a single hearing or the solicitation of any expert testimony, the House approved broad mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.
Had the House asked for any input, here's who they would have heard from: Americans for Tax Reform, ACLU, Koch Industries and Charles Koch Institute, NAACP, FreedomWorks, and our organizations.
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