please the court i'd like to address at the outset an error that underlies many of the commission's arguments in this case as well as the district court's analysis below and that is the commission's one hundred to one ratio that it created when it mechanically incorporated the statutory ratio into the sentencing guidelines now we need to know the five it was clear that the major contributor of the syncing disparity between black and white cocaine offenders was not due to the mandatory minimum sentence provisions what was in fact due to the commission's decision to incorporate the one hundred to one ratio into the guidelines and it's important to keep in mind that the commission didn't just incorporate it at the minimum threshold level but extended it through seventeen other quality level action you have me and when you get we get to the in a word directing the commission to give of back to the ninety ninety five and one to one to one right not eighteen to one but two to the one to one ra understand it that that that they you wouldn't get anything different than the eighteen to one that you had therefore there's no reason for you to be here you've already got through it if you want but i just wanted to push that you disagree with and you think the result of mandamus action would be a one to one ratio in from the commission for them to determine whether it's retroactive right yes yes and there's no there's two components to the redress ability argument that the commission is making as i understand it and the first component is that agency is obligated to make a decision one one way or the other that's enough to support me and amos on the on the eight hundred one issue we recognize that it's more complicated but at the end of the day the mandamus remedy is alternately an equitable remedy and if there's been a violation the court what do you mean it's more complicated why isn't it simply a matter of if you get the mandamus  court on agreement to go that for a remedy could simply give effect to the ninety five minutes from the date of disapproval until that date that the eighteen to one ratio took effect so that that standing hurdle you've got a pretty significant marriage problem on mandamus start you i mean what's what's the duty here congress is i mean we've already looked at this and said to the disproval act was constitutional act how how do you get around that minimum sentence provisions which are at issue now there is united states versus picket there is the period for the vehicle footnote and in our response and that is three for number one it is it is data the court did note we need to reach that is that the posture is fundamentally different in this case from and from that case that was a direct appeal reviewing a sentence and that holding by definition if the holding by definition is simply there on the record in that direct appeal the defendant did not demonstrate a constitutional violation this is a pleading stage case were under rule they were entitled to have the facts assumed in our favor inferences drawn in our favor and the issue in this case is whether mr davis has adequately alleged that the disapproval act is unconstitutional whether under strict scrutiny review or a rational basis review that's the issue here that was not the issue in pick it so that the posture is critical it is it could clearly differentiate the holding and pick it from from the the the the as i was saying before most of the precedents before this court addressed only the statutory mandatory minimum sentence provisions that issue does not control the outcome here in fact this court sad very well in picket that the function of the mandatory minimum sentence provisions was simply to create a two tiered penalty structure for major and serious drug offenders and then that tutor structure whatever its merits that to structure doesn't dictate the shape that the sentencing guidelines should take the commission's decision to implement the the rigid one hundred to one ratio in the sentencing guidelines is a separate and distinct causes to the problem fro the statutory mandatory minimum sentence provisions and therefore how do we second guess congress's judgment at the time that there was more societal harm from crack than from powder cocaine and maybe that's wrong as a matter of policy or maybe maybe subsequent study has proved that to be based on ill considered judgment but rebels congress's judgment a time to make judgments all the time in the criminal code as you're well aware that our they have to make judgments about different kinds of crimes and different kinds of societal harm there is it is appropriate the issue here is not that disparity the issue here is that the sentencing guidelines at the time took that disparity the one hundred to one disparity in projected it rigidly through all the quantity levels in the guidelines and so if there's a rational basis for some of the disparity between crack and powder that doesn't mean there's a rational basis for one hundred to one it also doesn't mean that there's a rational basis to project the reach the  ratio rigidly overall quantity levels and it was really that decision the fact that the that the ratio was used at every quality level and was mandatory it had to be published what it was that that caused the racial disparity in sentencing so it's not the mandatory minimum sentence provisions that cause the disparity it's the decision by the commission to use that disparity in the guidelines in the way that it did and so it and so the we're not second guessing a congressional judgment about a differential in the mandatory minimums that may or may not have been appropriate were not challenging that were challenging the the rigidity of the guidelines which at the morning more here on me please the court the distinction the council trying to draw between the actions of the commission the actions of congress don't make any of it material difference to the equal protection analysis that equal protection analysis or minimum rationality looks at the government reason says i mean and that's that that's the level of generality that the case law requires for this issue is you look at the any conceivable basis whether it's what congress has articulated or not and then you say is this not irrational and if you can find a rational basis for it that suffices and that's explicitly what the case law says not just hold them take it but the cases they cite johnson before that it thompson cyrus before that this court has passed on one hundred to one ratio many many times and found that that the fairly summary explanation of the reasons suffices that same analysis controls here it's that simple you don't need to get that far nd that's a vice it's good to affirm the district court's decision below indeed it's hard to find how it could possibly have gone any differently identified the correct case will be interpreted or correctly i know it applied it correctly there's simply no one other outcome that this animal can reach without going on bonk and then a potentially and gross conflict with the supreme court case law on equal protection  discovery to build a record that's never been decided in this court or to my knowledge in any other courts of the culture has to mean something and then the last thing i'll say is in the good for no as we point out in the briefs the focus is on whether there was a race neutral reason to reject one to one the focus was not on whether there was a reason for a reason to require one hundred to one of which is what