page_title: Fair Sentencing Act
section_title: Proposal and passage of the bill
hierarchical_section_title: Fair Sentencing Act / Proposal and passage of the bill
caption_attribution_description: President Barack Obama talks with Members of Congress after signing the Fair Sentencing Act in the Oval Office, Aug. 3, 2010. Participants include, from left, Attorney General Eric Holder, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) This official White House photograph is in the public domain from a copyright perspective, so while restrictions such as personality or privacy rights may apply, in general, manipulations are allowed.
context_page_description: The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 was an Act of Congress that was signed into federal law by United States President Barack Obama on August 3, 2010 that reduces the disparity between the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine needed to trigger certain federal criminal penalties from a 100:1 weight ratio to an 18:1 weight ratio and eliminated the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine, among other provisions. Similar bills were introduced in several U.S. Congresses before its passage in 2010, and courts had also acted to reduce the sentencing disparity prior to the bill's passage.
  The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 implemented the initial disparity, reflecting Congress's view that crack cocaine was a more dangerous and harmful drug than powder cocaine. In the decades since, extensive research by the United States Sentencing Commission and other experts has suggested that the differences between the effects of the two drugs are exaggerated and that the sentencing disparity is unwarranted.
context_section_description: On July 29, 2009, the United States House Committee on the Judiciary passed proposed legislation, the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act (H.R.3245), a bill sponsored by Bobby Scott.  Co-sponsored by a group of 62 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, the bill would have completely eliminated the sentencing disparity.  The Fair Sentencing Act was introduced as compromise legislation to get bipartisan and unanimous support, amended to merely reduce the 100:1 disparity to 18:1.
  The Fair Sentencing Act (S. 1789) was authored by Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) and cosponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-AL).  The bill passed the U.S. Senate on March 17, 2010 and passed the U.S. House of Representatives on July 27, 2010, with House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-SC) and Bobby Scott (D-VA) as key supporters.  The bill was then sent to President Obama and signed into law on August 3, 2010.
caption: President Barack Obama at the signing ceremony for the Act.
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