(Washington, DC) -- A bipartisan bill aimed at curtailing the sentencing disparity between crack and the powder form of cocaine has been approved by the House. Yesterday's action sends the measure to President Obama to be signed into law. The Fair Sentencing Act, authored by Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin of Illinois, will change the 1986 law in which a person convicted of possessing crack cocaine draws the same prison term as a person with 100 times the same amount of powder. The stiffer penalties have had an unequal affect on the African-American community.
