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Dear friend,

Votes are still being counted in some places, but we wanted to share a few results from Tuesday's elections that relate to criminal justice reform. While some of the ballot questions and races fall outside of FAMM's mission — sentencing and prison reform — the results give us insight into how the country is becoming more receptive to smarter criminal justice policies:

*
Five
states
moved
toward
legalization
of
marijuana,
with
recreational
or
medical
use
being
approved
in
Arizona,
Mississippi,
Montana,
New
Jersey,
and
South
Dakota.
Voters
in
Oregon
approved
a
ballot
measure
that
decriminalizes
the
possession
of
all
drugs
and
seeks
to
replace
incarceration
with
treatment.
*
In
California,
voters
soundly
defeated
a
ballot
measure
that
would
have
reversed
past
reforms
that
let
people
earn
early
release,
and
reclassified
certain
crimes
as
misdemeanors.
Golden
State
voters
also
approved
a
proposal
to
allow
people
with
felony
convictions
to
vote
while
on
parole.
The
victory
restores
the
right
to
vote
for
approximately
50,000
people.
*
Voters
in
Nevada
approved
a
measure
intended
to
increase
the
number
of
pardons
and
commutations
in
the
state.
The
new
law
requires
the
State
Board
of
Pardons
Commissioners
to
make
clemency
decisions
by
a
majority
vote
of
its
members
without
requiring
the
governor
to
be
part
of
the
majority
vote.
*
Attorney
Tarra
Simmons
became
the
first
person
convicted
of
a
felony
to
win
a
seat
in
the
Washington
State
legislature.
In
addition,
a
number
of
reform-minded
candidates
running
for
state
or
county
attorney
—
including,
most
notably,
in
Los
Angeles
County,
California,
and
Maricopa
County,
Arizona
—
were
victorious.

Unfortunately, voters in Oklahoma rejected a ballot measure that would have prohibited prosecutors from trying to increase a person’s sentence based on any prior non-violent felonies the person might have committed.

FAMM has been around for 30 years, and we will work with anyone and everyone the voters elect to office. Tuesday's election results, however, have left us optimistic that momentum for criminal justice reform is still growing.

Best,

Kevin Ring
President, FAMM

P.S. Help us keep the momentum going through the rest of the year and beyond — make a donation to FAMM and your gift will be DOUBLED: [link removed] [[link removed]]
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