Obama is at it Again

photo courtesy of  NBC

President Obama has again showed his dedication to fight against mandatory minimums by commuting 98 people's sentences on Thursday. In his article, Kevin Liptak points out that this brings President Obama's commutation total to 872, with 688 (or over three-fourths) happening this year, in 2016. Again, most of these people were convicted of nonviolent drug charges, like many of the others, and his reasoning behind it is clear: "to bring existing sentences -- many given under the conditions of strict "mandatory minimums" no longer in place -- in line with current standards."

But the question here in this plethora of pardons is this: what is President Obama hoping to achieve in the long term with his commutations?

On a small scale he has changed the lives of 872 people- probably more if we include families who now have a loved one back with them- but on a big scale, what kind of changes can he really make in issuing all these pardons? It seems to me that there is nothing that he can legally change with these pardons. The only thing he's really doing-besides obviously changing the lives of all those who he has granted clemency to- is attempting to lessen the stigma that drug offenders face and fight against mandatory minimums. It is a valiant effort on the president's part, but the next person in his job could decide that fighting against mandatory drug sentencing minimums is not an effort that they feel the need to really fight for and all the hard work the president did is yesterday's news that will be forgotten by the time the next news cycle rolls around (we news hungry people seem to have a short attention span). So yes, it's good that President Obama has pardoned 98 more people. But don't you kind of wish there was more to it?