Joe Biden Wants to Bring the Dems Responsible for the 1994 Crime Bill Back to the White House
Documents from the Bill Clinton Library tell the story of the disastrous 1994 crime bill. They reveal the cynicism and callousness of Clinton administration officials — including Rahm Emanuel and Ron Klain, who Biden is considering for his own administration — who shepherded the bill through Congress for naked political gain.
Joe Biden at a town hall meeting in McClellanville, South Carolina, on February 27, 2020.Jim Watson / AFP via Getty
As the incoming Joe Biden administration shapes up, it has already, accurately, been described as the Obama administration 2.0. But that’s only half the truth. With many of the Obama-to-Biden picks having cut their teeth a decade earlier, in the Clinton administration of the 1990s, it may be more accurate to describe the next four years as the third coming of Clintonism.
The prospect of appointing Rahm Emanuel, Bill Clinton’s senior advisor for policy and strategy, continues to persist despite the former Chicago mayor’s appalling record on race, inequality, and so much more. Bruce Reed, president of Clinton’s Domestic Policy Council, continues to wait in the wings for his call-up. And Ron Klain, who served under Clinton in a variety of different roles, has already been picked as Biden’s next chief of staff, to the widespread applause of progressives.
With all three quite possibly (and one definitely) set to serve under yet another Democratic president, it’s worth going back to where it all began in Bill Clinton’s first term. Thanks to documents available from the Clinton Digital Library and archival collections at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, we can get a glimpse inside the political minds set to drive the next four years of Democratic policy-making.
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