Meet the Libertarian-Leaning GOP State Senator Whose Career Donald Trump Wants To Destroy
Konni Burton is leading a coalition to reform civil-asset forfeiture abuses. So naturally the president is against here.
Still, when it comes to the issue of civil-asset forfeiture laws, even the dirtiest of Dirty Harry wannabes will grant there's something really creepy about the cops and the courts having the ability to take your stuff without even charging you with anything, much less convicting you of anything.
But here's an exchange via the Twitter feed of CNBC's Steve Kopack that should send chills down the spine—and bile up the windpipe—of every American who gives a damn about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and whether or not Lady Gaga included "under God" during her satanic Super Bowl incantations (she did).
Civil-asset forfeiture, which often doesn't require any sort of criminal charge, is big bucks. As Scott Shackford has noted, in 2014, the FBI alone snatched up $5 billion in seized assets. It's common for local police departments to grab whatever they can from whomever they can (often, the relatives or friends of people assumed to be drug dealers and the like). C.J. Ciaramella took a long, disturbing look at the way the state of Mississippi gilds its budget with seized assets.
Again, we're not talking about drug lords who are charged, have their assets frozen, are found guilty, and then have their assets sold at auction to pay reparations, or anything like that. The way a ton of asset forfeiture works is that the cops, or a prosecutor, or somebody else takes your stuff, claiming that it's connected to some sort of illegal activity. You may or may not be involved in anything illegal, but it's on you to get your stuff back. The likely next attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, is a big fan of asset forfeiture, so it's likely to be an issue, even in states that are trying to rein it in. And it should be reined in, like a crazy horse: It's not about law and order, it's about unaccountable power.
Konni Burton, Texas ObserverThe
Texas state senator referred to in the video above appears to be Konni
Burton of Colleyville. Get this, too: She's a libertarian-leaning
Republican and here's how she explained the situation to the Texas
Observer:"Right now, law enforcement can seize property under civil law, and it denies people their basic rights," said Burton, who sits on the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. "There's a basic problem with this process that I want to correct."...Local police departments and other law enforcement agencies get about $42 million a year from seized assets, creating a moral hazard that even Donald Trump would recognize. And as far as ruining Burton's career—or that of anyone else involved in the effort—the president might want to consider that regular Americans understand that there's been a massive decrease in violent and property crime over the past couple of decades. These days, people are often worried about how bullying authorities are likely to act, creating a bipartisan push for all sorts of criminal-justice reform
Now it's uniting politicians who might not otherwise be willing to break bread, according to Matt Simpson, senior policy strategist for ACLU Texas.
"It's an issue that crosses party lines; it's not Democrat versus Republican or liberal versus conservative," he told the Observer, adding that he hasn't "seen a bill we wouldn't support in relation to civil asset forfeiture reform, especially some of the stronger ones."
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