Sen. Cory Booker leads last-minute push for cocaine sentencing reform

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New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker is leading a last-chance push for reforming federal sentencing of cocaine-related offenses. 

Currently, sentencing for crack cocaine-related offenses carries a significantly higher penalty than offenses related to the drug's powdered form. 

Critics see the disparity as an unjust targeting of poorer communities more likely to be affected by crack cocaine compared to the powder form, which is most associated with more affluent drug users.

A group of senators is now attempting to slip the drug reform proposals into law by attaching them to the annual defense bill.

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New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, right, joins Sen. Maggie Hassan on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, on Oct. 24, 2022 in Derry, New Hampshire. (Fox News)

Booker is taking a leadership position in support of the bill, which would move towards evening out the sentencing guidelines for cocaine offenses regardless of form.

"We’re in a tough negotiation moment right now," Booker told Politico in a Tuesday article. "I just want to make sure that I focus on doing what I can to get something over the line, as opposed to talking about strategy."

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The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Whether the Department of Justice will be applying the relaxed sentencing retroactively on felons charged with crack cocaine charges is the key point of contention.

In September, Booker penned an op-ed for Insider NJ in which he gave his full-throated endorsement for evening the sentencing of crack and powder cocaine.

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"There is no pharmacological difference between crack and powder cocaine. There is no criminological justification for the difference in sentencing guideline," Booker wrote. "And when 61 senators agree, there’s no excuse for allowing such a savage injustice to persist."

He added, "We have the votes. It is time to send the Equal Act to President Biden’s desk and end the devastation this disparity has caused to too many lives and families."