Letter from Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.)

To my Senate colleagues,

As you may already know as a Democratic Senator from New Jersey, I strive each and every day to be a light in this chamber, but not for myself for the people of my state and indeed those of this nation.

I owe everything I have to my parents, who came from humble beginnings. My father, a civil rights activist who participated in the sit-ins movement in North Carolina.  Both of whom defied the obstacles presented to them to become the first black employees at IBM.  In the words of Zora Neale Hurston, my parents "had been through sorrow's kitchen and licked all the pots." I am forever shaped by their example.

My destiny has brought me from the city of Newark, where I served as mayor and member of the municipal council, to the halls of the Senate in Washington. I owe it to the people who elected me to not let politics get in the way of principle, not to let myself succumb to greed and corruption, but to live as a humble servant to God and to the American people. These are the values I bring to this committee.

In my capacity as a member of the Judiciary Committee, it is my duty to highlight the damage and destruction that the War on Drugs, which is really a war on people, has wrought. Last year, with the help of both my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, we - not  I, WE - passed a historic piece of criminal-justice reform into law. The First Step Act will allow our country to take a meaningful break from the failed policies of mass incarceration, which has cost us billions in tax-payer dollars and disproportionately targeted communities of color for years.

There is a quote I really like that tells us: "Justice is what love looks like in public." Let us hold our criminal justice system to this standard and choose compassion when we are dealing with the livelihoods of families and communities.

With deep love and admiration,

Senator Cory Booker