These are heady days for conservatives in the Texas Legislature. Tea party victories and a steady trend favoring conservative causes seem to have tilted the state Capitol further to the right than ever before. Why, then, are so many Republican legislators rushing to support what is typically regarded as a liberal cause — criminal justice reform?
There are lots of reasons, but probably the top one is a commonly shared sense of fairness. No one likes to see innocent people railroaded into prison. And through the years far too many Texans have been content to let such injustices go unchallenged, even when an innocent man was sitting on death row.
Three state legislators — Houston Sens. Rodney Ellis and John Whitmire, and Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon of San Antonio — decided the state needed a wake-up call, because a miscarriage of justice is no justice at all. This year, building on momentum from previous sessions, they rallied some of the staunchest conservatives in the House and Senate to their cause of fixing the justice system to reduce injustices and curtail the prison-industrial complex.
Perhaps most remarkable: These three are Democrats.
Read more from NBC 5's media partners at The Dallas Morning News.
