Roundtable with the reverend
Civil rights leader says system is unfair to minorities, poor
The Rev. Jesse Jackson joins County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, top, for a roundtable discussion on economic and social issues on Monday.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Monday urged Harris County to settle the bail reform lawsuit brought by poor defendants.
“The system is discriminatory along the lines of race and poverty,” Jackson said during a visit with Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, local clergy and civil rights leaders.
Jackson said he agrees with U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal’s ruling that the county’s cash bail system is unconstitutional, saying it keeps some defendants in jail because they are poor. He urged the county to settle the suit instead of taking the case to trial in December.
Ellis has been the most outspoken member of Commissioners Court on the bail lawsuit, which County Judge Ed Emmett also says should be settled out of court. Since 2016, Harris County has spent more than $6 million defending the class action suit, which Ellis said could have been better spent elsewhere.
“That could be spent on reforming the system, educating people so once they get out they are productive, and don’t get stuck in that cycle,” Ellis said.
Jackson chimed in that schools cost less than jails, and yield far greater results.
During his visit, Jackson also spoke in support of a proposed minority- and women-owned business enterprise program Ellis hopes to implement at the county, and criticized the Trump administration’s nowabandoned policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“It is a crime against humanity,” Jackson said. “It undercuts our moral authority.”
Jackson, 76, long has advocated for civil rights issues. He founded Operation PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition in the 1970s and ’80s. Jackson sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1984 and 1988.