Politics is weird. A coin toss decided Hillary Clinton the winner of an Iowa precinct over Bernie Sanders, and now a Valentine’s proposal from Alicia Keys may get Speaker Paul Ryan to allow congress to vote on criminal justice reform.
The singer/actress is using her feminine wiles in a new Valentine’s video message that’s urging the Speaker to schedule a vote on the controversial bill to prove that he’s really as “cool” as she thinks he is. “I recently saw a picture of you working out, and I was like, ‘Hmm! I never saw the Speaker of the House working out before. He must be cool,'” Alicia says in the cringeworthy video. “Are you cool, Paul? Show me how cool you are. In fact, you can even be my Valentine if you help me spread some love.”
The video is part of a new campaign launched by Keys, We Are Here Movement and #cut50.
The Grammy-award winning artist is asking the Speaker of the U.S. House to show love and compassion for people negatively impacted by our criminal justice system. She is especially concerned that 2.7 million American children have at least one incarcerated parent and that too many non-violent offenders are serving lengthy mandatory minimum sentences in federal prisons.
Millions of people are negatively impacted by our criminal justice system, but women are the fastest growing segment of the incarcerated population, increasing at nearly double the rate of men since 1985. Two-thirds of women in the federal prison system are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses, the majority of whom have children. And nearly half of all federal prisoners (more than 95,000 people) are serving time for drug-related offenses.
There’s also a website where people can send “thousands of love notes” to Paul Ryan and demand he let congress vote on the bill. Alicia ends the video with a wink and a kiss that I can only hope does the trick.
