If Sen. Rand Paul becomes the Republican presidential nominee, he says he plans to confront presumed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over her husband's record on criminal justice reform.
"If I were the nominee, we will compete in Philadelphia," Paul told CBS radio talk show host Dom Giordano at the National Constitution Center, reported The Hill.
Paul says the two would compete in Philadelphia, where Democrats currently have a 7-to-1 registration advantage, because he believes urban and minority voters will strongly support his plan for criminal justice reform.
"I'll ask Hillary Clinton, 'What have you done for criminal justice? Your husband passed all the laws that put a generation of black men in prison.' Her husband was responsible for that," Paul said.
The libertarian-leaning freshman senator from Kentucky has made the issue a key plank of his candidacy and says his efforts to reach out to minority communities make him the best choice to go up against Clinton.
"I'll also ask her what she's going to do for poor people in Philadelphia. I have a specific plan that would dramatically lower the taxes for people who live in zip codes of poverty and high unemployment. I would leave billions of dollars in Philadelphia over 10 years. What's Hillary Clinton going to do?"
Paul continued, "She's changing her tune now. She's changing her tune because people like me have been speaking out against these injustices."
Both Hillary and her husband former President Bill Clinton authored op-eds last month on the topic, which has gained traction at the national level since racially charged protests erupted in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore over police brutality.
Bill Clinton said in his op-ed that the anti-crime policies he introduced as president were an honest reaction to a real threat, but he suggested that some of the policies overshot the mark by placing too much emphasis on incarceration.
Clinton wrote: "So many of these laws worked well, especially those that put more police on the streets. But too many laws were overly broad instead of appropriately tailored. A very small number of people commit a large percentage of serious crimes - and society gains when that relatively small group is behind bars. But some are in prison who shouldn't be, others are in for too long, and without a plan to educate, train, and reintegrate them into our communities, we all suffer."
One of those policies enacted by Clinton was the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which provided states financial incentives for enacting tougher sentencing laws, according to The Hill.
