Reid still punching for a Jack Johnson pardon

Neither a decade of lobbying nor the passage of two congressional resolutions has won a presidential pardon for famed boxer Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight champ widely believed to have been unjustly convicted of a morals crime more than a century ago.

But the two biggest fight fans in the U.S. Senate are going another round in urging President Obama to remove the stain from Johnson, who died a convicted felon.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John McCain, R-Ariz., reintroduced a resolution last Thursday in support of a pardon.

One of the earliest celebrity athletes, and in his day arguably the most famous African-American in the world, Johnson’s 1913 conviction unjustly diminished his historical significance, the senators argue.

“Jack Johnson deserves to be remembered for his incredible career, not for the racism that unfairly sent him to prison,” Reid said in a statement. Johnson held the heavyweight crown from 1908 to 1915.

Johnson’s success in the ring — including his win in the July 4, 1910, “Fight of the Century” against Jack Jeffries in Reno — provoked a backlash among many whites during a racially unsettled period. Flouting conventions, Johnson’s relationships with white women compounded resentment against him.

In a case widely seen as racially motivated, Johnson was arrested in 1912 and convicted a year later by an all-white jury of violating the Mann Act provisions against “transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes.” The woman, Lucille Cameron, was white and soon became his wife.

Johnson fled the United States but eventually returned and served a year in prison.

He continued fighting into his later life, and died at 68 in a car crash in North Carolina.

The Reid-McCain resolution seeks “to expunge a racially motivated abuse of the prosecutorial authority of the federal government from the annals of criminal justice.”

McCain and Rep., Peter King, R-N.Y., began introducing pardon resolutions in 2004. In 2005 documentary filmmaker Ken Burns produced “Unforgiveable Blackness” about Johnson and helped form a committee to urge a pardon. Congress passed pardon resolutions in 2011 and 2013, to no avail.

It never has been made clear why Johnson keeps getting passed over.

A statement on the Justice Department website might hold a clue: “The policy against processing posthumous pardon petitions is grounded in the belief that the time of the officials involved in the clemency process is better spent on the pardon and commutation requests of living persons.”

— Steve Tetreault

Heller Given Veterans Award

U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., has received the first “Outstanding Senate Legislator of the Year Award” from the national Disabled American Veterans organization.

“It’s very humbling,” Heller said during a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday.

He thanked the DAV for recognizing him as the inaugural recipient of the award, saying DAV “has worked closely with me in tackling issues like the VA claims backlog, treatment for post-traumatic stress and care for our women veterans.”

Heller acknowledged three Nevadans who attended the hearing: William T. Anton, DAV Department of Nevada commander; William C. Baumann, DAV Nevada legislative officer; and Katherine Baran, DAV Nevada senior vice commander.

In a letter to Heller announcing the award, DAV National Commander Ronald F. Hope wrote, “You have demonstrated outstanding leadership and commitment to working in a bipartisan manner to address this problem for the benefit of the men and women who served, particularly those wounded, injured and made ill by their service.”

As co-founder and co-chairman of the Senate VA Backlog Working Group, Heller set a course for the Department of Veterans Affairs to reduce a staggering backlog of disability compensation claims.

He co-sponsored legislation last year to tighten gaps in the VA’s handling of their claims and increase staff who process claims.

A key part of the bill requires the Department of Defense, Social Security Administration and other departments to respond to requests for veterans’ records within 30 days, alleviating a major choke point that has taken 157 days on average.

Among his priorities is to improve the Veterans Benefits Administration’s Reno office, which he has bemoaned as not only “the worst VA regional office in the country” but also the slowest in processing claims.

An audit last year by the VA inspector general found errors in 51 percent of claims handled by clerks in Reno.

— Keith Rogers

Contact Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760. Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjojurnal.com or 702-383-0308.