A leading progressive Democrat in the House of Representatives is praising President Biden’s sweeping commutation order for people on federal death row and calling the death penalty itself “racist.”

“The President’s decision to commute the death sentences of 37 people on federal death row is a historic and groundbreaking act of compassion that saves lives, eliminates the deep racial disparities in our criminal justice system, and sends a powerful message about redemption, decency, and humanity,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said in a statement Monday.

“The death penalty is a racist, flawed and fundamentally unjust punishment that has no place in any society.”

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Rep. Ayanna Pressley called the death penalty “racist” in a statement praising President Biden’s clemency decision. (Getty Images)

Pressley argued that the death penalty overwhelmingly targeted black and brown communities and “did not make America safer.”

The Massachusetts representative, a member of the far-left House Democrats group known as the Squad, has been at the forefront of progressive efforts to abolish the death penalty.

Biden’s clemency order affects almost everyone on federal death row in the United States.

Only three of 40 inmates remain – Dylann Roof, who murdered nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found guilty of carrying out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.

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Democrats increased pressure on Biden to act following the controversial pardon of his son Hunter. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Those whose sentences were commuted to life in prison include Thomas Sanders, who kidnapped and killed a 12-year-old girl; Jorge Avila-Torrez, who sexually abused and stabbed two young girls and four years later strangled a 20-year-old female naval officer; and Anthony Battle, who murdered an Atlanta prison guard with a hammer 30 years ago.

Democrats had increased pressure on Biden to exercise his clemency rights after he granted his son Hunter Biden a controversial and wide-ranging pardon just weeks before he was expected to be sentenced on federal weapons charges.

Biden followed that push earlier this month when he commuted the sentences of about 1,500 Americans in the largest one-day order of its kind.

President-elect Trump has been announcing plans for months to expand the death penalty to drug traffickers, child rapists and illegal immigrants who kill US citizens.

At the end of his first term, Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) carried out the first federal executions in 20 years, carrying out sentences for 13 federal prisoners on death row.

Biden commutes 1,500 prison sentences and grants 39 more pardons: ‘Largest clemency granted in one day’

Senator Tom Cotton criticized Biden’s decision. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a top Trump ally, criticized Biden on Monday over his order.

“Once again, Democrats are siding with depraved criminals when it comes to their victims, public order, and common decency,” Cotton wrote on X.

“Democrats can’t even defend Biden’s outrageous decision as some kind of principled, blanket opposition to the death penalty because he didn’t commute the three most politically toxic cases. Democrats are the party of politically convenient justice.”