Top senators have been quietly revising a controversial
overhaul of criminal justice laws. The recently unveiled compromise addresses conservative criticisms that could have
derailed the bill in the Senate, reported Politico.com.
Influential Senate Democrats and Republicans held a news
conference trumpeting the changes and to try and show a renewed sense of
momentum behind the long-stalled legislation that tries to ease mandatory
minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders.
“Obviously, reaching a consensus hasn’t been easy,” Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said. “But as you can see,
we have a remarkable group of senators supporting the bill. We believe that it
truly addresses in a bipartisan way the concerns that had been brought
forward.”
The original version passed the Senate Judiciary Committee
15-5 in October, but tough-on-crime Senate conservatives — led by Sen. Tom
Cotton of Arkansas — warned that it would inadvertently release felons with
violent criminal records early from prison. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was also a
vocal critic of the bill — which the first endorser of his presidential
campaign in the Senate, Mike Lee of Utah, helped draft — but has been quiet
lately as he’s been campaigning.
The compromise won’t satisfy critics like Cotton, but
nevertheless has been enough to sway a handful of other Republicans and to get
influential organizations, such as the National District Attorneys Association,
on board.
For instance, one section of the original legislation to
reduce enhanced mandatory minimum sentences for people convicted under the
Armed Career Criminals Act has been eliminated. The bill also now says that
other reduced mandatory minimum sentences won’t apply retroactively for anyone
who has been convicted of any serious violent felony. And it adds enhanced
mandatory sentences for crimes involving Fentanyl, an opioid drug.
The influential district attorneys group wrote to Senate
leaders earlier this week, saying the revised version “filters out the truly
dangerous individuals” so they don't benefit from the reduced mandatory minimum
sentences.
But the revisions weren’t enough to persuade some
Republicans whom backers targeted. Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, seen by some
proponents as a potential supporter, argued that the revisions would still
allow serious drug traffickers to be released early from prison.
“Proponents of this criminal-leniency bill have waged a
disinformation campaign because they simply want to reduce the number of people
in federal prison,” Perdue said.
That prompted FreedomWorks, one of the major conservative
outside groups backing the Senate measure, to fire back at Perdue, calling the
Georgia senator’s comments on the legislation “misleading and hypocritical.”
The next step for the Senate coalition behind the bill will
be to persuade Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to take up the
legislation this year. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has supported criminal
justice legislation moving on a parallel track in the House, and the White House
backs the effort.
To read more CLICK HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment