A bipartisan group of senators have revamped legislation that overhauls mandatory minimum sentencing laws, offering additional concessions as part of a compromise they hope will push a vote on the measure ahead of upcoming elections.
Lawmakers renewed the push for criminal justice reform Thursday with senators narrowing their focus to sentencing alone — banning retroactive applicability to offenders with any serious violent crimes on their records and avoiding inclusion of provisions that would increase criminal intent requirements for prosecutors.
“We think this is the most comprehensive, far-reaching criminal justice reform that Congress has seen in decades,” said Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat. “We believe, critically, this bill can pass the U.S. Senate with both the majority of Democrats and the majority of Republicans supporting it.”
But while lawmakers cheered the addition of four Republican senators as co-sponsors to the bill — for a total of 37 co-sponsors — the concessions failed to win over vocal critics like Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Jeff Sessions of Alabama.
“Instead of focusing on real consensus reforms that promote rehabilitation and reduce recidivism, this bill will instead expose American communities to thousands of drug traffickers and other violent felons,” said Mr. Cotton, adding that the new version raises more questions than it answers. “It is the victims of crime who will bear the costs of this dangerous experiment in criminal leniency and every community’s law enforcement officers who must deal with that cost daily.”
Mr. Sessions argued that with drug prosecutions on the decline and thousands of prisoners eligible for early release, more evaluation of the impact of the proposal is needed.
“It is counterintuitive to further weaken penalties for drug traffickers, especially heroin traffickers, and to enable the release of several thousand more incarcerated drug and gun felons, particularly at this time,” he said.
Criminal justice reform became a surprise bipartisan issue in late 2015, with Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate writing bills to try to deal with a federal prison population that exploded from 25,000 prisoners in 1980 to more than 200,000 today.
Under legislation approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, mandatory “three strikes” sentences for nonviolent drug offenders would be reduced from a life imprisonment to 25 years. It would also create a “safety valve” so those with longer criminal histories could have their cases reviewed to make sure the punishments fit the actual crime.
Provisions added Thursday would prohibit early release under retroactive application of the law if offenders have been convicted of any serious violent felony. The revised bill also adds new mandatory minimums for offenses involving fentanyl, an opioid which has been linked to drug overdose deaths across the country.
The revisions were enough to win over endorsement by the National District Attorneys Association, the largest group of prosecutors in the nation, which threw its support behind the bill this week.
Meanwhile, groups advocating for criminal justice reform were left wanting more out of the bill, but said they still plan to stand behind the measure.
“American taxpayers are spending too much money locking up too many people for far too long — and we aren’t getting the public safety return we deserve,” said Holly Harris, executive director of the U.S. Justice Action Network.
Given the current political climate, Inimai Chettiar, director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the compromises were needed for the bill to gain traction.
“Obviously we would love it to go further,” Ms. Chettiar said. “With this Congress, this is a pretty good bill.”
If the Senate is able to approve the bill, one potential sticking point will be reconciliation with a House version. Lawmakers there have said they plan to include “mens rea” or criminal intent reforms, that would require prosecutors to prove that certain criminal suspects knowingly intended to break the law.
Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said Thursday that the provision was not included in the Senate bill because lawmakers could not come to a consensus on it.
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
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