We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
FELLOW REPUBLICANS URGE MCCONNELL TO PUT FIRST STEP TO A VOTE
Republican senators last week put a full-court press on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) to bring the modified FIRST STEP Act to the Senate floor before Congress adjourns for the year on Dec. 14.
[Update: The Senate Judiciary Committee reported the modified FIRST STEP Act, now S.3649, to the floor on Monday, November 26, 2018].
McConnell has been coy about the bill’s prospects, even with the backing of President Donald Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. McConnell’s intransigence in the face of Trump’s urging and the demands of his own party could open a new divide between McConnell and Trump weeks after they worked together to widen the Senate majority in the midterm elections.
If the Senate does not pass FIRST STEP in the next two weeks, the bill would have to be reintroduced in January, and would a Democrat-controlled House that would probably include a lot of sentencing reform provisions that would be non-starters in the Senate.
“This really does need to get done this year,” Sen. Mike Lee (R – Utah) said in an interview. “Saying that we’ll do it next year is tantamount to saying this just isn’t going to get done.”
In general, McConnell doesn’t like voting on legislation that divides Senate Republicans. FIRST STEP has been controversial among a few conservative Republicans for months, even sparking a Twitter argument between Lee and Sen. Tom Cotton (R – Arkansas), last Monday.
“Unaccountable politicians and those who live behind armed guards may be willing to gamble with your life,” Cotton wrote in a USA Today op-ed piece Nov. 15. “But why should you?”
And Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) argued earlier this month, “A dangerous person who is properly incarcerated can’t mug your sister. If we’re not careful with this, somebody is going to get killed.”
In the past three years, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, blocked a Democratic Supreme Court nominee, pushed through an army of conservative judges and secured confirmation two Trump nominees.
Grassley had some chits to call in when he spoke to McConnell last Monday morning about FIRST STEP. I have been there for you, Grassley told McConnell, and I would hope this is something that you would help me make happen, the New York Times reported that three people familiar with the call said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) told NBC a week ago that he’s confident FIRST STEP would receive 80 votes in the Senate, and would be a positive first step for the government in the wake of a contentious midterm election cycle. “Let’s start 2019 on a positive note,” Graham said. “I’m urging Sen. McConnell to bring the bill to the floor of the Senate. It would get 80 votes. Mr. President, pick up the phone and push the Republican leadership… The Republicans are the problem here, not the Democrats.”
FIRST STEP proponents fear McConnell will let the short window for consideration this year slide shut rather let a vote go forward on a complicated issue that divides Republicans. Republican senators allied with Grassley, including Lee, Graham and Tim Scott of South Carolina, began last week to contact wavering colleagues by phone. Kushner convened a call with business groups to praise the changes, and the White House circulated a USA Today op-ed that Kushner wrote with Tomas J. Philipson, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest son and daughter, blasted supportive messages to their millions of Twitter followers urging Congress to move quickly.
Kushner reportedly plans to ask Trump to lobby McConnell directly by phone, but is waiting to line up more Republican support first, according to two people familiar with his thinking. Trump is not waiting for Kushner’s request, already using Twitter last Friday to urge McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to pass the “badly needed” criminal justice reform bill.
McConnell has not yet budged. In a statement Friday, a spokesman for McConnell told The New York Times: “The support for, and length of time needed to move the new bill is not knowable at this moment.”
Earlier this month, McConnell told the Louisville Courier Journal, “We don’t have a whole lot of time left, but the first step is to finalize what proponents are actually for. There have been a lot of different versions floating around. And then we’ll whip it and see where the vote count is.”
Wall Street Journal, McConnell Controls Fate of Criminal-Justice Overhaul Bill (Nov. 20, 2018)
CNBC, Trump pushes Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer to pass ‘badly needed’ bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that’s stalled in the Senate (Nov. 23, 2018)
The New York Times, McConnell Feels the Heat From the Right to Bring Criminal Justice Bill to a Vote (Nov. 20, 2018)
The Hill, Graham urges GOP leadership to bring vote on criminal justice reform (Nov. 18, 2018)
– Thomas L. Root