Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is feeling the full pressure of the White House and its surrogates to pass the pending criminal justice reform that is popular in minority communities.
This week, Vice President Mike Pence, Trump adviser Jared Kushner, and the head of the president’s national diversity coalition argued that the time for action is now on the legislation that would adjust long prison sentences for minor crimes. Others bringing pressure are conservative activist Ken Cuccinelli, and groups like FreedomWorks and the American Conservative Union Foundation
McConnell is gauging support in his caucus for quick action and has privately sounded positive about passage.
[Related: Why criminal justice reform is closer than ever — yet still so far away]
The First step Act has African Americans more optimistic about the GOP than ever before…But Senators Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton are doing their best to turn that optimism into pessimism and skepticism, (with hints of Racism) #CallTheVote
— Dr.Darrell Scott (@PastorDScott) November 27, 2018
After Pence and Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, joined the weekly GOP luncheon, McConnell said, “We also just had an extensive discussion of criminal justice in our conference, both those who believe we should go forward with a bill this year and those who think we should not. And as I indicated earlier, we’ll be whipping that to see whether — what the consensus is, if there is a consensus in our conference about not only the substance but the timing of moving forward with that particular piece of legislation.”
Still, some minority supporters of the First Step Act are worried that conservative critics are using the lull in action on the House approved and Trump endorsed legislation to chip away at it.
Cleveland Pastor Darrell Scott, who heads the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, has been trying to see McConnell to urge action. Yesterday, he told Secrets, McConnell’s staff said there would be a meeting soon and that the leader was moving toward action.
Unimpressed, Scott issued an open letter to McConnell that ended, “Get off your butt and get this doggone bill passed.”
He is worried that without passage, minority support for the GOP will shrink further, and they will blame Senate leaders, not Trump. “This is not going to hurt Trump. People know where he stands,” he told Secrets.
For many minorities, he added, the legislation is as important as the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “This is a watershed moment in American history,” said Scott.
