While 2016 is likely to bring increased partisanship in Congress, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is still pushing for major criminal justice policy reform.
An unlikely alliance of top Republicans and Democrats in both chambers has teamed up to advance several bills that would address a broad range of criminal justice issues, from sentencing reform to over-expansion of the federal criminal code.
“Senators from both sides of the aisle and senators with very different perspectives have come together to solve an important problem facing the United States,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
The House and Senate Judiciary panels have passed major sentencing reform legislation and the House committee has also cleared four smaller reform measures.
The Senate’s sentencing reform legislation is sponsored by Grassley, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and others.
A similar House bill was co-authored by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Ranking Member John Conyers, D-Mich.
The legislation would reduce mandatory sentences by allowing judges to use more discretion in some cases. Other changes include reducing the mandatory life sentence for a third drug-trafficking offense to a mandatory sentence of 25 years.
Advocacy groups have long argued that certain nonviolent offenders have been sentenced to excessive prison terms for minor crimes.
“It’s very targeted,” Holly Harris, executive director of U.S. Justice Action Network, a criminal justice reform advocacy group, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s for certain offenders. We are not talking about your violent offenders.”
In the House, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., suggested criminal justice reform measures would be part of the House agenda in 2016. Ryan included criminal justice reform in an anti-poverty proposal he authored in 2014 while serving as chairman of the House Budget Committee.
“I personally am in favor of criminal justice reform,” Ryan said. “It’s an issue that I think needs attending to.”
In addition to sentencing reform, the House Judiciary Committee has passed a series of bills aimed at addressing other faults in the justice system, including a provision protecting people from prosecution for obscure federal crimes they do not not realize they are committing. Another House bill would strike several laws involving “trivial conduct,” such as the “unauthorized use of the 4-H emblem, the Swiss Confederation coat of arms, Smokey the Bear character or name and Woodsy Owl character, name or slogan and the interstate transportation of dentures.”
Early in 2016, Goodlatte is expected to introduce legislation that would help prisoners re-enter society and find jobs.
Criminal justice reform has won the backing of groups on the Right and Left, including faith-based organizations and business groups, making it a good candidate for floor action in a typically partisan election year.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., isn’t promising a vote, but acknowledged the bipartisan backing.
“It’s a good candidate for being dealt with next year,” McConnell said before Congress gaveled the 2015 session to a close in December.
But there is some influential opposition to the Senate sentencing reform bill.
Five Republicans voted against it in committee, including Sen. Jeff Sessions, a former judge. Sessions said he is concerned the elimination of mandatory minimum sentencing will make it harder to win cooperation from criminals.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he wants the bill to include a provision requiring criminal intent for prosecuting those who violate obscure federal laws. The House Judiciary Committee passed a similar measure, but separate from their sentencing reform bill.
“From where I sit, I do not see how we can adequately address the problem of over-criminalization without getting at the root causes of the problem,” Hatch said. “And one of those root causes is that we have to let wither the fundamental principle that in order for an action to be criminal, a person must have acted with a criminal intent.”
