Sen. Mike Lee and President Obama do not have a history of being friends.
Over the summer, however, the two had a rare and rather pleasant phone conversation about the Utah Republican’s work on the Smarter Sentencing Act.
The bill, which the Utah Freshman Republican senator co-sponsored with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., would loosen numerous mandatory punishments required for federal drug offenses and also give judges more discretion when it comes to sentencing, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
According to Lee’s chief of staff, Derek Brown, Obama called him to tell him he would give him all the support necessary to pass the bill, agreeing with Lee that current sentencing requirements are unnecessary and too costly.
A Congressional Budget Office report showed the bill, which remains in the Senate, would save about $4 billion in prison costs.
Though Lee has a history of adamantly opposing Obama, the phone call shows that bipartisanship isn’t impossible.
