McConnell seems opposed to vote on criminal justice reform
WASHINGTON — With overwhelming support from Democrats and hard yeses from as many as 21 Republicans, criminal justice reform legislation would sail through if Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., brought it to the floor for a vote.
But so far, McConnell has dragged his feet, blaming intra-party fighting and a crowded end-of-the-year legislative calendar for why he hasn’t yet scheduled the bill.
Behind the scenes there’s a small uprising of Republicans, led by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who vehemently oppose the legislation that would, among other things, reduce mandatory minimum sentencing for some felonies. The prevailing narrative has been that the bill is stalled because McConnell is reluctant to fracture his caucus and that Cotton is a force to be reckoned with.
But there’s a belief among some who are following every turn of this issue that maybe McConnell isn’t bringing up the bill because he simply doesn’t want to.
“People are getting caught up in that Tom Cotton smokescreen,” said Michael Collins, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. “Anyone who knows anything about this knows it’s a McConnell problem.”
Criminal justice reform is one of those rare issues that unites unlikely bedfellows. It’s an issue that finds Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., creating a “bromance” and even former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump, to an extent, on the same side.
And yet, for many years, bipartisan attempts to pass legislation that would overhaul the criminal justice system has failed to go anywhere. Even with powerful support from high-ranking lawmakers such as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and the weight of the White House, the legislation has struggled to become more than just a talking point.
With the clock ticking on this lame-duck session, the White House sent in top guns Vice President Pence and senior Trump adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, this week to encourage Senate Republicans to get the legislation done before the end of the year. The alternative, they argue, is renegotiating the existing language with a Democratic House majority next year that will probably demand a more ambitious bill.