Sentencing "reform" advocates are endlessly frustrated that they make so little headway in Congress. Unwilling to consider the possibility that their problem is that going softer on heroin and meth dealers just isn't an idea the majority of lawmakers (or the public) supports, a Boogeyman -- a single, obdurate roadblock -- must be found.
Today's Boogeyman (and a popular choice for the title) is Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Hence this from a leading sentencing "reform" site:
[E]ven if the vast majority of Senators strongly support significant reforms to federal mandatory minimum sentencing provisions or to federal marijuana provisions, Senator Grassley can ensure-- at least until 2017, and perhaps after that if the GOP retains control of the Senate -- that federal reform bills do not even get a committee hearing, let alone a committee vote. Indeed, even if the vast majority of 300 million Americans, and even if the vast majority of the 718,215 Iowans who voted for Senator Grassley in 2010, would strongly favor a reform bill, the bill is likely DOA if Senator Grassley himself is not keen on the bill's particulars. Frustratingly, that is how our democracy now functions.
Ah, yes, the frustration of democracy. Only there's this little catch........
For the last six years, the Chairman of the SJC was Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Leahy is not merely a backer of sentencing reform; he was (and is) a co-sponsor of the most potent of the "reform" measures, the Justice Safety Valve Act. He's also a strong supporter of the somewhat less radical Smarter Sentencing Act.
Was Sen. Leahy the Boogeyman of sentencing "reform" when he declined to bring up his own bill, even for a Committee vote? He never did do that.
Was he the Boogeyman when, after securing a (favorable) vote on the SSA, he did not get his friend and Committee ally, Sen. Dick Durbin, then Deputy Majority Leader, to bring the SSA for a vote on the Senate floor?
Or was Durbin himself the Boogeyman for failing to bring the SSA to the floor, even though he was one of its co-sponsors?
Was then-Majority Leader Harry Reid the Boogeyman for refusing to schedule a vote, even though (1) he said he would, (2) the SSA got every Democratic vote in Committee, and (3) Durbin and Leahy are two of his closest allies, and two of the most powerful members of the (then majority) Democrats?
Was then-House Judiciary Chairman, the venerable John Conyers, the Boogeyman when he could not get the SSA through his own Committee? Was then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi the Boogeyman (well, Boogeywoman) for failing to put it on the House foor?
Are all these people frustrating the democratic (small "d") will for bottling up a bill the electorate, and the Congress, are dying to enact? Are they the fiends keeping our creaking old system in place, "even if the vast majority of Senators [and Representatives] strongly support significant reforms to federal mandatory minimum sentencing provisions or to federal marijuana provisions"?
Sure they are!
They are, that is, if one believes the Boogeyman theory.
The catch in all this, of course, is the wannabe premise that there is a "vast majority" who " strongly support significant reforms to federal mandatory minimum sentencing provisions."
There is no vast majority, for a simple reason.
There's no majority at all. Or anything like it. It's a bunch of PR smoke.
Don't get me wrong here, There's a majority for going softer on dealers in dangerous (and often lethal) drugs in a quite a few places: Leftist think tanks, libertarian think tanks, academia, the defense bar and -- most obviously if least mentioned -- drug dealers. Why keep the cost of doing business high when you might be able to get it lower?
Like much of Washington, the sentencing "reform" lobby, though flush with money (see, e.g., the billionaire Koch brothers and billionaire George Soros), simply cannot hear itself. They're in such a pro-drug bubble that they actually don't understand that the country does not want what they're selling.
Yes, it's all true! Our citizens actually like less crime. They know that one reason we have less crime is that we've kept more criminals off the street longer. They'd prefer to avoid returning to what Ronald Reagan correctly called the "failed policies of the past."
Although the sentencing "reform" lobby would like to drop the crime and drug crisis of the Sixties and Seventies down the memory hole, apparently they're not succeeding.
This has nothing to do with Boogeymen who are frustrating the popular will with parliamentary tricks. It's the exact opposite: It has to do with legislators who are giving the public the protection it deserves and wants by preferring the interests of ordinary people to those of criminals.
Sen. Grassley is not Boogeyman. He's a patriot. Hats off to him.
Was it PR smoke, Bill, when advocates (and the USSC) said for well over a decade that the 100-1 crack MMs and guidelines were set way too high? When all these Boogeymen finally got around to voting on a fix in 2010, the FSA passed nearly unanimously. Is it PR smoke, Bill, when now nearly every poll shows 80+ percent support for medical marijuana reform and yet the CARERs act has not yet gotten a hearing?
You may be right, Bill, that a majority of members of congress and/or a majority of the public will oppose reforms. But the only way to find out is to have a vote.
For the record, I think Senators Durbin, Reid and the Dems in control last Congress are much more misguided than Senator Grassley. Senator Grassley is basing his blockade on seemingly an honest belief that, as a matter of policy, these reform bills are bad for the nation. The Dems based their actions on seemingly a misguided belief that, as a matter of politics, taking a vote on these reform bills would be bad for their party.
So, to tweak your terms, I would call Senator Grassley a too-powerful politician who now blocks what could be an informative and important vote/debate based on his honest (but suspect) views of good policies. I would call all the Dems you mention too-craven politicians who previously blocked what would have an informative vote/debate based on misguided (and illegitimate) efforts to put party politics ahead of their sworn duties.
The failure to even have votes on these bills is why I find Democracy so frustrating. How can citizens hold their elected leaders accountable if we do not have a record of their views on these matters? I became a bigger fan of Ted Cruz and Jeff Flake when I saw their votes on the SSA in committee, and I am eager to know what a full (even failed) vote would look like.
Indeed, Bill, since you seem to have Senator Grassley's ear, can you urge him to take ASAP votes on the SSA and the JSVA and CARERS at least within his committee? You may be right that all these bills will fail in committee, but the only way to know is the have votes. Don't you agree that this is how democracy should work?
1. We're not talking about past proposals. We're talking about what's currently the main two items on the "reform" agenda, the JSVA and the SSA.
2. "You may be right, Bill, that a majority of members of congress and/or a majority of the public will oppose reforms. But the only way to find out is to have a vote."
Would you mind linking to the letter from the Sentencing Project, or FAMM, or the NACDL, or any "reform" organization, demanding a vote from Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Pat Leahy, Nancy Pelosi, John Conyers or anyone with similar power over the last six years?
I'll be very interested to see such a letter. I suspect there isn't any. And the reason there isn't is that it would be inconvenient for the purpose of portraying REPUBLICAN Chuck Grassley as the Boogeyman.
After that, I wonder if you could link to a poll that asks a representative sample the question at the heart of this debate: "Do you think judges should impose lighter sentences on drug dealers?"
And yes, it has to be THAT question, not some coded question that talks about "discretion" without ever mentioning what we all know additional "discretion" is going to (and is intended to) do: Put pushers back on the street earlier.
"The Dems based their actions on seemingly a misguided belief that, as a matter of politics, taking a vote on these reform bills would be bad for their party."
Q: Why would they think the bills would be bad for their party? Do all these guys have low IQ's?
A: Ummm.......let's think about this........Well............because THE COUNTRY IS AGAINST GOING EASIER ON DRUG PUSHERS, therefore the party that wants softer sentences for drug pushers is going to be in trouble.
I would ask you to consider the possibility that veteran, savvy politicians from all over the country like Reid, Durbin and Leahy might have a better feel for the public pulse than one-sided advocacy groups.
3. A vote of the people is more revealing (and more broadly democratic) than a vote in Congress.
Less than six months ago, we had a vote of the people. The Party that on the whole opposes sentencing "reform" drubbed the Party that on the whole supports it.
Does that mean anything?
In addition, not a single one of the nine newly elected Republican senators who took Democratic seats campaigned TO ANY DEGREE WHATEVER on lowering drug sentences.
We had the vote that counts. It was called "the election." As a direct result of the election, pro-reformer Sen. Leahy was bounced from the Chairmanship and replaced by pro-stay strong Sen. Grassley.
This is not because of the Boogeymen of either misguidedness or cravenness. It's because the people like having less crime, think drug pushers make their own bed, voted that way, and it wasn't close.
I will focus on your last point, with which I agree 100%: "A vote of the people is more revealing (and more broadly democratic) than a vote in Congress." That's right, and so let's look at all the recent votes by the people on the question at the heart of this debate: "Do you think judges should impose lighter sentences on drug dealers?"
To my knowledge, here are the most recent votes closest to this exact issue in the last two big election: In 2014, Prop 47 in CCA, MJ legalization in AL and OR; in 2012, 3-strikes reform in CA, MJ legalization in CO, OR and and WA. If I am not mistaken, in six of those seven votes by the people, the people voted for judges to impose lighter sentences on drug dealers.
If you want to claim that the 2014 senate votes were more about drug sentencing reform than the 7 elections that were actually about drug sentencing reform, go for it. But it is the results of those election --- where, as you said, a vote of the people was more revealing (and more broadly democratic) than a vote in Congress --- that leads me to think all the members in Congress unwilling to vote on these issues are behind the people.
1. How odd that you focus on the results in six states and simply tiptoe past the national election results.
2. "If you want to claim that the 2014 senate votes were more about drug sentencing reform than the 7 elections that were actually about drug sentencing reform, go for it."
Gosh, I was just taking a page from your book. Weren't you saying on your blog that it might be easier to pass drug sentencing "reform" if the Republicans won the 2014 national elections, because that would strengthen the hand of Rand Paul, Mike Lee, etc.?
3. I simply do not share your obsession with pot (a view I seem to hold in common with none other than Loretta Lynch).
As I have said here a zillion times, smoking a joint is de facto legal and has been for decades. It's this THING with libertarians, but I literally never hear anyone else talk about it. With defense bar poster boy Dzhokhar Tsarnaev blowing up little kids, it just doesn't hold that much interest for me.
4. Because smoking a joint is de facto legal, the actual debate about lowering drug sentences is -- as I know and as I'm guessing you know -- about lowering sentences for heroin, meth, Ecstasy and the other hard and occasionally lethal drugs.
I must have missed the state election results to lower sentences for those. Got a link?
I must have missed the bill in Congress that would lower sentences for those substances, BY NAME. Got a link?
I must have missed the poll where the majority (or anything close to a majority) said that they want lower sentences for those specific drugs. Got a link?
1. I am not seeking to tip-toe past anything, Bill, but rather trying hard to assess what recent elections can really tell us about the national mood concerning drug sentencing reform. I am not sure there is much to read from the 2014 federal election, especially in light of the failings of Dems to do much more than the Fair Sentencing Act since having control of the Senate. Perhaps that is why they were voted out --- the public obviously wants more drug sentencing reform and thinks the party of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz will finally deliver!
Of course, that last statement was tongue-in-cheek, but it is meant to highlight how hard it is to interpret national results about so many issues. Relatedly, I would note that I have yet to see many federal politicians (or voters) aggressively complain about (a) the 2007 USSC lowering of crack guideline sentences (plus retroactivity) or (b) the 2010 Congress lowering of crack statutory sentences or (c) the 2011 USSC lowering of crack guideline sentences (plus retroactivity) or (d) the 2014 USSC lowering of all drug guidelines (plus retroactivity). What does four significant federal drug sentencing reductions in recent years without any political or popular opposition/backlash tell us about the national political mood on this front?
2. I continue to believe and hope that, the 2014 national election, in which the party of Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz and Jeff Flake picked up seats and power, could increase the chances that the SSA and other federal reforms would get a floor vote. As you noted, the Dems failed to have a full vote to my chagrin. And now, it seems, Senator Grassley is blocking even a committee vote on these kinds of bills. As I asked before, Bill, since you seem to have Senator Grassley's ear, will you urge him to take votes on the SSA and the JSVA and CARERS at least within his committee? Don't you agree that democracy works best when we have actual votes to see where people actually stand?
3. I am not obsessed with pot, but I have a keen interest in the rule of law (as I think you do, too). Ergo, if marijuana truly is already "de facto legal," would it not serve the rule of law to have votes to make it de jure legal? Would you support legalization for at least rule of law reasons, or do you prefer federal criminal law that is de facto not what it is de jure?
4. If/when we get marijuana legalization --- which I hope you will come to support --- then I would agree that drug sentencing reform is only about so-called "hard drugs." And it is my understand that Prop 47 in CA did lower sentences for these drugs, so there is a state example. And the SSA, which has gotten a strong majority vote the only time votes were actually cast, provides a federal example. And here is a link to a recent poll (albeit an imperfect one) suggesting support for lower drug sentences: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/07/drug-sentencing-poll_n_7020668.html
5. Long story short, Bill, though you want to believe you have "the people" on your anti-reform side, the story is much more nuanced (and remains in development and flux).