There is going to be a great deal of spin about this bill, most of it in pre-packaged press releases from organizations that have not had much of a chance to study it (as no one will have at the time these press releases go out the door).  My purpose here is no more than to caution against swallowing the spin by identifying it for what it is.  I expect the bulk of it to hail the bill as the "breakthrough" for "reform" and to be on the breathless and gushing side. A minority will have a sourpuss, lowering-of-expectations slant, saying that this is a poorly disguised sell-out of what could have been a burgeoning movement to release the downtrodden of society.

I won't be signing up for either version. I will instead, for the moment, content myself with what I view as very likely to be the basics.  There are four of them.

First, the bill will not even resemble reformers' principal aim, the Justice Safety Valve Act, which would have effectively abolished mandatory minimums.  Second, it's unlikely (although not impossible) that it will even reduce the length of present mandatory minimum terms.  Third, it will add some new ones, meaning that, if it becomes law, we will have more MM's than we do now.  Fourth, of course it's a long, long way from becoming law.  Last year, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a more ambitious bill (the so-called Smarter Sentencing Act), which, after being heralded as having "unstoppable momentum," went nowhere.