We have heard a good deal about the "growing momentum" of the "bi-partisan consensus" for sentencing reform. One would think that, with such a supposed consensus, the reform bill (the SRCA) would breeze through Congress.
Ooops.
Here's today's press release from chief co-sponsors Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Dick Durbin:
"Over the course of the last year in putting together this bill, we listened to a diverse set of views and came up with a consensus piece that passed the committee by a 15-5 vote. Now, as we look to floor consideration, we're again listening to colleagues, including those who have well-documented concerns with certain aspects of the bill. We're working to find a path forward that addresses some of those concerns while maintaining both the core principles and significance of the bill and the broad bipartisan support that the bill has already garnered. How those changes will look is still being determined, but we're moving ahead to get a bill ready to be considered on the Senate floor."
Translation: The current bill is dead meat. We have to make its wording more opaque to try to fool more people.
Well, good luck with that. A fancy dance with wording isn't going to make the mind-numbing surges in heroin and murder go away. It won't make the ocean of risky early releases through the Sentencing Commission go away. It won't make the early release/child murders of Wendell Callahan go away.
The problem is not failure to smooth over unnamed "concerns." The problem is reality.
Leave a comment