Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) said on Monday that the legislation had the support of about 30 Republicans. Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) has said the majority of the 49-member Democratic caucus supports the bill. It would need 60 votes to pass."It's extremely divisive inside the Senate Republican conference," Mr. McConnell said last week at the annual meeting of The Wall Street Journal CEO Council. "In fact, there are more members in my conference who are either against it or undecided than are for it."
The bill is expected to give judges more discretion in crafting sentences, depending on the defendant's criminal history, and could reduce mandatory minimum sentences for some drug-related offenses. The bill also would seek to retroactively reduce some penalties affected by the disparity in crack- and powder-cocaine sentencing, which was narrowed in a 2010 law.
Senators had raised alarm in recent days that if the bill wasn't passed before the end of the year, the new Democratic majority in the House would change the bill and make it harder to pass in the Republican-controlled Senate.
So did any of the alarmed Senators introduce amendments to the bill to fix any of its glaring flaws? Apparently not.
The majority leader's plan to take up the legislation came with a warning to senators: if they don't cooperate, they will see the coming recess vanish.
"Unless we approach all this work in a highly collaborative, productive way and take real advantage of unanimous consent to expedite proceedings, it is virtually certain that the Senate will need to be in session between Christmas and New Year's in order to complete this work," he said on the Senate floor.
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