Long road to change for justice system
How Trump, Congress paved the way to ‘yes’
WASHINGTON – A frustrated Chuck Grassley pulled over on a gravel road 2 miles from his Iowa farm to talk to the president, who was flying home on Air Force One.
It was 3:15 p.m. Dec. 7, and the criminal justice bill the Iowa Republican championed was stuck at a roadblock: Mitch McConnell.
Grassley made his pitch.
“I used what I consider a historical argument. I said, ‘Listen, majority leaders, if they’re the same party as the president, ought to be carrying out the president’s agenda,’ ” Grassley recalled to USA TODAY.
Despite broad bipartisan support, including an unusual coalition of civil rights groups, conservatives and President Donald Trump, the Senate majority leader had not budged on the call to bring the First Step Act to the floor for a vote.
“He said, ‘Well, do you think I oughta tweet?’ ” the senator remembered about the call.
At 3:56 p.m., Trump fired off a tweet.
“Hopefully Mitch McConnell will ask for a VOTE on Criminal Justice Reform. It is extremely popular and has strong bipartisan support,” he wrote. “It will also help a lot of people, save
taxpayer dollars, and keep our communities safe. Go for it Mitch!”
Four days later, to the surprise and relief of supporters, McConnell went to the Senate floor and announced he would put the bill to a vote.
In a move that brought praise from both sides of the aisle, the Senate overwhelmingly voted 87-12 late Tuesday to approve the bipartisan bill. McConnell was among the 87.
The bill headed to the House, where it is likely to pass. Trump said he would sign it into law.
The measure, the first major criminal justice overhaul in decades, aims to reduce the number of inmates in the nation’s crowded prisons. It would, among other things, give judges more discretion in sentencing offenders for nonviolent crimes, particularly drug offenses, and strengthen rehabilitation programs for former prisoners.
“The net result of it last night is nothing short of a historic vote that really changes our outlook on our system of justice for the first time in decades,” Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said the day after the vote. “And it’s a dramatic change.”
The path hasn’t been easy. It has been a yearslong fight of compromising, stalling and maneuvering in public – and behind the scenes.
“If you’re wondering why this thing ever came up, we’ve done everything everybody asked us to,” Grassley said. “It’s kind of, how do you eat 10,000 marshmallows? One at a time. How do you get a co-sponsor or how do you get another person to say yes to the whip call? You do it one at a time.”
‘Only Congress’
For many lawmakers and advocates, work on criminal justice changes goes back years or even decades.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, was a federal prosecutor in 2004 when he heard about Weldon Angelos.
Angelos, an aspiring rapper, was arrested for selling $350 worth of marijuana three times while in possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to 55 years. The judge wrote a blistering opinion disagreeing with the harsh sentence, but he said he was bound by the guidelines.
The judge “said something that would haunt me ever since then. He said, ‘ Only Congress can fix this problem,’ ” said Lee, who was elected to the Senate in 2010. “Many years later, after I got to the United States Senate, that’s one of the things that caused me to start looking for allies on criminal justice reform.”
One of those unlikely allies was
Durbin.
In the House, Durbin backed a measure in 1986 that led to tougher sentences for crack dealers than for those trafficking cocaine. The measure was condemned for its disproportionate impact on African-Americans, who were more likely to possess crack than the more expensive cocaine.
Durbin vowed to fix the law. When he got to the Senate, he teamed with Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to craft a bill that reduced the disparity. It didn’t go far enough for Durbin.
Six years ago, he started working with Lee on the Smarter Sentencing Act.
“I can’t remember what brought us together, but it was a terrific alliance because it really puzzled people why Durbin and Lee would be doing something together,” Durbin said. “Our biggest problem was Chuck Grassley. He hated the bill.”
Grassley, who was in line to chair the Judiciary Committee, not only voted against their bill but slammed it.
Grassley said he eventually came around and became a supporter, but the bill never made it past the committee.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., joined the effort.
For Booker, a former mayor of Newark, his passion came, in part, from watching men and women return from prison, then struggle to find jobs or housing or aid to go to college.
‘Jared Kushner came to town’
Despite their passion and bipartisanship, including the backing of thenPresident Barack Obama, the efforts stalled.
Then, Durbin said, several things happened.
“The most important was Jared Kushner came to town. I met him about two years ago, and within minutes after our meeting, he said, ‘You know my father was in prison’ and talked about what an impact that had on him.”
Kushner’s father, Charles, went to prison in 2005 for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions. He spent more than a year there.
Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, became a key player, working with lawmakers in both chambers. He was crucial to getting Trump’s support.
Over in the House, Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., and New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the incoming House Democratic Caucus chair, bonded and decided to work on a criminal justice bill that had gone nowhere.
They teamed with Kushner on a narrow bill that didn’t address mandatory minimum sentencing. It easily passed in the spring.
‘Every name has a story’
Proponents of a criminal justice overhaul in the Senate were furious. They wanted to change mandatory minimums.
“We basically said ‘We’re going to do everything we can to defeat this bill in the Senate,’ ” Booker said. “That basically signed the death warrant.”
That move forced everybody, includ- ing Kushner, to the table to craft a more comprehensive bill.
Early one morning in July, Quovadis Marshall, pastor of Hope City Church in Waterloo, Iowa, walked into Grassley’s office in Washington.
Marshall, who had served seven years and four months for armed robbery, brought along his wife, Angela, his daughter, Kaylee, 23, and his son, Jonathan, 11.
“We’ve got this idea of the person on the other end of crime and incarceration, but those people have families,” said Marshall, who works with agencies to host a sports camp for troubled teens and a gang prevention program. “Those men and women can be released to become productive citizens. We didn’t want to send him a letter without a face, but we wanted him to know that every name has a story, and every story has a future.”
Marshall said Grassley vowed to get enough support for prison and sentencing changes.
“True to form, he was right,” Marshall said.