Reforms born in Texas go national in bipartisan bill
Criminal justice legislation unites fiscal conservatives, social liberals
WASHINGTON — It’s been more than a decade since Texas, a state known for its death chamber, embarked on a project of criminal justice reforms now credited with reducing crime, shuttering prisons and saving taxpayer dollars.
On Tuesday, those reforms took a step toward going national with Senate passage of bipartisan legislation uniting fiscal conservatives and social liberals in one of the most far-reaching sentencing reform packages in years, reducing some federal penalties and giving judges more leeway in sentencing offenders.
The First Step Act, shepherded by Texas Sen. Republican John Cornyn, represents a rare instance of bipartisan agreement in a polarized Congress still struggling to keep the government open in a protracted dispute with President Donald Trump about immigration and border wall funding.
It also marks a remarkable
consensus among libertarians and Christian conservatives looking for cost-effective prison reforms and social justice advocates seeking less punitive alternatives to longterm incarceration for nonviolent offenders.
A pet cause of Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner — the son of a convicted white-collar criminal — the bill is expected to be approved by the House and get to the president’s desk, possibly before the New Year.
The overwhelming 87-12 vote in the Senate belied weeks of contentious negotiations and arm-twisting to bring along law enforcement groups and conservative lawmakers, particularly Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, a holdout who remained concerned with shortening prison terms for violent offenders and serious drug traffickers.
A series of last-minute changes excluding the most hardened criminals helped remove some political hurdles, even if that cost the support of some liberal groups who said the bill does not go far enough to address criminal justice disparities toward minorities.
Critics also have said the impact of the bill is overstated, given that it applies only to federal inmates, who represent a fraction of all the people behind bars.
Backers hailed the First Step Act as a long-overdue effort to reduce the revolving door of recidivism.
It would lower mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and offer the possibility of early release to many inmates through job training and vocational education programs.
In a floor speech Tuesday, Cornyn said the focus of the bill is rehabilitation.
“Almost everybody in prison will serve their time and get out of prison,” he said. “The question for us is, will they be better prepared to live life on the outside in a productive way, or will they simply reengage in a turnstile?”
Cornyn cited the benefits of prison reform in Texas, which has seen incarceration rates drop by 23 percent and crime drop by 34 percent between 2005 and 2016. Eight state prisons closed along the way.
“In Texas, in 2007 or thereabouts, we had some far-sighted, visionary leaders, actually, who decided instead of just being tough on crime, which Texas has always had a reputation for, we needed to be smart on crime, too,” Cornyn said.
“We’re not just talking about money,” he added. “We’re talking about human potential. We’re investing in the men and women who want to turn their lives around once they’re released from prison, and we’re investing in so doing in stronger and more viable communities, and we’re investing tax dollars into a system that helps produce stronger citizens.”
Supporting groups
Final passage of the bill would provide a legacy achievement for Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate with aspirations to one day become his party’s Senate leader.
His upcoming political journey takes him through a 2020 re-election campaign, which got underway this month with endorsements from key conservatives like fellow Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who had been rumored as a potential Republican primary challenger.
The First Step Act also burnishes Cornyn’s reputation for pragmatism, even as he has solidly aligned himself with a president who is better known for telling police officers not to be “too nice” to prisoners in their care.
Cornyn’s bill, however, offers a little something to everyone, from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Koch brothers and the evangelical community.
On Monday, with the Senate embarking on preliminary votes on the bill, the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition issued a “key vote” alert putting lawmakers on notice that their votes on the First Step Act would be included in their 2019 congressional scorecard.
“Congress spent years talking about reforms to reduce recidivism and restore lives,” Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed said in a statement. “It is time to act.”
Texas conservatives also weighed in on humanitarian and fiscal grounds.
“For years, our prison system grew in spending and declined in results,” said Kevin Roberts of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “The notion of redemption was abandoned. Cost-effectiveness was discarded for the sake of punishment.”
The First Step Act, Roberts continued, “applies conservative principles to our corrections system. These principles will transform that system into something better.”
But amid last-minute concessions to conservative critics, a coalition of liberal faith groups came out against the bill this week, saying it doesn’t go far enough to reform the nation’s prison system.
In a letter urging lawmakers to reject the bill, the signers — including the National Council of the Churches of Christ — said it fails to meet their demands for comprehensive social reform.
“We seek reforms that acknowledge the impacts of structural and systemic racism perpetuated by public policy,” the letter said.
‘New and improved’
Nevertheless, momentum for the bill has been building in recent weeks, boosted in part by a new study by the bipartisan reform group FWD.us showing that nearly half of all adults in the U.S. — about 113 million people — have an immediate family member who has been incarcerated.
“These new findings bring to light the staggering scale of the United States’ incarceration crisis,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us. “This research corroborates what too many families have known for too long. Our current criminal justice system is harming our economy, communities and families.”
The bill also got a push from Cruz after he was able to include a measure excluding many types of violent offenders from being released early.
“With these changes, this bill gives nonviolent offenders a better chance at rejoining society while keeping violent offenders behind bars,” he said.
Cornyn acknowledged the concerns of law enforcement groups about providing early release to violent criminals who use guns to commit crimes.
Under a “new and improved” version of the bill, he said, firearms offenders would not be eligible for any sort of early release. “Earned time credits” for supervised release also would be limited, and it would be easier for officials to revoke early release for inmates who commit “nontechnical” infractions.
Among the First Step Act’s major reforms, those imprisoned under 1990s-era three-strikes laws would face maximum 25-year sentences, not automatic life terms. The bill also would make retroactive a 2010 law that reduced the sentencing disparity between powder-cocaine and crack-cocaine offenses.
The bill’s chief opponent was Cotton, who dubbed an earlier version of the bill a “jailbreak.” In a Wall Street Journal essay, he argued that amid the current drug epidemic gripping the U.S., this is “exactly the wrong time to go soft on crime.”
Much of the legislation is based on prison reform legislation Cornyn first introduced in 2014 with Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. But much of the late-stage maneuvering in the Senate has involved the newer sentencing components of the First Step Act.
Many of the provisions in the First Step Act passed the House in May with overwhelming support, by a 360-59 vote. The revised version also is expected to clear the House with broad approval.