Senator Tom Cotton continuing to do everything he can to try to keep the FIRST STEP Act from moving forward
Senator Tom Cotton continues to work with all his might to halt Congress from taking any reform steps via the FIRST STEP Act, and his latest efforts involve this new National Review commentary and what is reported here by Politico under the headline "Cotton wields sex offender report to tank prisons bill." Here is how Senator Cotton himself gets started at NR:
It remains to be seen whether the lame-duck 115th Congress will debate a sweeping overhaul of our federal criminal-justice system before we adjourn for the year. You may have heard about the legislation at hand, the FIRST STEP Act. I oppose it. I urge my fellow conservatives to take the time to read and understand the bill before signing on in support of this flawed legislation.
The 103-page bill that was released the Friday before Thanksgiving has some good parts, and I don’t question the intentions of the bill’s proponents. But you may have noticed that they talk more about their intentions than about the consequences of the bill. As conservatives, we know that good intentions say little about actual consequences. And to paraphrase Thomas Sowell, intellectuals who generate ideas with good intentions rarely have to face the consequences of those ideas personally.
When proponents of the bill discuss the substance, they claim that “nothing in the FIRST STEP Act gives inmates early release.” Instead of early release, proponents say, it merely provides incentives for inmates to participate in programs. This is nothing but a euphemism. Let there be no doubt: If the bill is passed, thousands of federal offenders, including violent felons and sex offenders, will be released earlier than they would be under current law. Whatever word games the bill’s proponents use will make no difference to the future victims of these felons.
Here is what Politico is reporting:
GOP Sen. Tom Cotton is locked in an awkward fight with fellow Republicans over their push to change federal prison sentencing guidelines. And now he has a new attack line intended to make his rivals squirm: Warnings that sex offenders could get off easy.
A new Justice Department analysis — conducted at Cotton‘s request — found that the Senate’s bipartisan sentencing and prison reform bill could make people convicted of some sex crimes eligible for early release. And though President Donald Trump supports the bill, Cotton says the DOJ confirmation underpins his argument that convicts of certain sex-related crimes could accrue credits making them eligible for supervised release or “pre-release” to a halfway house.
While GOP leaders are beginning to assess the prospects of the bill on the Senate floor, the Arkansas Republican argues that the latest version of the bill has been rushed and contains significant flaws and is hoping to sway undecided Republicans to join him. Cotton and Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) have been battling over the specifics of the bill since it was released in mid-November, exactly the type of intraparty firefight Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been hoping to avoid.
The argument over the bill's treatment of sex offenders took center stage on Monday, drawing the latest public shots between the warring Republican senators. “Now that the Department of Justice has confirmed that the Senate FIRST STEP Act offers early release to multiple categories of sex offenders in several provisions of the bill, Congress should fix these problems instead of ramming this bill through. There is no such thing as a ‘low-risk violent sex offender’ who deserves earlier release than under current law," Cotton said in an emailed statement.
A spokesman for Lee defended the legislation in response to the DOJ analysis on Monday and accused the bill’s opponents of “spreading fake news” about the bill. “Just because a federal offense is not on the specific list of ineligible offenses doesn’t mean inmates who committed non-specified offense will earn early release. All inmates must first pass a DOJ risk assessment before they can even begin earning good time credits. And then they must secure certification from their warden that they are not a threat to safety before they can be released,” said Conn Carroll, a Lee spokesman. Carroll added that Lee is open to revising the bill if it turns opponents into supporters: “If adding to the list of specifically forbidden offenses would get some senators to yes, we would love to help them do that on the Senate floor.”
Their colleagues are watching closely. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said that a Cotton op-ed panning the bill made a "compelling argument" and indicated his vote is in play. A number of Trump's allies, from Grassley to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are behind the bill, but in the Senate even a small band of opposed senators can make a floor debate stretch out for a week — all while lobbing attacks at fellow Republicans for being soft on crime.
"I'd like to get it through but we still have a few problems that we ought to work out," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). "I'm for doing it if we can. We have a shot at it but we're going to have a lot of cooperation."
Senior Senate Republicans said on Monday they could not predict what McConnell will do. The president has lobbied McConnell to bring up the bill, but the GOP leader has told Trump the Senate's schedule is crowded over the next month. McConnell has emphasized that funding the federal government by the Dec. 7 deadline and finishing a farm bill are his top priorities. And the House would probably have to vote on whatever the Senate passes on criminal justice reform, and ousted House Republicans may want to head home as soon as the funding bill is finished.
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