Republican leaders on either side of the Capitol are sending mixed messages about the future of criminal justice reform in Congress’s lame duck session.
On Thursday morning during his final press conference in Washington before the general election, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) hinted that legislation that aims to reduce some mandatory minimums and help reduce recidivism may get a vote in the House of Representatives after the November election.
When listing out his agenda items Thursday, Ryan said he hoped to work on a mental health bill, the 21st Century Cures initiative and he was “also hoping we can make progress on criminal justice reform.”
In the Senate, however, McConnell was sending a different message.
“We’ve got about three weeks back here after the election. My own personal priorities are funding the government and the 21st Century Cures bill,” McConnell said. “With regards to the criminal justice reform issue … it is very divisive in my conference. We have very, very smart, capable people without regard to ideology who have different views on that issue. Whether we can take up something that controversial with that amount of limited time available, I doubt. “
After painstaking negotiations with the once-reluctant Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), criminal justice reform passed out of his committee in 2015 and seemed to have plenty of time to work its way through the rest of the Congress. In the House, another bipartisan criminal justice reform bill passed out of committee a month later.
However, opposition in the Senate Republican conference from hardliners like Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) paired with campaign screeds from Donald Trump on the state of rising crime in America all combined to halt the reform effort on the hill.
Even individuals who have worked on the legislation for more than two years, have voiced skepticism that the bill will get a real shot in the lame duck Congress.
“You got to be kidding,” Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) said when he heard that Cornyn had told reporters the lame duck was an option to move criminal justice reform. “As my co-sponsor to this legislation I need him, I’ll work with him and of course hope springs eternal, but I don’t get it.”
