Justice reform: Top Cory Booker priority OK'd by committee, but still could be derailed

Sen. Cory Booker was named to the Judiciary Committee only about a month ago, and he has quickly drawn attention for heated disagreements with officials of the Trump administration and pointed questioning of judicial nominees about racial equality.

But on Thursday, the Democratic former mayor of Newark was part of a bipartisan majority on the committee that approved a bill to revamp criminal sentencing laws, including relaxing some of the harshest penalties for nonviolent drug users.

It's an issue that was one of Booker's top priorities when he was first sworn in as a senator in 2013, and the vote came as six Republicans joined 10 Democrats in dismissing complaints from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and voting down an amendment from conservative Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

It remains to be seen, however, whether committee approval of the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act marks the start of a reversal of the decades-long trend of politicians passing tougher sentencing laws to prove they're "tough on crime" — or another dead end for reform.

While increasing some penalties, including for some violent crimes and interstate domestic violence, the bill also reverses parts of the "three strikes" law that required a mandatory life sentence for a third drug offense. It also would allow inmates sentenced under laws being relaxed by the bill to petition for sentence reductions or even release.

Sponsored by Sen. Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who heads the Judiciary Committee, the bill was the product of negotiations involving senators in both parties, including Booker.

Notably, it would give retroactive relief to inmates sentenced when federal law imposed 100 times longer penalties for crack cocaine than powder cocaine. A 2010 law that reduced that disparity did not provide any retroactive relief.

The bill also sets tougher penalties for providing prohibited countries with military materials and for trafficking in fentanyl-laced heroin. And it requires the Justice Department to classify inmates according to their recidivism risk and assign them to appropriate recidivism reduction programs, including drug rehabilitation and job training.

Booker is fond of saying the United States has far more people in prison per capita than any other industrialized country, and there is a much higher likelihood that African-Americans and other minorities will be stopped or face prison for drug offenses than whites, even though they are equally likely to be drug users.

"We have a crazy criminal justice system that is jacking up mandatory minimums. Outrageous things happen where people get 55 years for drug possession," Booker said after the vote. "This is an act that shifts back authority to judges."

Sessions, a former Alabama senator and committee member whose approval to be attorney general Booker opposed in a break with Senate protocol, sent the committee a letter Wednesday saying the bill would reduce sentences "for a dangerous cohort of criminals."

"This bill would allow judges to retroactively reduce sentences for dangerous firearms offenders," Sessions wrote. "In so doing, it risks putting the very worst criminals back into our communities and eviscerates the lawful results of either structured plea agreements or trials."

Cruz, R-Texas, attempted to amend the bill to bar any retroactive relief to people convicted of violent crimes or those involving a gun, but those speaking out against him included Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Grassley, the chairman.

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“It’s important to note that not a single person would be automatically released from prison and not a single sentence would be automatically reduced,” Grassley said.

Lee added: “There is no retroactive release for a serious violent felony, nor for the use or brandishing a firearm. This deals with situations of possession of a firearm."

Booker took aim at the suggestion supporters of the bill want to go easy on gun crimes.

“I don’t know any other senator who lives with the threats of violence that I do,” Booker told the committee. “I do not know of any senator who had a shooting on their block in the past year.”

Afterward, Booker said Cruz was "misrepresenting the bill" and "fear mongering."

Efforts to revamp criminal penalties at the state and federal levels have drawn support from liberals and conservatives moved by arguments they are not effective against crime, put a steady drain on public resources for police and prisons and perpetuate urban decay.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican leader in the Senate, opposed the bill, saying it should be scaled back because the provisions negotiated by Grassley and Lee with Democrats were too broad to pass the Senate and are opposed by the administration.

But Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said Sessions was long one of the biggest opponents of sentencing reform when he served on the committee.

"If the test is whether Jeff Sessions would support it, nothing is going to pass," Durbin said. "I don't think that should be the standard if we’re truly a separate branch of government."

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After the hearing, Booker said he was hopeful the bill could advance further, but stopped short of predicting that would happen.

"It's all about momentum," he said. "We know the story of civil rights in the United States. It took many efforts, many times working at it. And this is not going to be something that's easy. But nothing worthwhile in life is easy."