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On Thursday, a group of senators introduced a bill they called "the biggest criminal justice reform in a generation" — an effort that, unlike other bills, actually has a shot at moving through the chamber.
The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act would reduce sentences of some current federal prisoners, and allow future prisoners to get shorter sentences. It's not the first bipartisan criminal justice reform bill to be introduced in Congress, but it's the first one with a clear path to passage in the Senate. That's thanks to an important ally: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
Grassley chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he's opposed past criminal justice reform bills — which has been enough to keep them from coming up for a vote in the full Senate. But the growing pressure for reform, both from advocates and within his own party, appears to have convinced him that he needed to do something. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, written by Grassley after months of negotiations with colleagues, is the result.
This means the bill isn't just a compromise between Democrats and Republicans — it's a compromise between criminal justice reformers and at least one prominent skeptic. But reformers hope Grassley's support will be enough to ensure that this bill makes it further than previous efforts have — and even ends up on the president's desk.
