GOP needs a win - Part 2

The big hype of passing some prison reform before the end of the year was met by the stone wall of Mitch McConnell's authoritarian ego...

The legislation, the First Step Act, builds on a prison overhaul bill passed overwhelmingly by the House this year, adding four additional changes to federal sentencing laws. It combines new funding for anti-recidivism programs meant to better prepare inmates to re-enter society and the expansion of early-release credits for prisoners, and reduces some mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, among other changes.

Though its effect would be limited to federal prisons and offenses — not state ones — experts believe the legislation could shape the experiences of tens of thousands of current inmates and future offenders.

[...]

Mitch McConnell told President Trump in a private meeting on Thursday [last week] that there is not likely to be enough time to bring a bipartisan criminal justice bill up for a vote this year, regardless of the support it has in the Senate and the White House, according to people familiar with the meeting.

[...]

McConnell told the president that the bill would most likely eat up about 10 days on the Senate floor — time that he did not have between now and the scheduled end of the legislative session on Dec. 14, according to the people familiar with the remarks.

[...]

Publicly, Mr. McConnell has avoided putting his thumb on the scale for or against the legislation. He told reporters on Wednesday that if proponents secured the support of at least 60 senators, he would be willing to push the bill forward, but cautioned that he would have to “see how it stacks up against our other priorities going into the end of our session.”

[...]

If the bill had enough support, Mr. McConnell said, he would be willing to bring it up next year, after the new Congress is seated.

  NYT

Sneaky old bastard. Does he think he can throw a wrench into the works that will make the Democrats vote against the bill and then use their refusal to support it as a cudgel?

So, trying to push the bill, and having publicly crowed about it, I guess Trump took to Twitter to call him names, right?



Where's the vitriol for Mitch? I guess we know who's boss in that combo.

"Already past."  How could it have passed if McConnell hasn't even brought it to the floor?

In the past three years, Senator Charles E. Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, blocked a Democratic Supreme Court nominee for more than a year, pushed through an army of conservative judges and helped cement a conservative Supreme Court by securing confirmation of the most controversial high court nominee in a generation.

All of that has come at great personal cost, so the 85-year-old Iowan had some chits to call in when on Monday morning, he joined a private phone call with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to discuss a bipartisan breakthrough to overhaul the criminal justice system and the nation’s sentencing rules.

I have been there for you, Mr. Grassley told Mr. McConnell, the man standing in the way of a quick vote on the measure.

  NYT

I guess we know who's the boss in that combo, too.

With President Trump supportive of the effort and Speaker Paul D. Ryan pledging to move it through the House, they increasingly view the Senate majority leader as the lone obstacle to unwinding some of the federal tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and 1990s.

Now top White House officials, Trump family members, Republican senators and allies of the billionaire activists Charles and David Koch are working to get Dr. No to a yes.

[...]

Proponents of the bill, known as the First Step Act, fear that Mr. McConnell will let the short window for consideration this year slide shut rather than bring up for a vote a complicated issue that divides Republicans. His allies insist that those fears are misplaced and that Mr. McConnell will make a decision based on factors he has already stated publicly: How much Republican support the bill secures and how it fits in with other must-pass legislation.

Yeah, we'll see.

McConnell told the senators on the Monday morning call that he was not trying to kill their legislation. Instead, he laid out the Senate’s remaining agenda for the year — including a major farm bill, must-pass government funding, and more judicial nominees — and reiterated that he did not believe he could make enough floor time for the bill to get a vote before mid-December, when Congress is scheduled to end its work for the term, according to the people familiar with the call.

[...]

Allies of Mr. McConnell said he was not opposed to the legislation, but was wary of bringing up a bill that could divide his caucus, particularly with other pressing priorities in the wings. He made no firm commitments to the senators but said he would look closely at the results of a formal whip count taken next week.

At one point during the call, Mr. McConnell asked why, if they had bipartisan support, the senators should not just wait until next year to try again.

Mr. Lee told the leader that he considered such a delay a death knell because Democrats favoring more expansive sentencing changes would take control of the House and push the bill to the left.

What a dilemma.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.