A Major Shift in Drug Policy (2018)

we'll have to leave it there thank you very much us senate majority leader mitch mcconnell says the senate will take up criminal justice reform before it leaves for the year the first step act would address prison and sentencing reform including lowering mandatory minimum sentences for drug convictions expanding recidivism reduction programs in prisons and placing prisoners no more than 500 miles from their families it has broad bipartisan support on capitol hill and it has the backing of the white house joining me now two senators who've been pushing this overhaul republican chuck grassley of iowa who chairs the judiciary committee and democrat dick durbin of illinois who is the minority whip in the senate gentleman good to have you both with us senator grassley it was just a few weeks ago that the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell was expressing not a lot of enthusiasm uh for this uh bill what changed well we just proceeded as you

have to do through the legislative process uh you know you have to have 60 votes to get something done so show me 60 votes so we showed him 60 votes uh what are you how are you going to get by the president so we negotiated uh with the president get him on board and he's on board and then how are you going to get it through the house of representatives we pre a conference sit with the house of representatives and jeremy goodlatte so it's kind of like how the legislative process worked we just did everything that needed to be done and once it got done it seemed to me that there was no excuse for not bringing it up and we probably got maybe 75 votes for it at least i would say well senator durbin there clearly were some modifications made in the bill what what was done to this bill and who worked on this well i started six years ago i believe with senator mike lee uh and we realized we couldn't get the first base without the chairman of the committee chuck grassley we sat down and

started working on changes so that the bill could be supported by senator grassley along the way cori booker joined us uh we've had an amazing group of democrats and republicans and yes the bill has changed it is not my original bill i learned a long time ago if you were determined to get your original bill without changes you're never going to see it happen we had to find compromises that didn't compromise the basic values we were fighting for well senator grassley uh as as senator durbin is saying there clearly were some some changes made some shift in language and in and in the substance of the bill but there is still some opposition among your republican colleagues senator tom cotton of arkansas is saying yes he likes some of these changes but he also says it still would allow for the early release of criminals who've committed violent offenses bank robberies uh where they were uh using dangerous weapons uh sexual assaults how do you answer the criticisms like the these well he's wrong first of all there isn't anybody going to get out of prison

as a result of our sentencing reform part of it uh everybody realizes with mandatory minimums there's some unfairness in it and this is to address the unfairness issue so you know you might have a 25 year sentence and somebody in prison feels it's not fair so you go back to the prosecutor before you even go to the judge but between the prosecutor and the judge you can make a case that maybe you ought to have a 15 year sentence or a 10 year sentence uh in in place and if if you convince the judge that could happen but you're not going to get out on the street as a result of a judge's decision so that's why i say that uh he uh senator cotton is wrong on that point well i ask about that because he's saying he he has yet to be satisfied on it well he he isn't going to be satisfied and he knows it and today i had this conversation with him i said you know i just looked up the record you and i vote together 92 percent of the time or 93 percent of the time and

he says well i must have been wrong seven percent of the time well he was wrong seven percent of the time and he's wrong on this senator durbin uh on the other hand there's been opposition from liberal groups who who believe the the sentencing rules regulations laws have been far too strict that they've been too harsh they've required people to serve time uh much more time than they should have served how does this legislation address their concerns well it doesn't give them all they wanted or all that i want but that's the nature of a bipartisan compromise but what it boils down to is this we went and said when it came to the sentencing provisions that if you have committed a non-violent drug offense without the use of a weapon and you are willing to cooperate with the government with the prosecution you will be eligible to be considered for a lower minimum sentence eligible no mandate on the judge it's still up to their discretion uh when it comes to the criminal records for example of those before them so there are some who would like

to have gone further and i did too but in order to get this bill moving forward with the support of groups like the american civil liberties union and the fraternal order of police we've really struck an amazing balance here we've got to take advantage of this when we can it's seldom that you find these groups together on anything well and and who was responsible for i mean who's been the main impetus behind this senator durbin well i introduced it with senator lee uh we brought it to senator grassley and it's been the grassley durbin bill for some time now but we're happy to have senator lee and senator booker with us uh we work together on this and i might add with support from the white house it has been absolutely essential and add to what he said about the white house by saying that jerry kushner's son-in-law of the president advisor to the president uh is a big force in moving this bill along to where it is now and particularly a big uh force in getting uh the president to back it and the president has quite a reputation for being tough on law enforcement and we all know he is tough on law enforcement and to have his backing

and he had a news conference and he says my pen's ready to sign this bill senator grassley how do you explain the shift though in in attitudes over the last few decades i mean we all remember the time or many of us remember the time when there was this very tough on crime uh war on drugs attitude there seems to have been a shift in thinking over the last 20 or so years yeah part of it's because of the high cost of incarceration part of it is a result of texas mississippi georgia maybe some other states proving that uh that if you train people and make them productive citizens when they get out you don't have them returning to the high cost of uh prison uh and you also uh don't have as much crime because you got to commit another crime to get put back in prison and then uh the just looking at some of the unjustified sentences that were given and feeling that that we got to be more fair if you're going to have respect for the judicial system so senator durbin

what would you add to that how do you think attitudes have changed why have they changed well we've gotten a little bit smarter we want to make our neighborhoods safer that's for sure we want to reduce the prospect that somebody who's dangerous is going to be on the streets but we realized that having someone serve 20 years or a life in prison for the simple sale of narcotics without a violent crime without a gun really went too far we want to be a lot smarter and as chuck said we've learned from a lot of states that there are things you can do and make available to prisoners so we're certain when they leave that they're not going to commit another crime that avoids another victim another incarceration another bill for the taxpayers and it ends up with a more productive life that's the goal criminal sentencing on one side president reform on the other part of the bill those two together i think have been proven by many states to be very effective so senator grassley uh clearly some bipartisanship at work here is this a sign of things to come or is this a one-time only uh situation uh no i think it's a good sign uh and uh the the senate

uh promotes some bipartisanship because you got to have 60 votes but uh people of good uh faith towards each other can get together and uh the senate isn't as divided as people to grassroots think it is we do speak to each other we work together uh and uh and and so i think it's a good news for the future senator durbin what about you do you think we're going to see any more of the two parties working together on significant legislation you will and even as we were waiting for this program to start chuck and i were talking about other legislature uh legislative activity that we share the same views on we're going to continue to work together we trust one another and i couldn't be here with this bill without him and i'm not sure he would have the democratic support without the myself with senator booker and others so it proves it can be done how about the how about the border wall immigration that's a little bit of deviation but you're never going to get 100 senators or even two

friends in the united states senate of different parties to agree on everything but you work together when you can and this is an example of where we're working together and we might have views on different things but we're still going to speak to gate speak to each other and get along and see what we can do together and there's no end to that if you if you if you want to be a good senator it's a midwestern thing judy yeah that's right too i had to ask senate senator senator dick durbin senator check grassley thank you both okay thank you very much and stay with us coming up on the news hour how one historic town is considering