Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce, along with a broad bipartisan group of colleagues, a truly landmark piece of legislation.

It is the result of months of hard work and thoughtful deliberations. It is the largest criminal justice reform bill in a generation.

This bill represents a consensus among my colleagues and me.

There are elements of the criminal justice system that we agree can and should be improved. We all agree that statutory mandatory minimum sentences can serve an important role in protecting public safety and bringing justice to crime victims, and this bill will preserve the primary mandatory minimums to keep some certainty and uniformity in Federal sentences and to encourage criminals to cooperate with law enforcement. We even add two new mandatory minimums for crimes involving interstate domestic violence and supplying weapons or other defense materials to prohibited countries or terrorists, but our current system has produced some specific instances of severe and excessive sentences.

So we all agree that we need to lower some of the harshest enhanced mandatory minimums, and we all agree that we can do a better job of targeting those enhanced mandatory sentences to the most serious violent and repeat offenders.

This bill does just that. It even expands some of those enhanced mandatory minimums to criminals with prior violent felonies and State crimes involving the unlawful use of firearms. That will be a big help in cities across the country who face rising homicide rates from violent offenders who have been released from prison.

We also all agree that our current system could benefit from giving judges a bit more discretion in sentencing. That is why we are expanding the current safety valve.

We also create a second safety valve so that nonviolent offenders who have minor criminal histories or play low-level roles in drug organizations are not improperly swept up by mandatory minimums.

Finally, we all agree that we must improve our prisons and stop the revolving door. Those of us introducing the bill have agreed to give lower-risk inmates a chance to return to society earlier and with better prospects to become productive, law-abiding citizens.

There are other parts of this bill that are also important, but I will not go into them at this time. As I said, this is the biggest criminal justice reform in a generation.

Instead, I wish to end with the idea that this bill is about the Senate. Senators from both sides of the aisle and Senators with very different perspectives have come together to solve an important problem facing the United States. This is how the U.S. Senate can work, should work, and I am pleased to be a part of it and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Finally, I extend my sincere thanks to my colleagues who joined me in this effort: Senators Durbin, Cornyn, Whitehouse, Lee, Graham, Schumer, Booker, and Scott, and my friend Ranking Member Leahy.

I close by again thanking the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, for the great help that he has been, not only as my friend, but also for his work on this piece of legislation.

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