“They’re designed to kill it so I’m a no vote on all three,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Tom Cotton’s amendments.
The Senate’s criminal justice reform bill took a big, bipartisan step forward Monday night, but it still faces one big hurdle: Sen. Tom Cotton’s amendments.
The Arkansas Republican is pushing changes, introduced with Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), that could blow up the fragile compromise on legislation to reform prisons and sentencing laws.
The amendments would bar more offenders from participating in the bill’s earned-time credit program and would require the Bureau of Prisons to notify victims when a prisoner is released early. The amendments also would require authorities to track arrests of ex-convicts after they’re released from prison early.
In an op-ed published Monday in the National Review, Cotton argued that his “conservative friends and colleagues…have jumped on the bandwagon too soon.”
“A number of serious felonies, including violent crimes, are still eligible for early release in the version of the bill the Senate will vote on in a matter of days,” Cotton wrote. “In short, the First Step Act [criminal justice overhaul] flunks their basic test to protect public safety.”
But Democrats argue that Cotton’s amendments are nothing more than a strategy to sink the broader bill. They note that the amendments would divide the coalition of lawmakers and interest groups in favor of the bill and that the changes would only complicate the process for getting the bill through the House.
