Senator Mitch McConnell said the Senate would vote on a bill rewriting prison and sentencing laws before the end of the year, a potential bipartisan policy achievement for President Trump.<\/b>
\nWASHINGTON \u2014 Reversing course, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on Tuesday that the Senate would vote on a substantial criminal justice bill before the end of the year, teeing up a bipartisan policy achievement that has eluded lawmakers for years.
Advocates of the prison and sentencing law changes on Capitol Hill and in the White House have spent weeks lobbying Mr. McConnell, who controls the Senate calendar. They had the backing of President Trump, who endorsed the bill last month and urged Mr. McConnell in recent days to \u201cGo for it Mitch!\u201d
Mr. McConnell had repeatedly said that there was probably not enough time to consider the measure, and Republican leaders maintained as recently as a few days ago that the bill did not have the support of the majority of Republicans.
Mr. McConnell made clear on Tuesday that the Senate was considering the legislation \u201cat the request of the president\u201d and said that debate could begin later this week. With the addition of new business, Mr. McConnell also held out something of a threat: If senators were not willing to expedite consideration of some issues before the Senate, the chamber could hold votes the week between Christmas and New Year\u2019s.
Broadly speaking, the bill pairs investments in anti-recidivism programs in federal prisons and an expansion of early release credits with changes to sentencing laws to begin unwinding many of the tough-on-crime federal policies of the 1980s and 1990s. The authors of the bill, the First Step Act, have made a set of revisions made to accommodate Republican concerns, but have yet to release them.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin has been a vocal proponent of these changes and privately sought to pressure Mr. McConnell to take up the bill. He has pledged swift action in the House.<\/p>\n