Trump Is Expected to Endorse Easing Some Mandatory Sentencing Laws
It would also extend retroactively a reduction in the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine signed into law in 2010, which could affect thousands of drug offenders serving lengthy sentences for crack-cocaine offenses, which were dealt with far more harshly than the same crimes involving powder cocaine. That disparity hit black Americans hard while letting many white drug dealers off with lighter punishments.
The changes have attracted a broad and unusual group of supporters, such as the billionaire conservative brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch and the American Civil Liberties Union, who view similar changes on the state level as successful models for federal policy. Advocates on the right see an opportunity to begin to cut into the high costs of a 2.2-million-person federal prison population. On the left, the current sentencing laws are thought to have unfairly incarcerated a generation of young men, particularly African-Americans, for drug and other nonviolent offenses.
The Fraternal Order of Police, the country’s largest police organization, said last Friday that it would support the bill, and the National Sheriffs’ Association appeared to have dropped some previous objections after exceptions were made to block certain fentanyl offenders from eligibility for “good-time credits” included in the prison overhaul portion of the bill.
But powerful pockets of opposition remain among some law enforcement officials and conservative lawmakers like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who argue that sentencing changes like those proposed pose a risk to public safety. These opponents lost a powerful ally within the administration when Mr. Trump fired his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, last week. Mr. Sessions’s temporary replacement, Matthew G. Whitaker, has signaled that he is more open to the changes.
Mr. Trump himself is leery of appearing weak on crime, and he has been susceptible to arguments from opponents of a sentencing overhaul that endorsing one could arm his critics. Still, his son-in-law has pressed the issue for months, and some of the president’s advisers say they think the effort could help improve his anemic standing with African-American voters, even if only marginally.
If Mr. Trump follows through, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, a Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is expected to quickly introduce the legislation and ramp up his lobbying efforts. Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat who has worked closely with Mr. Grassley on the issue, would be responsible for assuring Democrats that the bill’s sentencing changes were a deal worth accepting, despite some concessions from an earlier Obama-era effort. Those concessions could cost support from liberal lawmakers, who want to hold out for a more expansive sentencing rewrite.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, a vocal advocate of such changes, committed to putting the compromise on the House floor in a lame-duck session that began on Tuesday if Mr. Trump endorses it and it can clear the Senate.