September 29, 2016 | No Comments
House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were on opposite pages Thursday on the prospects of passing criminal justice reform — another hurdle facing proponents hoping to get a bill to the president’s desk this fall.
Speaking at a news conference, Ryan (R-Wis.) doubled down on his commitment to advance legislation to reduce nonviolent drug sentencing requirements once lawmakers return to Washington in November. The issue is a top priority for Ryan personally — though his House GOP conference is lukewarm at best, with some members concerned about looking soft on crime.
“I think it’s good legislation, I think the time has come, and we’re going to advance this issue as far as we can,” Ryan said.
Just a few minutes before that on the other side of the Capitol, though, McConnell offered a much different take.
“It’s very divisive in my conference,” the majority leader from Kentucky said. “I’ve got very, very smart capable people, without regard to ideology, who have very different views on that issue. Whether we can take something up that controversial in that limited amount of time available, I doubt.”
Criminal justice reform has pitted big-name conservatives like the Koch brothers who back the idea against law-and-order Republicans like Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Jeff Sessions of Alabama.
It’s unclear whether the political risk and calculation for Republicans will change after the election. Democrats broadly favor reform.
Ryan was bullish about getting it done.
“We do know we have more work to do to talk to our members about the merits of criminal justice reform,” he said. “It’s very bipartisan and it’s conservatives leading the charge on this: [Rep.] Raúl Labrador, [Sen.] Mike Lee, [Rep.] Bob Goodlatte. But there are a lot of our members who haven’t looked into the issue enough, and it’s those undecided members who have not formed opinions yet that we’re going to be communicating with in the weeks ahead.”