First Step Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I want to speak on behalf of the amendments offered by Senator Kennedy and myself to the FIRST STEP Act. I think many of the policies in this bill are deeply unwise to allow early release from prison--thousands of serious repeat and potentially violent felons over the next few months if this bill passes.

Our amendments will not do much to solve that problem. They wouldn't solve some of the other problems of the bill which slash some of the minimum mandatory sentences on the front end of sentencing. However, they will fix the worst parts of this bill. I urge all of my colleagues to support them.

Frankly, I don't understand why any Senator would oppose them. Let me talk about what these amendments will do. The first amendment will specifically exclude early release from prison for certain heinous criminals to be certain they are going to serve the full length of the sentence to which a jury and a judge sentenced them.

Let me outline the crimes our amendment will cover and, therefore, prohibit from early release: coercing a child to engage in prostitution or any sexual activity, carjacking, assaulting a law enforcement officer, bank robbery, assisting Federal prisoners with jailbreak, hate crimes, and assault.

The bill sponsors have said this bill will not allow early release from prison for violent felons or serious felons. I consider coercing a minor into sex and prostitution, or carjacking, or bank robbery pretty serious crimes and usually violent crimes as well.

Our amendment would also ensure there are no violent felons released from prison or other sex offenders. This is consistent simply with the rhetoric and the talking points the bill's sponsors have used to sell the bill.

Unfortunately, the bill text does not cover all violent felons or sex offenders. Now, 62 percent of all Federal prisoners would still be eligible for early release according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. We are not solving all of the problems of the bill, but it would at least ensure that some of these most heinous criminals who prey on young children or the vulnerable are not released early from prison.

Our second amendment is a victims' rights amendment. It simply says, this bill, which creates new ways and categories under which Federal prisoners can serve their sentence, and if they do, in fact, get released from prison early, their victims will be notified and given a chance to comment. They don't get a veto. I, frankly, probably wouldn't object to that, but they just get a notice. They have a right to write a letter to the warden.

I think we should stand with victims at a time when we are passing legislation that is going to slash sentences on the front end for serious and repeat felons and then release them early on the back end. It is not too much to ask that we notify their victims when they are released early from prison and give those victims a chance to comment.

Finally, the third Kennedy-Cotton amendment would direct the Department of Justice to track the recidivism crimes of any prisoner released early from Federal prison under this law. The bill sponsors make much about the recidivism reduction training that Federal inmates will receive but how it is all evidence-based. This simply provides more evidence consistent with the traditional collection of criminal justice data of the Department of Justice. It directs the Department merely to report to Congress on the recidivism rates of inmates released under this legislation.

Again, these are very modest amendments. They are consistent with the rhetoric of the bill sponsors.

I know some of the sponsors have said this is a poison pill. I, frankly, don't see why. It is consistent with their own rhetoric, and 62 percent of all felons in Federal prison would still be eligible for early release. It does nothing to reduce the leniency on the front end for two-time and three-time drug traffickers.

These are pretty modest amendments. I wish we would have already voted on them. Senator Kennedy and I were ready to vote hours ago. I know there is some disagreement about other amendments on which we may be voting.

Let me state for the record that I also support Senator Lankford's amendment to ensure that faith-based organizations have access to Federal prisons and Federal grants as one of those very critical anti- recidivism opportunities that we provide to Federal inmates. This amendment was promised to Senator Lankford last week. Somehow it didn't get into the text of the bill. I think it could be adopted by unanimous consent. I certainly support Senator Lankford's amendment to be adopted by unanimous consent because I support faith-based organizations that work in prisons to try to help prisoners turn their lives around.

Another amendment under consideration is Senator Cruz's amendment that would exclude more offenses from early release. I support Senator Cruz's amendment as well, and I would support a unanimous consent agreement to call Senator Cruz's amendment to the floor and to pass it. It doesn't overlap exactly with my amendment. It doesn't have the same offenses, but it does have serious offenses. I think we should call that up as well. Then we can vote on the bill.

The bill has been years in the making--the result of painstaking negotiations. These amendments are pending. They are germane under the rules of the Senate. We should vote on them, vote on passage of the bill, and we should move on to the Senate's other business.

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I will take the 2 minutes for this division, I believe. Senator Kennedy will take the 2 minutes for each of the next two amendments.

This amendment is very simple. It simply ensures that the sponsors' rhetoric is reflected in the text of the bill. We have heard for years that this bill would not allow violent felons to be released from prison. As it stands now, this bill allows people convicted of carjacking, bank robbery, and coercing a minor into sexual activity and into prostitution to be released early from prison, among many other things. That is just a fact of the bill itself.

The amendment that Senator Kennedy and I have offered would exclude certain specified heinous crimes like coercing a minor into sexual activity or prostitution from those prisoners who are eligible for early release. It would also ensure that no person who is convicted of any crime of violence or any sexual offense is released early from prison. That is what the bill sponsors have said all along. Unfortunately, the bill language does not reflect that rhetoric. Our amendment will ensure that it does.

I know some people have called this a ``poison pill,'' which is a slogan in the substitute of an argument. The U.S. Sentencing Commission has said that even if this amendment passes, 62 percent of Federal prisoners will still be eligible for early release.

If I could do more, I would, but I think we can all agree that people who are convicted child molesters should not be allowed early release from our Federal prisons. If you are curious about how many sex offenders we have and what our Bureau of Prisons thinks about them, let me share with you this little statistic. There are over 15,000 sex offenders in Federal prison and 72 percent of them are currently assessed at low risk. Let me say that 72 percent of those 15,000 sex offenders could be eligible for release if we don't have a simple exclusion on sex offenders and crimes of violence.

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Mr. COTTON. I appreciate that from the Senator from Iowa. If that is the case, I will defer to the Senator from Louisiana because I think he wanted to speak on that specific division.
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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I will not speak for 2 minutes. There was confusion earlier about which amendments we are voting on.

Frankly, most of you have heard my arguments before. Just to clarify, this has six specific exclusions from early release--offenses like coercing a minor into sexual activity or prostitution, carjacking, bank robbery, hate crimes, as well as a catchall for crimes of violence and sex offenses.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time and urge my colleagues to vote yes.

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