First Step Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, let me first say how grateful I am to Senator Grassley for his friendship, No. 1., and his leadership, No. 2. It has been one of the highlights of my Senate experience to work with him on this bill. We trust one another. It reached a point where he said: I am not going to make a big decision unless you tell me it is all right, and I hope you will feel the same way when it comes to decisions affecting me. And I did, and it paid off because we came to trust one another. We worked together to reach a point last night where we passed a bill which I think will be judged in a positive way in the history of our country.

I might add that Senator Mike Lee of Utah was an early ally in this effort, but our team wasn't putting together a winning record until Chuck Grassley joined the squad--not only joined it but led it. Then we brought in Cory Booker, who was a valuable spokesperson and ally when it came to bringing groups together on the left and in the center to achieve this bill. Last night, the four of us celebrated a victory. But the victory was not ours; it was a victory for the American people and for those who want to make sure we have a just system when it comes to criminal law and prison terms that follow from those convicted.

For those three Senators who joined me, I can't thank you enough. I really hope we can get the band back together sometime for another issue. Maybe it is the second step. Whatever it is, I would like to continue to work with this group and expand it to those who would like to be part of our effort.

I think we showed something last night that most American people wouldn't believe: that a bipartisan group of Senators from across the political spectrum could tackle one of the toughest political issues of our day; assemble an array of support--left, right, and center--from Members of the Senate, as well as organizations devoted to law enforcement and civil rights; and at the end of it, have something we all felt was a fair product to send over to the House, which I hope will act on this very quickly.

I will say a few words about how we reached that point in a moment, but I want to take time now, as Senator Grassley has, to honor the staff of my office, who have done such an exceptional job to bring us to this moment.

Joe Zogby. Joe has been my chief counsel for several years now. For 6 years, he has worked tirelessly to get this legislation through the Senate--and I mean tirelessly. He fielded calls to negotiate the provisions of this bill at the same time he was coaching his sons in baseball and trying to take care of his family responsibility. Joe was available every hour of the day and night.

A special word of thanks to his wife, Lamece Baligh, and their sons, James, Elias, and Luke. I want to apologize to them for taking their dad away so many times for lengthy conversations, but we would never have reached success last night without that input from their father and husband.

This win would not have happened without the dogged determination of Joe Zogby. He is a rabid Phillies fan, so he is always looking forward to the next season and the next victory. Last night, finally, we won the World Series and passed this bill on the floor of the Senate.

No matter what assignment I give to Joe Zogby, whether it is the most technical, difficult, and challenging immigration issues or coming up with a new system of criminal justice or improvements to our system criminal justice, he always rises to the occasion. I am truly blessed to have him as my chief counsel. I may get the headlines, but, believe me, Joe Zogby deserves the credit.

By his side was Rachel Rossi. Rachel is a detailee to our office. She comes from the public defender's office. She told me this morning that they had warned her ahead of time this was probably going to be a pretty lackluster and boring experience, and nothing serious was going to be considered or passed during the time she was a detailee. Well, quite the opposite was true. She was here to be an integral part of the construction of this legislation and its passage. She is leaving as detailee at the end of the year, and I am going to miss her. While she will be missed, she is leaving our office on the highest possible note.

Rachel, I wish you the best. You were an important part of the legislation that passed last night.

Stephanie Trifone is our office counsel. She is involved in every issue that goes through the Senate Judiciary Committee. She played a supporting role to ensure that the bill was properly written and fielded countless calls and emails to keep our Senate staff and other staff well informed. She has been a steady hand, and we needed her every step of the way.

The rest of my team has its own assignments. Some of them worked tangentially on this bill, but I really couldn't function without Dan Swanson. He takes another agenda in the Senate Judiciary Committee, primarily on the civil side, and there is none better. There are times when people who were so-called experts would visit my office and say: Where does this Swanson learn all of these issues in such detail?

Well, he is a pretty bright guy, and I am lucky to have him. His day in the hot seat will soon come when we face another issue.

Debu Gandhi is an associate counsel. He is relatively new compared to the others, but I like his style and his determination. I have never asked anything of him that he hasn't produced the very best quality project in a timely way.

Manpreet Kaur Teji is the legislative correspondent who has to field all of the mail when I get up and give speeches that either make people happy or angry. I thank her for her commitment to our office.

I want to say a word about my floor staff. Reema Dodin has been with me since she was an intern in my office in Chicago. She went on to graduate law school and came to join my staff and eventually became my floor director. I didn't realize how much she was studying Senate procedure, but she has really become a valuable asset, not just to my office but to the Senate when we consider the options under the Senate rules.

Having been parliamentarian in the Illinois State Senate for 10 or 12 years, I can tell you that those who work in the parliamentarian's office, as well as those in support staff who are interested in Senate procedure, are absolutely essential to the successful consideration of important bills. Reema is in a unique position of helping to maneuver and whip the bill on both the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle. She certainly did her job last night with 87 votes in favor of our legislation.

MJ Kenny is by her side. He is the deputy floor director. He was always in the cloakroom and always on the floor to ensure the FIRST STEP Act had a fair shot of consideration and passage. MJ and Reema are an incredible floor team. I am lucky to have them, and I thank them both.

Corey Tellez is my legislative director. She ensured that all of the staff worked together to finalize the bill. She kept our office and other offices well informed every step of the way.

Emily Hampsten, my communications director, has been sending out messages from my office on a bipartisan basis from the beginning. She is always there with a smile and does professional work, and I thank her so much for her work.

Claire Reuschel is my director of scheduling. She controls my life more than anyone other than my wife. She sends me places when she thinks it is right, and she usually has good judgment in those decisions. She has navigated thousands of meetings and phone calls on this legislation and so many other things. To say that she is an important part of this process is a gross understatement.

Finally, Pat Souders is my chief of staff. He has been with me from the beginning. He started off in the House and now has assembled, I think, the best team on Capitol Hill. I thank him for not only finding these talented people but making sure that they get along with one another and that in their cooperation we can serve the people of Illinois first and the Nation in the most effective way. I couldn't do it without Pat Souders.

Let me say that this moment in history arrived because we had an idea that was due; it is an idea whose time was due. It was due for a number of reasons.

Thirty years ago, in the war on drugs, we were so frightened by crack cocaine that as a House Member, I ended up casting what I considered one of the worst votes in my career. I voted for the 100-to-1 crack to powder disparity in sentencing. It meant what it said: You would get 100 times the penalty for the same amount of crack cocaine as you would have in powder cocaine--the same narcotic, different form, dramatically different results.

We tried this in an effort to scare America straight, to let them know we were serious. We would get tough and use all of the political muscle we could find to stop the spread of crack cocaine. It was cheap. It was easily produced. It was deadly, especially to the fetus being carried by the addicted mother, and it scared us. I voted for that bill and have regretted it ever since.

I know what happened; it didn't work. You couldn't scare people straight. We ended up with more people addicted. The price of drugs on the street went down, and we started filling our prisons, primarily with African-American and Latinos inmates who were convicted under these crimes. We knew in our heart of hearts that like so many other laws, it was unfair. The majority--majority--of users of narcotics and dealers of narcotics are White. Seventy-five percent of those who are convicted and sent to prison for crimes related to drug dealing and use are African American and Latino.

This disparity on its face tells us that our system was fundamentally unfair and ineffective. I believe that is the reason we decided last night to stop trying to muscle our way through the drug war and start using our brains: What is it that will work, that will make certain those who are truly guilty pay a price and those who can be rehabilitated get that chance? It is as basic as that.

There is a second thing that has happened in America in recent years, and it is heartbreaking when you see the results. We are facing the worst drug epidemic in our history. For the first time in decades-- maybe in modern memory--we are being told that life expectancy in the United States is going down. It is because of the opioid drug epidemic. Thousands of people are dying because of overdoses of opioids, heroin, and fentanyl.

The opioid epidemic has opened our eyes to something else. Narcotics and their problems are not confined to the inner city. They are not confined to people of color, and they are not confined to the poor. This opioid epidemic has touched every corner of America in every State. There is no suburb too wealthy, no town so small that it can avoid this opioid epidemic. What it has done, sadly, is educate all of us in what happens with addiction and what we need to do to fight it.

We now look at drug addiction not as a moral curse but, rather, as a disease that needs to be treated. That doesn't mean we should give up on prosecuting kingpins and doing everything we can to stop the flow of narcotics, but we have come to realize that just sticking someone in jail, if they lived long enough to reach that point in their lives, is no guarantee they are going to come out of jail without that addiction. We have to be thoughtful.

We also have to have rehabilitation that is available for people across the board, whether they are rich or poor. That is something our opioid legislation of several weeks ago moves toward solving.

The other thing we have come to understand is, the cost of the current system is unsustainable. We cannot continue to fill our prisons at great expense and not put money into things that count in terms of protecting our communities. Arresting someone after the crime is, of course, part of a just society, but it doesn't stop that original crime from happening. We have to think about the crime prevention that makes our homes and neighborhoods and towns and cities safe all across America, and that was part of the calculation last night in this embarkation on a new approach.

Finally, I want to say that virtually every major issue that passes on the floor of the U.S. Senate--virtually every single one of them-- has someone backing it, pushing for it with a personal passion on the issue. I feel--not personally but having visited so many prisons and worked with so many people who have served time in those prisons--that we need to have a more just system, a more effective system.

I want to give credit where it is due. Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law, spoke to me about his feelings on prison reform the first time we ever met. I know it is personal to him, and I know it means a lot to him and his family. Because he cared and because he mobilized the conservative side of the political equation, we had an amazing vote last night with 87 Members of the Senate supporting the bill. All of the Democrats and then, on top of that, 39 of the Republicans were also supportive of the bill. I might add, Senator Lindsey Graham was absent. Now that he is back from Afghanistan, he told us he would have made it 88 if he were here.

I will close by saying thank you again to Senator Grassley. Thanks to Aaron Cummings. I thanked him personally last night. He worked so closely with Joe Zogby and with Rachel Rossi during the course of this; they really became a team. I think it was one of the reasons we closed this deal and sent it to the House. It is, however, the first step. We have to start thinking about the second step, and we need the help of all of our colleagues.

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