{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://labrador.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=49&itemid=1001", "ICYMI: Idaho Falls Post Register highlights Labrador's 'central role' in bipartisan sentencing reform", "2015-10-27", "2015", "2015-10", "Republican", "House", "ID", "Ra\u00fal Labrador", "L000573", "labrador.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\tFOR MORE INFORMATION:\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\tTuesday | Oct. 27, 2015\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\tDan Popkey  208-800-1565\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\r\n\r\n\r\n\t\r\n\r\n\t\r\n\r\n\tIN CASE YOU MISSED IT:\r\n\r\n\tIdaho Falls Post Register highlights Labradors central role in bipartisan sentencing reform\r\n\r\n\t\r\n\r\n\tWASHINGTON, D.C.  A lengthy story by Bryan Clark in todays Idaho Falls Post Register notes the efforts of Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, as part of a broad coalition making significant progress on sentencing reform.\r\n\r\n\tIn a story titled, Land of the locked up, Clark explores how Labradors experience as a young, conservative lawyer influenced him to advocate for judicial discretion rather than mandatory sentences. Labrador has been working on the issue since shortly after he took office in 2011.\r\n\r\n\tPost Register subscribers mayclick here to read the article. The newspaper also granted permission to republish the story, which follows:\r\n\r\n\tBy BRYAN CLARK\r\n\r\n\tbclark@postregister.com\r\n\r\n\tThe United States of America is known as the Land of the Free.\r\n\r\n\tBut more people are behind bars here than in any other country  many, many more.\r\n\r\n\tAn American is roughly 1.6 times more likely to be in jail or prison than a Russian, six times more likely than a Chinese, seven times more likely than a Canadian and nine times more likely than a German, according to the Institute for Criminal Policy Research.\r\n\r\n\tAbout one of every five prisoners worldwide is in an American jail or prison.\r\n\r\n\tIts a weird thing to (consider) the most repressive regimes you can think of, and know that we have a higher incarceration rate than they do, said Kevin Ring, director of strategic initiatives for Families Against Mandatory Minimums.\r\n\r\n\tThe USA is the land of the lockedup.\r\n\r\n\tBut theres a movement afoot to change that, and Idaho Rep. Ral Labrador has played a central role within it. Many say the tide has turned against the tough-on-crime policies enacted in the 1980s that have helped the federal prison population explode from about 25,000 in 1980 to about 220,000 at its 2013 peak.\r\n\r\n\tA bill before the U.S. House would reduce the number of defendants who are subject to mandatory minimum sentences  sentencing floors for certain types of crimes which a judge cant go below. And a second bill before the U.S. Senate would reduce the length of several mandatory minimums.\r\n\r\n\tThe reform movement has gotten support from both the left and right. Crucially, the chairmen of both the House and Senate judiciary committees are on board, making legislative change increasingly likely.\r\n\r\n\tA young, conservative lawyer\r\n\r\n\tLabrador worked as an immigration and criminal defense attorney prior to entering politics. When he went to law school, he didnt have much sympathy for criminals.\r\n\r\n\tI started out as a young, conservative lawyer thinking to myself, I could never represent a criminal defendant, he said.\r\n\r\n\tBut as he learned about the criminal justice system, he concluded that conservative principles of limited government ought to apply to matters of crime and punishment.\r\n\r\n\tIf youre a conservative, you believe the government should have limited power and authority to take away your property, your liberty and your freedom, he said.\r\n\r\n\tThat doesnt mean the guilty shouldnt be punished, Labrador said. Its about applying the proper level of punishment to a given crime.\r\n\r\n\tThe current system locks up too many who arent particularly dangerous for far too long, he said. And that can turn them into dangerous people.\r\n\r\n\tIn a lot of these cases youre talking about nonviolent drug offenders, who can be better treated in many cases through rehabilitation, drug programs or very small sentences, Labrador said. Instead, theyre getting caught up in a system where they enter as low-level criminals and because they have these long sentences they come out of prison as more violent, high-level criminals.\r\n\r\n\tLabrador began introducing federal sentencing reform bills soon after assumed his House seat in 2011.\r\n\r\n\tThere were a lot of Democrats who had been working on it for many years, but what you saw was people like Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and myself bring together a coalition of conservatives who got behind the sentencing reform push, he said. And that has changed dramatically what has been happening in both the House and Senate.\r\n\r\n\tAnd while many of Labradors proposed reforms were more sweeping than those now before Congress, some of his ideas have been incorporated into them.\r\n\r\n\tThe bills\r\n\r\n\tThe Houses Safe, Accountable, Fair, Effective Justice Act would take a variety of steps to soften the blow of federal mandatory minimum sentences.\r\n\r\n\tIt would limit drug mandatory minimums to high-level drug ring leaders.\r\n\r\n\tIt would expand an safety valve that would allow nonviolent drug offenders without many prior offenses to avoid mandatory minimums if they plead guilty.\r\n\r\n\tIt would create new safety valves for nonviolent drug offenses committed because of mental illness or addiction.\r\n\r\n\tA related Senate bill would reduce the length of a variety of mandatory minimum sentences. A life without parole sentence for a third-offense drug crime would be reduced to 25 years, for example.\r\n\r\n\tMany of the reductions are retroactive, meaning some prisoners serving under mandatory minimums could apply to have their sentences reduced or to be released.\r\n\r\n\tBoth bills apply the Fair Sentencing Act retroactively. That 2010 legislation reduced the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1.\r\n\r\n\tSo it could mean that many in federal prison for crack cocaine-related offenses could apply for release. Ring said it could mean around federal prisoners 6,000 could be freed sooner.\r\n\r\n\tLabrador had backed that provision in previous sentencing reform bills he wrote.\r\n\r\n\tCurtis Smith, an Idaho Falls attorney who does federal criminal defense work, said he thinks the reforms are important for Idahoans who find themselves facing federal charges.\r\n\r\n\tMandatory minimums often lead to unfair sentences, he said. A client may be an addict who played a peripheral role in a drug deal and was cooperative with police, for example, but if they face conspiracy charges they can be in for a long sentence regardless of the specific circumstances of the crime.\r\n\r\n\tMandatory minimums take too much discretion away from judges, he said.\r\n\r\n\tBipartisanship\r\n\r\n\tThe bills managed to unite the left and right. The House version has 28 Democratic and 27 Republican co-sponsors. The Senate version has 10 Democrats and seven Republicans. Labrador is the lead Republican co-sponsor of the House bill.\r\n\r\n\tThe Senate bill passed through the Judiciary Committee last week by a wide 15-5 margin.\r\n\r\n\tSome pockets of resistance remain, mainly from federal law enforcement and federal prosecutors.\r\n\r\n\tSteven Cook, president of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys, told the Senate Judiciary Committee the bills seriously weaken the very tools that federal prosecutors  have used to keep our communities safe.\r\n\r\n\tBut the reform efforts have brought together such unlikely allies as the American Civil Liberties Union and GOP super-donors Koch Industries. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero and Koch General Counsel Mark V. Holden co-wrote a scorching critique of the sentencing system for Politico backing the reforms.\r\n\r\n\tSpending on the federal prison system has exploded from $970 million in 1980 to $6.7 billion in 2013, they noted, accelerating at more than twice the rate of inflation.\r\n\r\n\tWhile we have a good handle on how much taxpayers money weve wasted on over-criminalization and mass incarceration, the cost in human lives is incalculable, they wrote. Almost every single federal prisoner serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses has one thing in common: a drug offense that resulted in a de facto death sentence.\r\n\r\n\tIts hard to tell how many sentences could be reduced, or how many people who are currently in prison could be released by retroactive sentencing reductions, Ring said. Either way, its unlikely the mandatory minimum reforms would bump the U.S. from its position as the worlds leading incarcerator, fivethirtyeight.com found.\r\n\r\n\tYoung Turks\r\n\r\n\tRing said the push for reform represents a sea change within the Republican party as well as within the political climate more broadly.\r\n\r\n\tIn the 1980s there was a bi-partisan pig pile backing tougher sentences, he said. And thats when the problem began.\r\n\r\n\tThe federal prison population was flat for a couple hundred years until the 1980s, and then it shot up, he said.\r\n\r\n\tBut Ring said there has been a generational shift within the GOP, and many young senators and representatives are working with Democrats to cut sentences.\r\n\r\n\tI think its the biggest moment in a generation, Ring said. The direction has shifted. We dont know how far it will go, but for 30 years Congress has been ratcheting up sentences. And now for the first time theyre re-evaluating that direction.\r\n\r\n\tTheres no better example of that than Labrador, Ring said.\r\n\r\n\r\n\tReporter Bryan Clark can be reached at 542-6751.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://labrador.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=49&itemid=1001"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.849379226565361, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}