{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/content/news/senate-passes-cornyn-backed-criminal-justice-reform", "Senate Passes Cornyn-Backed Criminal Justice Reform", "2018-12-18", "2018", "2018-12", "Republican", "House", "TX", "John Cornyn", "C001056", "www.cornyn.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "We've seen these changes implemented across the country at the state level, including my home state of Texas, which has yielded incredible results.'\nThis bill is our opportunity to make meaningful changes in our criminal justice system. An opportunity to begin fixing a problem that plagues our country and our opportunity to take a model that's been working in the states for more than a decade and use it to benefit all Americans.'\n \nWASHINGTONSenator John Cornyn (R-TX) made the following remarks on the Senate floor prior to the Senate passing the First Step Act, criminal justice reform legislation largely based on his prison reform bill:\nWe've seen these changes implemented across the country at the state level, including my home state of Texas, which has yielded incredible results.\nWe can be smarter on crime and produce better results at a lower cost, and that message and those things that have followed have been enormously successful.\nBy investing in these education and training programs - these recidivism reduction programs - we can ensure that people who get out of prison, more of them will actually stay out of prison.\nThis bill is our opportunity to make meaningful changes in our criminal justice system. An opportunity to begin fixing a problem that plagues our country and our opportunity to take a model that's been working in the states for more than a decade and use it to benefit all Americans.", 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://www.cornyn.senate.gov/content/news/senate-passes-cornyn-backed-criminal-justice-reform"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6093170270323753, "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"}