How do we reconcile Senator Jeff Sessions’ vocal support for the FSA and strong opposition to the SSA?

May 14, 2014

There are many interesting claims and notable contentions in the letter sent by Senators Grassley, Cornyn and Sessions to their colleagues explaining their opposition to the Smarter Sentencing Act (first reported here). Most notable, I think, are the essential ideas set out at the start and end of the letter: despite a decades-long federal drug war that has grown the size of the federal government and has long included severe mandatory minimums prison terms, we still find ourselves in the midst of a “historic heroin epidemic” which apparently calls for “redoubling our efforts.” I believe that the sensible response to ineffective federal government drug policies and practices would be to consider changing some of these policies and practices, not “redoubling our efforts” (and thereby redoubling the size of an apparently ineffective federal government bureaucracy).

But, as the question in the title of this post suggests, I am now especially wondering how Senator Jeff Sessions, who was a vocal supporter of Congress’s decision in 2010 to reduce crack mandatory minimum sentences through the Fair Sentencing Act, has now signed on to a letter forcefully opposing a proposal to reduce other drug mandatory minimum sentences through the Smarter Sentencing Act. Notably, in this March 2010 statement, Senator Sessions stated that he has “long believed that we need to bring greater balance and fairness to our drug sentencing laws” and that the FSA’s change to crack mandatory minimums will “achieve needed fairness without impeding our ability to combat drug violence and protect victims.” In his words, the FSA’s reforms to crack mandatory minimums “strengthen our justice system.”

But now, four years later, Senator Sessions has signed on to a letter opposing the Smarter Sentencing Act which claims that this proposal to “reduce sentences for drug traffickers would not only put more dangerous criminals back on the streets sooner, but it would send the message that the United States government lacks the will or is not serious about combatting drug crimes.” This letter also asserts that “lower mandatory minimum sentences mean increased crime and more victims.”

Critically, the SSA changes federal drugs sentencing laws significantly more than the FSA: the SSA cuts the minimum prison terms for all drug offenses rather than just increasing the amount of one drug needed to trigger existing mandatory prison terms as did the FSA. Consequently, one can have a principled basis to have supported the FSA’s reduction of crack sentences (as did nearly every member of Congress when the FSA passed) and to now oppose the SSA’s proposed reduction of all federal drug sentences. However, back in 2010, Senator Sessions recognized and vocally stated that reducing some federal drug sentences would actually “strengthen our justice system” by helping to “achieve needed fairness without impeding our ability to combat drug violence and protect victims.” I believe (like a majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee) that the SSA would likewise “strengthen our justice system,” but Senator Sessions now seem to think it will “mean increased crime and more victims.”

Some prior posts about the SSA and debates over federal sentencing reform: