Howard Berman: “those States like Texas and New York, which do not now comply with the Truth-In-Sentencing Act, will still be better off…”

“those States like Texas and New York, which do not now comply with the Truth-In-Sentencing Act, will still be better off on this amendment because they will have a preference under the Beilenson language, any money appropriated under that provision. So while they are not going to be as well off as they would have been under the amendment I had intended to offer, they will be better off than they are under existing law. they are going to be actually better off because they are going to have a separate pool of money to draw from that the gentleman's State of California will not be able to dig into for better than half of the money available here and all of the money that is available under current law. So consequently in many ways those States will be better off because they are not affected in any way by this than they are presently. In other words, there is more money out here and the gentleman's State and any other qualifying State will have absolutely no divvies on the existing funds after this is passed, that which is out there. They will have your own pool of money to go to if they qualify.”