Political Quotes

“I rise to talk about the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. We had a good vote earlier today on proceeding to that legislation, and it is my expectation and hope that we will vote on this legislation either today or tomorrow morning. Let me say first say, this legislation called CARA, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, also includes some criminal justice reform. It is one step closer to this broader bill that Senator Grassley and Senator Booker just talked about. I am a cosponsor of their bill because I do think we need sentencing reform, but CARA actually has some reforms called diversion programs. Instead of putting people who are in the criminal justice system and addicted to drugs in prison, they are put into a treatment program, and those treatment programs have proven to be successful. We have drug court funding and specific new programs for our veterans. The notion is, this is part of criminal justice reform, to actually take people who are suffering from drug addiction in the criminal justice system and move them into treatment, which makes so much more sense for them, their families, taxpayers, their communities. That is part of this underlying legislation that we will vote on later today in the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. I also support broader legislation. I am hoping the broader legislation will have more to do with the prisoner reentry programs as well--the so-called second chance.…”