Pete Sessions: “I just will share a few thoughts I think are very important with regard to this legislation. We seem to have strong or…”

“I just will share a few thoughts I think are very important with regard to this legislation. We seem to have strong or at least grudging support from everybody on the underlying portions of the bill. At least that is what we are told repeatedly. But there is a suggestion that the Feeney amendment is such a horrible thing that the entire PROTECT bill should not go forward. I will just say a couple of things about that. The Feeney amendment was designed to deal with a growing problem of Federal judges downward- departing from the mandates of the sentencing guidelines and thereby giving lighter sentences than should be given to criminals. It is a growing problem. Senator Hatch had the chart there. Downward departures went from 1,200 in 1991 to over 4,000 in 2001. There have been some erosions of the clarity of the law about that. In effect, we are at a point of some danger that the integrity of the guidelines would be undermined. So I felt from the beginning we ought to give, in this body, serious consideration to the Feeney amendment and review it and see what we could do about it.”