Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today, in what may very well be my last floor statement as a Member of this esteemed body, I rise in strong support of the First Step Act. The bipartisan and bicameral bill before us is a meaningful and historic criminal justice reform measure. This is also an issue that I have dedicated much of my work to as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Nearly 4 years ago, I and former Ranking Member Conyers created the Criminal Justice Reform Initiative at the Judiciary Committee to address the significant congressional interest in criminal justice reform from Members who do and do not serve on the Judiciary Committee. The purpose of the initiative was to develop bipartisan legislation to address several facets of the Federal criminal justice system, including overcriminalization, prison and reentry reform, sentencing reform, protecting citizens through improved criminal procedures and policing strategies, and civil asset forfeiture reform. In addressing these issues, the committee relied on the work of the Over- Criminalization Task Force, which held nine hearings on a variety of criminal justice topics during the 113th Congress, as well as the information provided to the committee by interested Members during the committee's listening session in June of 2015. The work of that initiative has already yielded tremendous results.…”