Political Quotes

“the United States Parole Commission is scheduled to expire tomorrow. After significant bicameral negotiations, 2 weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed by unanimous consent a bipartisan bill, H.R. 3190, to reauthorize the commission for 5 years. Public safety demands that we pass this legislation swiftly and I urge the Senate to support its immediate enactment. We should have passed this bill weeks ago, but a single Republican hold has placed us in the precarious position of seeking passage on the eve of expiration. This is not the way to protect public safety. The Parole Commission is responsible for granting or denying parole for Federal and District of Columbia prisoners who were sentenced before the Federal and DC Governments abolished parole. The commission was created to consider the requests of these ``old law'' Federal and DC inmates, but it also has jurisdiction over more recent DC offenders who are on supervised release from prison. In addition, the commission supervises some military law offenders, State offenders in the witness protection program, and foreign-law offenders serving sentences in the United States. The consequences of failing to reauthorize the commission would be dire. ``Old law'' Federal and DC inmates are required by law to receive periodic parole hearings. If the commission were unavailable to hold these hearings and declare that certain inmates should not be paroled, around 3,500 inmates would be released.…”