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 In a legacy-shaping issue for President Barack Obama, the
measure's sponsors announced four new Republican co-sponsor senators
and a new version of the bill at a press conference in the Senate.
The measure now has 37 co-sponsors, according to Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Charles Grassley.
Grassley said he had been waiting for the bill to be finalized
before asking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring it up
for a full Senate vote, but that "it is time for those discussions
to start right now."
As revised, it still lowers mandatory minimum sentences for some
non-violent federal drug offenders, but it no longer applies to
anyone convicted of a serious violent felony.
 That change was a response to conservative critics of the bill,
which is central to Obama's efforts to overhaul the country's
federal criminal justice system and reduce prison overcrowding. That
effort has been a rare example of Republican and Democratic
agreement in the polarized Congress.
The bill's advocates have said they hope the revisions and new
co-sponsors, such as Republican senators Mark Kirk of Illinois and
Steve Daines of Montana, will convince McConnell to bring up the
bill for a Senate vote.
Daines and Kirk lent their support after adding minor requirements,
including a provision that savings from it go toward purposes such
as fighting gangs of national significance.
After a group of conservative Republican senators led by Tom Cotton
of Arkansas claimed in January the reforms would release violent
felons, the bill’s authors began excising parts of the proposal that
eased the sentences of violent criminals.
The bill now includes a new mandatory minimum sentence for crimes
involving the opiate fentanyl, mirroring parallel sentencing reforms
that await a floor vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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The House legislation is likely to contain changes to "mens rea"
laws that govern criminal intent, said Senator John Cornyn, a
sponsor of the Senate bill, at Thursday's press conference.
Mens rea reform was excluded from the Senate measure because its
authors were divided on the issue. Democratic lawmakers generally
oppose strengthening mens rea requirements on the grounds it would
enable more corporate malfeasance as it is difficult to prove the
"intent" of a corporation.
To exclude violent criminals from the Senate bill, the authors
removed a section that lowered minimum sentences for unlawful gun
owners with three prior convictions for violent felonies or serious
drug offenses, known as “armed career criminals.”
Such criminals represent nearly a fifth of the 12,908 current
inmates who would have been eligible for resentencing under the old
bill, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
(Reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and James
Dalgleish)
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