For the roundtable discussion this morning we are joined by minnesota republican jason lewis, virginia democrat bobby scott to talk about the Bipartisan Legislation for the criminal Justice System, but before we get to that, with just days to go before the potential shutout coming your thoughts on how the next couple of days will play out . Guest theres the consent this we are not shutting the government found that wha down s under the bill is still getting worked out and i would hope that we could come to an agreement and funded for a year. I come from an area that is very strong in defense and virtually impossible. The shipbuilding for example exn a monthly basis you really need to be able to do longterm planning, so we are in a strong disadvantage in these monthly continuing resolutions. The guest i agree. We passed the appropriation bills in the house and senate and ended up getting back into the cr. On the defense especially i think we will get there but we wont shut the government down and we will do something very important for my home state of minnesota and that is the way the medical advice tax that is on the sales. We will get it done and handed over to the senate and see if they want to shut it down. Host you dont think that it gets included in this bill . Guest i dont think theres an appetite for that and we can handlet it separately ad thats the way we should. Theres a lot of important issues. The medical device tax, nobody likes taxes but if you eliminate we wouldn would put up by actie Affordable Care act would be paid for and theres a lot of things i dont like the cadillac taxed either so come up with something else. And what we dont see is how you are going to make up the revenue. Its a very Important CommunityHealth Center and is important to the spending levels. There is a lot of work that needs to be done and i dont think were any closer now than we were a month ago. Host do you think that democrats will make a stand on the reform . We will see i what is in the bil in the coming days but one issue that you agree on his criminal Justice Reform. How did you come together on this issue . Guest ive been following at a number of years and i dont duration as he talks a post and this was important for me because theyre used t there use about federal case remember that when you were a kid and there ought to be a federal law. We are seeing the code expand exponentiallyav. 2,000 more statutes plus the federal criminal statutes. Imme a conservative and believe in these amendments primarily especially between citizens of the same state or the police power. We have a wide group of andorters from the right left. We have a liberal reason to support this and conservative reason which is why James Sensenbrenner worked with scott on this before i go to congress. Host what is the liberal reason to support that . Guest its a question of what you are doing with the criminal justice to codify slow soundbites and get elected to reduce crime andct save money. Reducing crime and saving money isnt something liberals and conservatives ought to be able to agree on but if you are codify into slogans and soundbites many osoundbites many reduce crime, some of them haveu been studied and add to the crime so when you have a bill that reduces crime and saves crs money i think it is something people will be able to agree on. States are way out in front of this. The incarceration rate is exploded over the last 20 or 30 years and its gotten to the point that weve codified so many slogan soundbites that the states figured out they cannot afford it. They spend 200 million about 10t was projected in town and they not only didnt have to build new prisons they were able to close some of the prisons they had. That eliminated a 2 billiondollar potential excess. That is something that people ought to be able to agree on. Host its a fair and effective justice acts. You can take a look at it on our two members web sites available on line. We are taking your calls as well for the next 40 minutes this morning on the washington journal democrats 202 7488000 republicans 202 7488001. Congressman jason lewis on the prevention side what are some of the specific changes you are recommending . Guest do what works, rehabilitation. Dont throw hardened criminals in with firsttime offenders and things like that but 32 states to the representatives pointed made reform. Im saying the laboratories of democracy have to be allowed to work and we have had an increase of federal imprisonment by over 500 since 1980. The cost is gone from 970 million to 6. 7 billion over the same time but thats a 600 increase in federal prison costs. We simply cant afford to keep doing this so we have to allow for states to experiment. We have to reduce the federal criminal code and get back to what works as senator scott said so evidencebased strategies are one thing but regardless of what they do we have 32 states that made these changes. But they play out. Thats good 10th amendment wasabi. Host the prison population accounting for 13 of the population in this country. Why not focus on the stateside . Guest the problem is with the federal government does in terms of policy. When we have draconian mandatory sentences for lowlevel drug offenses they tend to pick it up and three strikes and youre out that we passed in the early 90s and we serve as a model for the state. The states have gotten to the point where they can afford to keep uper and Washington State s based with a loted of prison expansion in prison costs. They did a study to come up with what has been shown to work to reducece crime and new went through things like Early Childhood education which we will log term effects working with prisoners and the Second Chance program to reduce the recidivism rate in prisons, rehabilitation so when they get out they are better prepared to stay out. Just they continue him and you have this effect a continuum of initiativest, that are designed from a researchbased death to reduce crime and save money. One of them is as the epic at reduction of mandatory minimums for which at some point require judges to violate common sense. It is the judge imposes a sentence that makes sense because the mandatory minimum we have to. Drug cases with the Opioid Crisis and nobodys talking about fiveyear mandatory minimums. About mentalg Health Services in drug rehabilitation to deal with the problem and not the person strategy. Hes or medical issues and with regard to some of these drug cases we dont want them overturn what the state prerogatives. Happened during the Clinton Administration at a happened during this one is the attorney general gets his way and with the 10th amendment i dont think it will work. They want to put firsttime drug offenders and with hardened criminals. T theres a thing called the valid work are worker where you have a kid the runs were from school and the only reason he or she is in trouble is because of their age. You want to throw them in with hardened criminals and keep them locked up like thats a good way to createrd c another one and i dont think thats wise policy. Host talk about the drug problem in the united states. Yesterday at the white house hears what he had to say. We have a tremendous massive drug problem and drug population and we have dealers all over the country and we are hitting them hard, the dealers. The dealers are beingng hit hard but what they have done the families and what they are doing to the country is something that we are very focusedt on whether its opioids or whether its drugs as you hear the traditional sense. Much of it coming to the southern border. People dont like to talk about it. They say why do you mentioned that . Because it happens to be true but coming through many places and they come in many different ways but we are on the drug problem as much as we can possibly be on it. We are going to get it taken care of one way or the other. Frankly the tougher we get the better its going to be in the fasters going to go away. We have got to get really tough on that problem because its eating away at the heart of our country. Hosts ofry the president there, the tougher we get the easier its going to be. Do you agree . Guest is suggested we can do with the drug problem by dealing with the supplied. So long as people want the drug somebody will supplyal it. You can deal with the dealers based on somebody on the corner dealing drugs. You take them off the corner and put them in jail with a long prison term tomorrow afternoon somebody else is going to be on the same corner and youve done nothing about the amount of drugs that are consumed are consumed. Rarely have to deal with demand. We deal with them and youve done something. Dealing with the dealers is helpful but its not a costeffective way of dealing with the drug problem. You havent heard that with the opioid trouble him. Lets go are you in the Trump Administration on the same page in dealing with these issues . Guest 3 trillion since the war on drugs . He got to reduce demand and having said that hardened dealers i mean the big kingpins they think there should be repercussions serious repercussions that but thats part of what we are trying to do is preserve the prison stakes for the bad guys and not throw the firsttime offender in with those folks in waste resources. Host lives is a new jersey democrats. You are on with congressman bobby scott and jason lewis. Caller hello. I am in support of criminal Justice Reform especially for the massive inmates that are incarcerated at the state level. I have spent 15 years teaching in a new jersey state prison cell i am quite familiar with the populace there. I think one thing that is distressing with the Opioid Crisis because it is hitting largely middleclass and uppermiddleclass youth we rule out immediately incarcerated for them but when i was teaching in the 1980s and 90s in the state prisons we had poor young men basically who were addicted and they were given large prison sentences and we had teachers and programs so that when they left they could have a decent life. I think we need to l revisit thr original sentences. We might want to think of expunging some of them. I dont think lets look at the Opioid Crisis. These folks, theirt, lives were drastically changed for the worse through their addiction problem and nobody is talking about assisting them as they come out of prison or try to rebuild their lives on the outside. Westco thanks for your call. Congressman scott. Guest its being dealt with as a Public Health issue rather than a criminal justice issue and i think thats the appropriate response. What happened in the past, you cant undo the past but they act about 10 years did significantly reduce the penalties are very lowlevel possession only cases. Administration commuted sentences for those who have beens given draconian mandatory minimums. His computations were for those that were lowlevel nonviolent essentially first offenders who have already serve 10 years. The first thing that has to occur is how did somebody lowlevel offender gets so much time that after 10 years based dont needidid help and how is society getting any benefit from the expenditure of money keeping lowlevel nonviolent offenders for more than 10 years . Plus good you think the Trump Administration should commute more sense as . Guest thats what the Obama Administration did and i think you ought to look at cases whereoo by any objective standad but the response to the Opioid Crisis is much more appropriate and we have to look at that as well. Guest i agree with that. You dont want to look at a situation where you are putting mandatory minimums of people using prescription drugs which is the problem much more than opioid drugs. People are prescription shopping and they are getting hooked on Something Like that. I dont think of mandatory minimum or a three strikes youre out program is appropriate. To the callers point point is a little different than saying ms13 gangs infused neighborhoods that engage in violence so there is a proper role. We are trying to assess priorities for having the punishment fit the crime. Host a memorandum from the attorney general back in may attorney general Jeff Sessions writingg on the sentencing procedures its important to prosecutors charged the most provable offense. This policy firms m are responsibly to enforce the law and produces consistency id definition the most serious offenses are those the carrie mandatory minimum sentences. Guest im not altogether certain that is the best way to go about this but again there are too many federal crimes and everything under interstate Commerce Clause falls under federal jurisdictions and that is one of thee reasons i worked with representative scott on this issue to make sure everything isnt a federal interstate crime. Let those laboratories of democracys figure out the best approach. It doesnt have to be a federal solution for everything. Guest i think the policy is to do what nixon center particular circumstance. Some of the mandatory minimums for you art technically driving your boyfriend to a drug deal you are part of the conspiracy. Your penalties based on the quantity of thera drugs in the conspiracy so the girlfriend is sitting up there taking a message driven the boyfriend to a drug deal and 20 some years. Thats absurd under the circumstances. You should not have that kind of mandatory minimum. Guest it doesnt have to process. Host andrew in massachusetts on the line for democrats. Go ahead. Caller yale i was born in a largely christian family. We all went to catholicc schools until high school. I was born with severe learning disabilities and first grade ones, second grade twice. They showed me into Public School in the third grade teacher in the public a Public School was the only teacher that me. D to help in sixth grade. Host andrew, criminal Justice Reform. Guest this is part of the justice thing. I could drop out or they are going to keep me until im 21. Most of my friends ended up in jail. A lot of these people end up on the corner selling drugs and doing crimes are people like me who have no other way to make money. If you get the education done and the money for it a lot of these people would end up at least getting jobs. I work minimum wage. I can barely read. I went from sixth grade to tenth grade. Host andrew thanks for sharing your story parallel you talk to the Ranking Member of guess that theres a strong correlation for dropping out of school in a trajectory towards crime. Everybody who drops out doesnt commit aan crime but the chanceo be getting involved in the criminal Justice System is a lot higher if you are a school dropout. Programs have been shown to help reduce crimes. The provision and prevention programs generally and dropout prevention programs are eliminating many of the mandatory minimums. The real king pence but the lowerlevel offenses with a significant reduction in mandatory minimums and that can be rogue reprogrammed into it Early Intervention programs. Guest before we get to the safe justice act we have got to get juvenile Justice Reform through. Its being held up for this Valid Court Order exception which i think is an obstacle but this will pass if we can just get it to conference and get this worked out. Thats a precursor to criminal Justice Reform for adults so representative scott and i were harmed hard on juvenile Justice Reform and theres no reason it shouldnt pass the session. Host waterline from republicans, gina go ahead. Caller good morning and appreciate cspan aser always. Governor jay i. V. And main and 2017 authorized and she gave back alabama citizens the right to vote and we elected doug jones and now and i did vote for me thats our to part of criminal Justice Reform even though alabama is known for. Iolations my second is a talk about criminal Justice Reform but like the department of justice secretary Jeff Sessions about the marijuana and california being a sanctuary state these are violations of our laws. I mean if you all want to talk law we will talk law and thank you and god bless you. Host appreciate the call. First on the marijuana whether its illegal on the federal basis and is this something we want to spend their money on whether its legal under state law and whether we want to enforce the federal law and thats something the congressman will have to deal with legislatively. But since states have legalized it for prosecutorial discretion on the federal level not to prosecute people who are conforming with state law. Guess goes the constitution protects the people from the state in government. It saves from one another. Justice marshall back in the 19th century there is not to go criminal code. Two or three Crime Prevention in the constitution. Why do we have 4500 federal thats the real driver to restore that principle so the government closest to home can govern the best. Host steve from pennsylvania. Caller thank you cspan for having this conversation. I listen to the president s statement as far as getting hard on drug dealers and if i was to give them a message it would be if he truly wants to keep kids off drugs and marijuana prohibition. We know its the gateway. Not the drug its the drug dealers who dont for our representatives on the program i would ask that they work to remove marijuana from schedule one. You see kids can get on the computer and they have can look up schedule one drugs and they see marijuana, they see opiates. They tried marijuana and jay nothing happened, i didnt die. Maybe the other drugs are fine. Host congressman lewis. Guess that thats the great irony of prohibition. We had that experience obviously i think it was rockefeller was one of the leading proponents of