Capital perspective.

• Author: Baker, Jason
• Position: Criminal legislation under Pres. Barack Obama's administration

AFTER SEVERAL MONTHS of what you could consider a "feeling out" period for President Barack Obama and his administration with congressional leadership, it looks as if our president is beginning to push his agenda in Congress. With June living up to the hype during an extremely busy legislative session of Congress, here is a quick rundown of issues of importance currently being considered by Congress and a snapshot of what to expect in the coming weeks.

Appropriations

The House passed its version of the FY 2010 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) Appropriations bill on June 18, and the news was not great for America's prosecutors. The House included $150,000 for NDAA's National Advocacy Center (NAC) and did not include funding for the John R. Justice (JRJ) Loan Repayment Program. While disappointing, it was encouraging to see funding for the NAC included in the bill, which will serve as a "placeholder" of sorts during conference negotiations, which is expected to begin informally during August's summer recess. NDAA continues to work closely with Senate appropriators and leadership to secure increases to both the NAC and JRJ in its version of the bill, which is tentatively scheduled for mark-up within committee prior to the July 4 recess. Early indications are encouraging from the Senate, but we will know more by early July.

Senator Webb's Crime Commission Bill

In March, Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) introduced S. 714, The National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009, which is meant to take a top-to-bottom look at all aspects of America's criminal justice system. As written in the bill, the purpose of creating a National Criminal Justice Commission is to "undertake a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system, make findings related to current Federal and State criminal justice policies and practices, and make reform recommendations for the President, Congress, and State governments to improve public safety, cost-effectiveness, overall prison administration, and fairness in the implementation of the Nation's criminal justice system." While this idea is good in theory, the "Findings" section in S. 714 is troubling to many criminal justice groups, including NDAA, because of the overall and inaccurate message it conveys: America has the highest incarceration rates in the world, prisons are too expensive to maintain and most prisoners are currently serving time due to petty, non-violent drug offenses. This bill is Senator Webb's #1 priority...