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Second Chance Act Dies on Last Night of Senate Session: We'll Be Back |
As the gavel rapped the 109th Congress to a close, the Second Chance Act died. Despite overwhelming support for the bill by leaders of both parties as well as the President, the Senate was prevented from voting on it because Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) withheld consent to take the bill up. Had he allowed the roll to be called, the bill would have passed the Senate easily. The House leadership was prepared to immediately pass the bill and send it to the President for his signature. Sadly, it was not to be. Three years of hard work by an amazingly broad coalition ended in frustration.
Right up to the end, we had real hope that the bill would pass. We furiously sought ways to deal with objections and to coordinate its passage with leadership in both parties in both houses. I can't begin to adequately describe the efforts of the staffs of the Senate and House Judiciary committees in pressing for the bill. In dozens of calls over the days leading up to adjournment, they were always available, pleasant, cooperative and professional. And in the end, they were as frustrated as I was.
Senator Coburn was certainly within his rights to withhold consent under the rules of the Senate. However, we were hopeful that he would be satisfied registering his objections by voting "no", rather than preventing his colleagues from voting on this important bill.
Fortunately, our reentry working group isn't moping about this setback. Instead, we have already arranged for the bill to be introduced when Congress reconvenes in January. It sometimes takes a couple of runs up the hill to pass legislation, and the solid relationships developed between staff members and the groups supporting the Second Chance Act will provide a terrific foundation for our push to pass the bill next year. It was extraordinary to see the breadth and depth of the commitment to this bill. I know of no other legislation that enjoyed such support across all ideological, partisan, economic and racial lines.
Plus, many states are moving ahead with reforms in the way they prepare inmates for reentry without waiting for the federal legislation. Florida and Virginia have established groups to revamp their reentry systems. In Florida, Governor Bush appointed a dynamic ex-offender Vicki Lukis to head his Reentry Task Force, and in Virginia, Prison Fellowship's President Mark Earley, former Attorney General of Virginia, serves on the Joint Subcommittee Studying the Commonwealth's Program for Prisoner Reentry to Society. Both the Florida report and the Virginia report make excellent suggestions for revisions in state reentry policies.
Virginia is one of seven states selected by the National Governors Association to participate in the NGA Prisoner Reentry Policy Academy, which aims to help states take advantage of and build on other large-scale reentry initiatives. The other six states are: Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.
The NGA works closely with the Council of State Governments, which established the Reentry Policy Council whose report is a veritable smorgasbord of reentry programs and resources.
I also highly recommend Reentry: Helping Former Prisoners Return to Communities by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. This report emphasizes that "children do well when their families do well, and families do better when they live in supportive neighborhoods." It is around that central idea, which is not only practical but moral, that the report offers many programs and resources for reentry.
Justice Fellowship's Resource page on Reentry has many more useful links.
I hope you that you and your families have a blessed Christmas. As St. Peter wrote, "For a time God became a little lower than the angels...so that He would not be ashamed to call us His brothers."
In His service,
Pat Nolan
President, Justice Fellowship
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