20181211.0430

On 7 December 2018, the editors of the San Antonio Express-News presented "Senate Should Pass First Step Act" in the online version of the newspaper. The editorial makes the case promised in the title, asserting that the Senate should take action on the legislation described--a long-overdue piece of criminal justice reform. The editors note the bipartisan backing of the bill and the stated willingness of some Congressional leaders and the current administration to see it become law; they also note the reticence of Senate leadership to move on the bill at the moment and the likely undercutting of the bill in the upcoming legislative session if not passed in the current. Incoming Representatives are likely to push for a bigger bill--which the editors note would, in itself, be good, though the current political climate makes passage of such an expanded bill unlikely. They argue, in effect, that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good, that those looking for reform of the current criminal justice system should take such victories as they can get when they are available--and keep fighting for more later.
As seems to be the case with reasonable frequency, the editors are not wrong. It is likely that the incoming Representatives, given their stated goals and the understandable frustrations of the voters who swept them into office, will seek for more reform than is currently on offer, and it is the case that more reform is needed than is currently on offer. Too, it is likely that the incoming Senators, responding to similar forces, will entrench their resistance to purportedly progressive pieces of legislation all the more deeply, making such a compromise as is represented by the First Step Act less likely to be extended to include more sweeping reform. The current offer feels like a rare chance to get something started--and, once a thing is started, it's easier to keep going. The body politic experiences inertia no less than more physical, tangible bodies.
That the editors seem to have the right idea does not mean that those who are in a position to act have the right idea, however. Instead, and as is unfortunately common, the opposite seems to be the case. A legislative leader that has demonstrated pride in holding up the duties of that legislative chamber, who has visibly ignored calls for procedural correctness, who has set aside decency and consideration in the public eye time and again, is hardly the sort to do something that might, for once, be useful and good. Such a person cannot be trusted and should not be trusted, and there is a certain naïveté in thinking that such a person would act in the way a good and honorable person would--or even someone ostensibly devoted to representing the will of the people, as an elected legislator ought to be.
It says something, and not something good, that such a person as is in leadership now is and is not likely to leave, willingly or no, any time soon. I am not sure I have the words to appropriately articulate what it says. I am less sure that they would be words others would do well to read, just as I am even less sure that something that seems like an obvious good idea will actually get put into practice, despite the recognition by many that it is something that ought to be done, both in itself and as an aptly-named first step towards more and better to come.