This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Don't tell the Utah Republican Party, but Sen. Mike Lee can do bipartisan with the best of them. When he wants to.
Utah's junior senator Thursday joined an across-the-aisle assemblage of Judiciary Committee members to announce increased support for a bill aimed at shrinking the bloated population of federal prisons by dialing back the number of crimes that carry draconian mandatory minimum sentences.
The pure common sense of the bill, which Lee had championed with such high-ranking Democrats as Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Dick Durbin of Illinois, was hung up for months as some prosecutors objected that it would offer too much leniency to big-time drug lords and violent offenders.
But Thursday, Lee and company picked up the support of Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and the National District Attorneys Association. All are now in support of a bill that, to the satisfaction of all concerned, targets the options for reduced sentences, even retroactively, to non-violent offenders, particularly those involved in low-level drug crimes.
"To be effective, a criminal justice system must be seen as legitimate," Lee said. "And for too long our federal sentencing laws have required punishments that just don't fit the crime."
The concepts behind the The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act have widespread support among the public, academics, legal organizations and advocates for criminal justice reform.
The idea is to turn back the over-zealous trend toward mass incarceration that has bedeviled the United States for many years. And that, researchers are now finding, has done little to actually keep our streets and homes safer.
Meanwhile, Lee and Leahy are rolling out another bipartisan reform called the Email Privacy Act. It is a bill that would require federal law enforcement agencies to get a court-ordered warrant, not just an administrative subpoena, to obtain any email message or other digital communication more than 180 days old.
The law is necessary to make up for the fact that the relevant existing federal statues are 30 years old and do not allow for 21st century means of communication and expectations of privacy. The House version passed the other day by the rare margin of 419-0.
It is safe for everyone to compliment Lee on his bipartisan achievements on criminal justice and privacy issues because he faces no opposition in this year's Republican primary race, and so is in no danger of being beaten down for the sin of collaborating with the enemy.
Amazing what you can accomplish when you don't care who shares the credit.