Reasonable Minds Can Differ

But they will usually find more to agree on.

Case in point: this short interview with the junior U.S. senator from Utah.

He’s considered one of the more conservative members of Congress, but he’s also part of a bipartisan group that’s pushing to reform our criminal justice system.

As a former federal prosecutor, he’s asked how he feels about the justice system and what’s changed for him over time.

He points to one case in particular that, presumably, he didn’t charge. The defendant was a man with two young children. He sold very small amounts of marijuana to an informant three times. He also owned a gun at the time, though he didn’t use it or brandish it during any of the sales. Based on those facts and the way he was charged, the man received a mandatory sentence of 55 years.

Even the sentencing judge openly criticized the sentence, but he wrote that his hands were tied under the law. He also said that it was a problem only Congress could fix.

The senator remembered those words when he got to Congress, and now he’s trying to do something about it.

Why is he doing this when he’s supposed to be a conservative Republican?

That’s exactly why he’s doing it, he says.