This morning, after months of negotiations, a bipartisan group of senators, led by Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), unveiled a historic justice reform compromise. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act would bring a number of reforms to the federal prison system, including an expansion of the "safety valve" exception to mandatory minimum sentences, the creation of a second "safety valve," and rehabilitative programs designed to reduce recidivism, or repeat offenses.

The House of Representatives has already adjourned for the August recess. The Senate is expected to finish up its business this week before members leave Washington. The recess will not be a quiet one for members. They are gearing up for several tricky legislative initiatives and battles when they return in September, among which will be justice reform.

Several Senate Judiciary Committee members are working on compromise legislation that would combine elements of a prison and reentry reform bill, the CORRECTIONS Act, and a sentencing reform bill, the Smarter Sentencing Act. The committee acted on prison and sentencing reforms, separately, in the last Congress, but neither proposal made it to the Senate floor for a vote.

Over the last several years, many states, particularly where Republicans are in control, have looked for ways to get smarter on how they approach corrections. These states, such as Texas and Georgia, have seen tremendous success, and others are taking notice. Congress, however, has been slow to act on justice reform, even as the costs to taxpayers continues to grow due to the bad policies of the past.

William Davis and John Newmer­zhycky were traveling through Iowa in April 2013 on their way to Las Vegas from a World Series of Poker event in Illinois when they were pulled over by Iowa State Patrol in a drug interdiction stop. The state patrolman who pulled them over falsely claimed that Newmer­zhycky, who was driving, failed to turn on his turn signal when changing lanes.

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held an important, long overdue hearing on federal civil asset forfeiture laws and the need for reform to curtail or end abuse by the Internal Revenue Service and federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.

Education is - both traditionally and constitutionally - a local issue. Yet for many years, the federal government through the Department of Education has been bullying states into taking certain actions. For example, the adoption of common standards and testing requirements, in exchange for grants or waivers. As long as these incentives are in place, it is very difficult for states to independently and meaningfully repeal Common Core, as we saw with Indiana’s faux-repeal that was actually just a rebranding of the standards.