When might we expect advocacy groups to push Prez Biden make needed appointments to the US Sentencing Commission?

As we officially hit six months into the Biden Administration, it seems a good time to express my frustration again that there has not yet been any nominations to the US Sentencing Commission.  As I have noted in a number of prior posts (some linked below), due to a lack of Sentencing Commissioners, the USSC has not been fully functional for most of the last five years, and the USSC has not had complete set of commissioners firmly in place for the better part of a decade.  The USSC staff continues to produce lots of useful research and reports, but the FIRST STEP Act's passage in December 2018 makes it particularly problematic for the USSC to have been completely non-functional in terms of formal amendments or agendas in recent years.

In this post a few weeks ago, I highlighted that all the openings on the USSC provide the Biden Administration with an opportunity to appoint transformative commissioners who could make the USSC into a criminal justice reform leader for years to come.  And, as the title of this post suggests, I am now growing a bit frustrated that an array of criminal advocacy groups are not yet publicly advocating on this issue.  (I surmise there might be behind-the-scenes work afoot on this front.  I sure hope so.)  Notably, a broad range of advocacy groups have been actively urging Prez Biden to broadly and aggressively use his clemency powers for various sets of offenders.  Though I share an interest in seeing clemency powers revived, clemency is often just a "one-time" achievement.  Effective appointments to the US Sentencing Commission can provide the foundation for advancing badly needed structural and institutional federal sentencing reforms for a generation.

Justified concern for the home confinement cohort at risk of being sent back to federal prison after the end of the pandemic has garnered lots of attention from advocates and the media.  But, ironically, with the pandemic dragging on, that cohort is still likely to be able to stay home for the foreseeable future even if Prez Biden does not grant some kind of mass clemency (and, as I have argued, Congress ought to be acting to address this issue).  Meanwhile, the federal prison population is growing significantly again, perhaps in part due to a number of beneficial changes to federal sentencing law from the FIRST STEP Act having not yet been fully implemented into the guidelines.  (I particularly have in mind potential expansion of the "safety valve" adjustment in the drug guidelines based on the statutory change in FIRST STEP; a parallel guideline change which might reduce thousands of drug sentences if made fully retroactive.)  With the pandemic dragging on and the federal prison population on the rise, it is especially worrisome that the Biden Administration is moving at a pace that could result in there is no functioning  US Sentencing Commission in place until 2022 and even no realistic chance for any needed guideline amendments until perhaps 2023.

I understand that other appointments, from judges to other executive branch positions, are a higher priority for many political insiders and advocacy groups.  But shrewd and bold nominations to the US Sentencing Commission could and would serve as an effective way for Prez Biden to signal a real commitment to criminal justice reform while also reviving an agency with a long history of impactful work on the federal sentencing system.  In addition to hoping the Biden team is making some progress on this front, I also now want to urge criminal justice advocacy groups to see this is an important opportunity to advance needed change.

Last bit of insider tounge-in-cheek joke:  Maybe the Biden team should get really clever and urge Justice Breyer to give up his day job and serve again on the US Sentencing Commission. 

A few of many  prior recent related posts:

• Any guesses for when we might again have a fully functioning US Sentencing Commission? 
• New commentary calling for Prez Biden to revive the US Sentencing Commission
• Might we be getting closer to (needed) new nominees for the "frozen" US Sentencing Commission? 
• Getting antsy for US Sentencing Commission appointments after another slate of impressive judicial nominees from Prez Biden
• Timely reminder of US Sentencing Commission's decarceral potential ... when it is functional 
• When might we expect appointments to a new — a truly new — US Sentencing Commission?