The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom
Friday, November 2, 2007 - 3
NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING
Granholm vetoes
parts of budget,
but signs most bills
Gov. Jennifer Granholm has
signed most of the new state bud-
get bills, but she also has rejected
portions through several line-item
vetoes announced yesterday.
Granholm vetoed more 'than
$800,000 set aside for various
projects in the state's Department
of Human Services budget, saying
they "cannot be supported during
these tight fiscal times."
The funding affects items rang-
ing from a school-based crisis
intervention program in Pontiac to
a social services program in New-
berry.
The governor also scaled back
rate increases planned for adop-
tion service providers to 4 percent,
which she said was the amount
agreed upon in budget negotia-
tions.
LANSING
Senate votes to
delay service tax
Under fire from an angry busi-
ness community, the Republican-
led Senate yesterday began the
process of killing off a 6 percent
tax on services lawmakers passed
a month ago.
By a 22-14 vote, the Senate sent
a bill to the Democrat-controlled
House that would delay the start
of the expanded service tax from
Dec. 1 to Dec. 20, giving lawmak-
ers more time to repeal the tax and
replace the lost revenue.
"We want to give them assur-
ance that we mean business to lift
this burden off their backs," said
Sen. Cameron Brown (R-Sturgis)
sponsor of the bill delaying the
tax.
WASHINGTON
Congress passes
another children's
health bill
A defiant Democratic-controlled
Congressvotedyesterday to provide
health insurance to an additional 4
million lower-income children, and
President Bulh vowed swiftly to
cast his second straight veto on the
Sissue.
The legislation cleared the Sen-
ate on a vote of 64-30. It passed the
House last week, but supporters
were shy of the two-thirds majority
needed to override Bush's threat-
ened veto.
"We're convinced that the presi-
dent has undermined an effort to
protect children," Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said
shortly before the vote.
VIENNA, Austria
U.S. official warns
that Iran faces
more sanctions
A senior U.S. official challenged
Iran's hard-line president yester-
day over his claim that Iranians
are immune from further U.N.
sanctions, saying such action is in
the works unless Tehran meets
demands to curb its nuclear pro-
gram.
Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad delivered his own
warning in Tehran, saying his gov-
ernment would make unspecified
economic retaliation against any
European country that followed
the U.S. lead in imposing sanctions
on some Iranian banks and busi-
nesses.
U.S. Undersecretary of State
Nicholas Burns made his comment
after a meeting with the head of the
United Nations' nuclear watchdog
agency that was meant to demon-
strate unity following recent strains
on how best to deal with Iran's defi-
ance.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
-3,845
Number of American service mem-
bers who have died in the war in
Iraq, according to The Associated
Press. There were no new casual-
ties identified yesterday.
Army Sgt. Louis A. Griese, 30,
Sturgeon Bay, Wis.
Cpt. Timothy L McGovern, 28,
Indiana
Spc. Brandon W. Smitherman,
21, Conroe, Texas.
Crack offenders to
get lighter sentences
New guidelines
could mean drop in
prison population
By SOLOMON MOORE
The New York Times
Crack cocaine offenders will
receive shorter prison sentences
under more lenient federal sen-
tencing guidelines that went
into effect yesterday.
The U.S. Sentencing Commis-
sion, a government panel that
recommends appropriate federal
prison terms, estimated that the
new guidelines would reduce
the federal prison population by
3,800 in 15 years.
The new guidelines will
reduce the average sentence for
crack cocaine possession from
10 years, 1 month to 8 years, 10
months. At a sentencing com-
mission hearing in Washing-
ton on Nov. 13, members will
consider whether to apply the
guidelines retroactively to an
estimated 19,500 crack cocaine
offenders who were sentenced
under the earlier, stricter guide-
lines.
The changes to the original.
1987 guidelines could also add
new impetus to three bills in the
Senate, one sponsored by a Dem-
ocrat and two by Republicans,
that would reduce or eliminate
mandatory minimums for sim-
ple drug possession.
Department of Justice offi-
cials said on Thursday that
applying the new guidelines ret-
roactively would erode federal
drug enforcement efforts and
undermine Congress's role in
creatingsentencing policy.
"The commission is now con-
sidering applying the changes
retroactively, something that
Congress has not suggested in
any of the pending bills," wrote
a Department of Justice spokes-
man, Peter Carr. "As we state in a
letter filed with the commission
today, we believe this would be a
mistake, having a serious impact
on the safety of our communi-
ties and impose an unreason-
able burden upon our judicial
system."
If the guidelines are retro-
active, crack cocaine offend-
ers would be eligible to apply
to the judge or court that sen-
tenced theim for reduced pris-
on terms.
In a letter to the commis-
sion in support of retroactivity,
the American Bar Association
acknowledged the possibility
that "courts will likely be inun-
dated" by crack cocaine offend-
ers trying to appeal their cases
under the new guidelines
regardless of the commission's
decision. Butthe associationsaid
that applying the new rules to
current prisoners would result
in "cleaner and more uniform
decisions."
Although Congress sets fed-
eral criminal statutes and could
have rejected the sentencing
guideline amendment within
the 180-day period that ended on
Thursday, once the new guide-
lines were adopted it became
the commission's sole decision
to apply'the new rules retroac-
tively or not.
Some legal observers said the
guideline changes were a way
of shoring up the commission's
credibility in the wake of a
2005 Supreme Court case that
allowed federal judges, many of
whom thought the guidelines
were too harsh, to apply lower
sentences in some crack cocaine
sentences.
"That created a kind of insta-
bility in the overall sentencing
guidelines," said Douglas A.
Berman, an Ohio State Univer-
sity law professor. "I think the
commission recognized that
the long-term health of all of its
guidelines depends on its ability
to get judicial adherence to their
guidelines."
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