The White House has withdrawn a proposal that would have broadened criminal background checks for federal job applicants by requiring them to disclose whether they went through a pretrial diversion program, according to The Washington Post.
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) officials told the Post that bipartisan pushback led the administration to drop the proposal, which they said was an attempt to speed up the hiring process. They said current procedures can already determine whether an applicant completed the diversion program.
Criminal justice reform advocates disputed this claim, saying the point of pretrial diversion — which is used as an alternative to incarceration — is to leave a person with no criminal record.
{mosads}The liberal and conservative groups who collaborated to successfully lobby for the passage of the First Step Act, the criminal justice reform law signed by President Trump, objected to the proposal, saying it flew in the face of the goals promoted by administration officials such as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
“The prospect of stigmatizing people who have gone through a diversion program is horrible,” said Jason Pye, vice president of legislative affairs for the conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks, which has advocated for criminal justice reform. “If the administration wants to do something in the criminal justice field, they should talk to stakeholders first.”
Trump allies also said implementing such a rule would have made it harder for Trump to contrast his passage of the criminal justice reform measure with former Vice President Joe Biden’s advocacy for a major 1994 crime bill that resulted in greater incarceration, a distinction Trump has been working hard to draw in recent days.
“When you’re the president out there claiming credit for criminal justice reform, the rule would have reversed the narrative the president needs to run on to win key battleground states,” Holly Harris, former general counsel to the Kentucky Republican Party and executive director of the bipartisan Justice Action Network, told the Post.
Administration officials argued last month that the policy would not disqualify otherwise qualified candidates, but criminal justice reform advocates said there was no way to ensure anyone who had completed the program would be given a fair shot.