OSSOFF’S QUEST FOR CHANGE Like many Senate rookies, Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff has sought to stake out a signature issue — think John McCain on campaign finance, say, or Ted Kennedy on health care. Except this one has little discernible political benefit. “American prisons are hellholes,” Ossoff said. “That’s unacceptable.” The 37-year-old senator has spent the four years since his razor-thin 2021 election on deep and troubling investigations into deaths in federal prison facilities, systemic sexual abuse of inmates and inhumane conditions for defendants who have yet to be convicted of any crime. Ossoff said he faces a frequent question from colleagues: Why this? He brushes off the idea that shining light on vermin-infested food, crumbling infrastructure, rampant contraband, pervasive violence and shocking levels of inmate suicides might be a windmill tilt. Americans are “horrified and outraged,” he said, when they learn about the abuses inside U.S. prisons. But Ossoff also acknowledges that it’s far from the bread-and-butter issues that most purple-state senators spend the bulk of their time on, let alone one who will be among the most vulnerable incumbents in 2026. “This is not an issue that elected officials pursue because of its political rewards,” he said. For one, the inmates whose lives his investigations and legislation might improve won’t be able to vote. But that doesn’t mean his other constituents — especially Black Georgians who are disproportionately incarcerated and helped catapult him and fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock into the Senate — don’t have a serious interest in the issue. What’s more curious is how Ossoff has joined forces with an array of Republicans on prison issues: He is teaming up with Iowa’s Chuck Grassley this month on a bill about contraband cell phones and previously worked with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to make the U.S. Bureau of Prisons director a Senate-confirmed position. Ossoff first tackled problems within the federal prison system by examining a notorious facility in his hometown. Corruption, abuse and misconduct has abounded at the BOP’s Atlanta prison, which led the nation in suicides between 2016 and 2021 and was among Ossoff’s first targets when he led the prestigious Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee last Congress. He won bipartisan buy-in from ranking member Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) to launch investigations, issue subpoenas and hold hearings. Johnson told Inside Congress that he saw it as a matter of constituent service for Ossoff: “This is obviously an issue that is near and dear to his heart because of Georgia.” Ossoff is now working to build bipartisan support for multiple initiatives that would overhaul, piece by piece, the management of federal prison facilities. One piece, requiring the BOP to fix and improve broken security camera systems and keep video evidence of misconduct, has already been signed into law. A broader bill, the Federal Prison Oversight Act, has gotten some GOP support — including from senators, such as West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito, who want to address problematic facilities in their home states. But Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who co-founded a prison policy working group with Ossoff, said roadblocks remain on his side of the aisle. The bill, he said, “is not anything really outrageous but is being held up by a couple of senators that don’t like it.” Professing no disappointment, Ossoff invoked his late mentor and former boss Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) in framing his crusade as a matter of morality, not politics: “I want to focus my effort and work while I hold office,” he said, “on the suffering and abuse of people who have no voice.” — Katherine Tully-McManus GOOD EVENING! Welcome to Inside Congress, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Wednesday, April 24, where we must ask ourselves: What can Congress do about D.C.’s pollen epidemic?
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