(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate will vote before year’s end on criminal-justice overhaul legislation backed by President Donald Trump, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday, after holdout conservative senators bowed to White House pressure and joined the bipartisan effort.

“At the request of the president and following improvements to the legislation that has been secured by several members, the Senate will take up the recently revised criminal justice bill this month,” McConnell said on the Senate floor, adding that debate could begin as early as this week.

The legislation, which would change criminal sentencing rules and provide help for some ex-convicts to readjust after release, got a recent nudge by Trump and has been championed by his son-in-law Jared Kushner. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has been supportive of a compromise measure but his office didn’t immediately respond to query about whether he will seek a vote in his chamber this month.

Trump worked to give the effort added momentum last week, appearing at a discussion about the legislation in Gulfport, Mississippi, with Governor Phil Bryant and other officials during a trip to the state.

“This legislation will help former inmates re-enter society as productive law-abiding citizens and it has tremendous support no matter where we go,” Trump said, calling on Congress to act before the end of the year. Vice President Mike Pence and Kushner also met last month with Senate Republicans at their weekly private lunch to try to jump-start the effort.

Conservatives’ Concerns

Some conservative GOP senators, including Tom Cotton of Arkansas and John Kennedy of Louisiana, have raised concerns about the plan, arguing it would lead to early release of thousands of repeat and serious offenders, and would go too easy on felons who dealt in opioid drugs that are fueling a U.S. health crisis. Yet some GOP senators who had been holding out, including Ted Cruz of Texas and David Perdue of Georgia, in recent days joined a growing group of senators in both parties who are supporting it.

That took pressure off McConnell, who is trying to complete this session of Congress before the Christmas holiday but still has a number of issues to address. They include spending bills to avert a partial government shutdown and Trump’s demand to spend $5 billion for a wall along the southern U.S. border.

McConnell of Kentucky on Tuesday urged senators to allow a speedy debate on the criminal justice bill, and he threatened to keep the Senate in session between Christmas and New Year’s Day if they don’t yield debate time to complete remaining year-end legislation and confirmations.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are still putting final touches on a bipartisan compromise that would combine sentencing revisions with a plan passed by the House to reduce recidivism.

The House “stands ready to act” on the revised Senate bill, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, said.

The legislation would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders and give judges more discretion to set sentences for people charged with low-level drug crimes who cooperate with police. It would provide funding for programs aimed at curbing recidivism, let more past offenders petition to reduce sentence disparities between crack and powder cocaine offenses, and limit the use of solitary confinement for juveniles.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, have worked together to advance the legislation and have pushed hard for resolution this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Justin Blum

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