I saw an article recently with the arresting title: “The One Issue Where Republicans and Obama Agree.” There are probably a number of issues of agreement between the president and Congress, but this one is significant. Both sides agree that the criminal justice system needs fixing.

The interview in the article was with Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) who is on the other side of the president on most issues. They are in agreement that a wide-ranging, bipartisan criminal-justice-reform bill is necessary.

Senator Lee tells the story of his career as a federal prosecutor. He saw where minimum mandatory sentencing laws produced sentences that anyone would conclude were unjust. For example, there was a man in his mid-20s, a father of two children, who was caught selling marijuana on three occasions. He was selling in relatively small quantities. But because he had a gun on his person, and because of the way he was charged, he received a 55-year minimum mandatory sentence.

Nobody thought this was a just sentence for his crime. The judge himself did not think it was fair. In fact, when the judge issued his opinion, he lamented that only Congress could fix that. Senator Lee remembered that.

He points to a number of concerns. The federal prison population has grown dramatically, increasing 900 percent in the last 35 years. Some of that is due to the over-criminalization of the law. Some of it is due to the over-federalization of the law. And much of it is due to the existence of these minimum mandatory sentences.

Senator Lee is not against all minimum mandatory sentences, but he understands the need for Congress to reconsider what they haven written into law. It is too early to tell how all of this will turn out. But it is encouraging that the president and Congress seem willing to reform needed parts of our criminal justice system.