In 2015, Utah legislators passed and Governor Gary Hulburt signed into law a package, HB 348, to reform its state criminal justice system. This package included new concepts such as prioritizing prison space for people with serious and violent offenses as well as strengthening community supervision, both of which have yielded substantial public safety returns.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, H.R. 1625, is packed full of legislative priorities for leadership and other items to get enough votes for passage. Most of what was negotiated and slipped into the Consolidated Appropriations Act, known as the “omnibus,” behind closed doors is bad for taxpayers or just bad policy. Unfortunately, amendments that were previously passed by the House to prevent the Department of Justice from ramping up its use of civil asset forfeiture were not included in the bill.

“And at the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead.” This is music to the ears of advocates for federalism, school choice, and, frankly, for student success everywhere. These words came directly from U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos last week at a conference in DC titled “Bush-Obama School Reform: Lessons Learned,” held by the free-enterprise think tank American Enterprise Institute.

As the economy begins to take off as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the next big thing we're going to see is a need for workers.

On behalf of our activist community, I urge you to contact your senators and representative and ask them to support the Fair Chance Act, H.R. 1905 and S. 842, introduced by Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). This bipartisan legislation would aid prisoner reentry into society and lower crime rates, by delaying inquiries into criminal history for federal job and federally contracted applications until the conditional offer stage.