In the wake of the federal prison and sentencing reform legislation, the First Step Act, states that have not yet embarked on criminal justice reform as well as states whose reforms served as models for the federal legislation have moved in their 2019 legislative sessions to contribute to the momentum behind the shift toward smart-on-crime policies.

1) Don’t we already have term limits?

FreedomWorks Foundation's Regulatory Action Center (RAC) is driving comments in support of the Department of Interior's recent proposal related to hunting and fishing regulations. The proposal would provide new or expanded hunting and fishing opportunities at 74 national wildlife refuges and 15 national fish hatcheries managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) across more than 1.4 million acres of land. It would also harmonize federal regulations with state regulations in many cases. This would decrease the patchwork of red tape hunters and fishers have to navigate and would give more power to state and local authorities to determine what's best.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing titled “Keeping Congress Accountable: Term Limits In the United States.” Chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the primary sponsor of the Senate’s constitutional amendment to impose term limits on Congress, the hearing included testimony from former-Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) as well as from a panel of two professors -- Lynda W. Powell and Dr. John David Rausch, Jr. -- alongside Nick Tomboulides, the Executive Director of the nonprofit group U.S. Term Limits.

On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to cosponsor the Deterring Undue Enforcement by Protecting Rights of Citizens from Excessive Searches and Seizures (DUE PROCESS) Act, H.R. 2835. Introduced by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the DUE PROCESS Act would reform federal civil asset forfeiture laws to, among other substantive reforms, increase the evidentiary standard, shift the burden of proof to the government, and provide counsel to those unable to afford legal representation.

Last week, the Senate very quietly passed the Taxpayer First Act, H.R. 3151. The bill, which now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature, seeks to improve customer service and better assist taxpayer appeals. The bill included other provisions, however, that seek to rein in the Internal Revenue Services abuse of civil asset forfeiture laws.