On behalf of our activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to cosponsor the Kenneth P. Thompson Begin Again Act, H.R. 1924. Introduced by Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Van Taylor (R-Texas), the Kenneth P. Thompson Begin Again Act would eliminate the age requirement for an individual seeking to have his or her record expunged for a first-time drug offense.

Welcome to FreedomWorks Foundation’s tenth regulatory review of 2019! Our Regulatory Action Center proudly updates you with our favorite tidbits from the swamp. We want to smash barriers between bureaucracy and the American people by delivering regulatory news straight to FreedomWorks activists. Check back in two weeks for the next edition.

For every hundred American adults, there is one person behind bars. For every four out of ten released, it’s only a matter of three years until they are back in the prison system. This vicious cycle has become normalized because we have kept prison an institution of punishment for every offender, regardless of crime. Someone caught with a few ounces of marijuana should not be held to the same punishment as someone who has committed murder.

Last Friday Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York signed a new bill seeking to crackdown on citizens offering their homes for short term rental through Airbnb. The law would impose fines of up to $7,500 simply for listing a rental on the popular site for travelers. Why would the state of New York pass this law attacking people seeking to earn some extra money to help afford living in one of the most expensive cities in the country? The answer lies with the hotel companies, one of whose CEOs openly celebrated that his company would be able to raise prices in the wake of this law suppressing his competition.

When the so-called "public option" single-payer healthcare program was scrapped during the legislative "debate" over ObamaCare in 2009, lawmakers working on the bill created the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan Program as a compromise. The non-profit co-op program is meant to compete with private, for-profit health insurance plans in the individual and small group markets. The 2010 healthcare law provided $3.4 billion in start-up funding to help get the program off the ground.

Despite decades of economic analysis showing that it’s a bad idea, calls to increase the minimum wage continue to be heard from people who think you can mandate prosperity. In the latest, particularly egregious example, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is proposing to raise the minimum wage in his state to $15 an hour, following the disastrous example of Seattle. The twist? He’s only applying the increase to fast food workers, leaving the minimum wage for other industries as is.