Past Work

September 16, 2025–Due Process Institute urges members to vote NO on the District of Columbia Juvenile Sentencing Reform Act, H.R. 5140. The bill would lower the age for juveniles to be tried as an adult to 14 years of age.

Recently, the House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Committee marked up several bills that are, put simply, an unfortunate act of partisan politics. In August, the FBI released crime figures for 2024, which showed that violent crime is at its lowest point since 1969. Property crime is at its lowest point since 1968. Although we agree that one instance of violent crime is too much, we also believe that lawmakers have a responsibility to legislate in light of data and the truth is, violent crime and property crime are way down. Few would deny that crime in the District of Columbia remains a concern for those who live here. However, the bills recently marked up by OGR ignore the fact that the District of Columbia has made substantial progress, with crime dropping to a 30-year low in 2024.

We recognize that juveniles are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime in the District. However, we also recognize that science explains that a human’s brain is not fully developed until a person reaches their mid-20s, which is why juvenile law treats children differently from adults. Additionally, the body of available research shows us that incarcerating juveniles only increases the likelihood of recidivism, leads to antisocial behavior, and continues to weaken social bonds.

We implore lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to understand that there are significantly better ways to address crime committed by juveniles than voting yes on this bill. This includes investing in after-school, drug treatment, therapy, mental health, mentoring, and tutoring programs. Exposing minors to the adult corrections system will only serve to do significantly more damage than it will provide benefits to our public safety.

July 9, 2025–Due Process Institute joined a letter urging members of Congress to reconsider extreme reductions to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended by the House Appropriations Committee Fiscal Year 2026 (FY 2026) Legislative Branch Appropriations. Reducing the GAO’s budget authority by half would severely weaken a critical oversight and accountability asset, rendering both the GAO and Congress less effective institutions. Instead, legislators should prioritize modernization and reforms that could make the GAO a more useful resource.

The GAO performs an essential function for Congress, providing information in a nonpartisan and independent manner. The GAO is the first line of oversight for Congress, acting as the eyes and ears of the legislative branch within the workings of the vast federal apparatus. Without the GAO’s expertise and diligence, Congress’s constant struggle for meaningful oversight would be far more challenging. A sweeping cut would undermine the role of Congress and let waste, fraud, and inefficiencies proliferate, resulting in wasteful spending that could far outweigh any immediate savings the current plan might achieve. Likewise, undercutting Congress’s in-house auditors is unlikely to resolve ongoing concerns regarding the GAO’s legal functions, management, and review practices.

July 7, 2025–Due Process Institute and a host of organizations from across the ideological spectrum wrote to the Legislative Branch Subcommittee to share deep concerns regarding the drastic reductions in certain accounts proposed by the House Appropriations Committee. If enacted, these cuts will significantly reduce Congress’s capacity to carry out its constitutional responsibility to ensure taxpayer funds are used efficiently and to prevent waste, fraud and abuse.

Specifically, the bill reported by the House Appropriations Committee on June 26, 2025, would decrease funding of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) by $396.5 million, or nearly 49 percent. It also would hamstring the GAO from ensuring funds are spent as Congress intends by prohibiting enforcement of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act. In addition, it reduces funding of the Library of Congress by $84.6 million, or 10 percent, adversely affecting the ability of the Library to meet its mission. Since 2002, GAO’s work has achieved $1.5 trillion in financial benefits. 6 Cutting GAO will result in tens of billions of federal tax dollars misspent. Furthermore, the vast majority of congressional committees will be largely, if not entirely, unable to request support from GAO for their investigations.

The reduction of authorities for GAO and the funding cuts for GAO and the Library are unwarranted and unwise. If anything, Congress should consider opportunities to bolster GAO’s return on investment. Funding for the Legislative Branch has lagged significantly behind the growth of non-defense discretionary spending, at roughly half the growth rate over the last three decades. Moreover, much of the Legislative Branch was funded at essentially flat levels in FY 2025 relative to FY 2024—levels that have not kept pace with inflation, let alone with the need.

A strong and effective Congress relies on robust policymaking capacity, adequate staff support, and institutional resources that allow it to meet its constitutional obligations to legislate, conduct oversight, and serve the American people. These capacities already are severely strained and cannot withstand further cuts.

May 1, 2025–It is estimated that 1 in 3 Americans–as many as 100 million people—have some kind of a criminal record. This means that as many as one in three people face major obstacles in securing a job or housing. At the same time, the United States faces a shortage of workers. In January 2025, for example, there were 913,000 more job openings than unemployed people actively seeking work. Congress can take a meaningful step towards addressing these challenges through the Clean Slate Act.

The stigma of a criminal record, particularly if an individual has spent time in prison, is a barrier to employment. Due to a number of outdated “tough on crime” policies that continue to burden those with a criminal record long after their matter has resolved with the legal system, we are setting people up to fail when we should be providing opportunities and support to help them succeed—for the betterment of themselves, their families, their communities, and our society at large.

Introduced by Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) and Rand Paul (R-KY) in the Senate and Reps. Lucy McBath (D-GA) and Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) in the House, the Clean Slate Act offers a path for individuals with certain nonviolent federal criminal records an opportunity for a second chance. The Clean Slate Act would provide for the automatic sealing of records for those people acquitted or exonerated, people who were arrested but never had charges filed against them, as well as those convicted of simple possession of a controlled substance under 21 U.S.C. § 844 or for any federal nonviolent marijuana offense—one year after someone has completed his or her sentence, probation, and/or supervised release.

The Clean Slate Act also provides a petition process for the sealing of records for certain nonviolent offenses. A person who has been convicted of two or fewer nonviolent offenses can petition a court to seal the record one year after completing all the terms of any sentence. Eligible individuals would be notified of their right to file a petition to seal their record; notification would also be sent to the prosecutor and any victim of the individual’s actions. A hearing would be required unless the prosecutor waived it. If the prosecutor challenges the petition, the petitioner would be given access to a public defender and the burden falls to the government to prove that the sealing of the record is not warranted.

Twelve states have already passed “Clean Slate” legislation to automatically seal records while most other states have some form of record sealing or expungement laws. Federal law is extraordinarily lacking in this area. Due Process Institute supports the Clean Slate Act and urges senators and representatives to co-sponsor and support this bipartisan bicameral legislation. We encourage Congress to take this opportunity to explore ways to provide second chance opportunities to the millions of people who need a “clean slate” to move forward with their lives.

April 22, 2025–Due Process Institute, the undersigned national, state, and local public health, criminal justice reform, and civil rights organizations wrote to urge Congress to support the funding of the Federal Prison Oversight Act. The passage of the bipartisan Federal Prison Oversight Act (FPOA) marked a major milestone in the push for accountability and transparency within the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). This critical legislation provides a long-overdue framework for addressing systemic issues in federal correctional facilities through comprehensive independent oversight, but its success depends on Congress ensuring it is fully funded in the FY2026 appropriations bill.

The BOP oversees more than 150,000 incarcerated individuals and employs tens of thousands of staff, with an annual budget exceeding $8 billion. Yet, until now, the BOP has operated with limited independent oversight, leading to serious and well-documented consequences for correctional staff, incarcerated individuals, and their families. The FPOA provides solutions to these challenges by:

• Empowering the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) to conduct independent, risk-based inspections of all 122 federal correctional facilities. Facilities with higher risk scores will undergo more frequent inspections.
• Establishing a Correctional Ombudsman position, responsible for investigating complaints from incarcerated individuals and their representatives, family members, BOP staff and their representatives, Members of Congress, and the judiciary.
• Creating a secure hotline and online form for the submission of complaints, ensuring accessibility and transparency.

We ask that the CJS Appropriations for FY2026 include up to $40 million to enact and sustain the Federal Prison Oversight Act. This funding equates to just 0.5 percent of the BOP budget and is crucial for supporting the Correctional Ombudsman and ensuring their independence; conducting comprehensive, risk-based inspections to improve safety, accountability, and facility conditions; and establishing systems for transparent complaint processing and timely resolution. The near-unanimous bipartisan support for the FPOA reflects a shared recognition that comprehensive oversight is necessary to address the BOP’s systemic challenges. However, without adequate funding, the transformative potential of this legislation cannot be realized. We urge Congress to prioritize dedicated funding for the FPOA in FY2026 appropriations to ensure its timely implementation; reaffirm bipartisan support for this critical initiative; and demonstrating a continued commitment to accountability, transparency, and public safety.

The FPOA is not just about improving conditions within federal prisons—it is about honoring shared values of justice, transparency, and efficient governance. Adequate funding will allow us to build a correctional system that is safer, more accountable, and better aligned with our nation’s principles. Furthermore, independent oversight can prevent abuse, reduce recidivism, and ensure taxpayer dollars are used responsibly. While this is good fiscal policy, without funding, FPOA mandates cannot be effectively implemented.

May 17, 2025–The federal criminal system has grown so much that no one currently understands its full scope. To illustrate the breadth of the problem, the House Judiciary Committee’s Over-Criminalization Task Force asked the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in 2013 to update its count of federal criminal offenses—but according to the chairman of the task force, “CRS’ initial response to our request was that they lack the manpower and resources to accomplish this task.”

The best current estimates indicate that there are more than 5,000 federal criminal statutes and at least 300,000 federal regulations that carry criminal penalties. It erodes due process protections to have so many criminal laws in effect that it is essentially impossible for the average person to know what is lawful and what is not. The U.S. Constitution grants protection against wrongful or unfair criminal prosecutions and our federal criminal law must reflect those values.

This problem has been caused by the proclivity of both parties in Congress to react to every social concern or policy challenge by passing new criminal laws without giving sufficient thought to whether putting people in prison—particularly at the federal level—is an appropriate or effective response to the issue at hand. In the rush to do something, there is often little consideration of the impact of the creation of new crimes on the individuals directly affected by them, or on the erosion of states’ authority to regulate criminal conduct in their jurisdictions.

To ensure that we all have constitutionally adequate notice of our criminal laws before our government infringes on liberty, Congress must finally figure out how many federal crimes are on the books, what they actually criminalize, whether they are clearly written, and how often they are used as a basis for prosecution.

Introduced by Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX), Lucy McBath (D-GA), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Steve Cohen (D-TN), the Count the Crimes to Cut Act, H.R. 2159, would require the Department of Justice to produce a report identifying all federal crimes, including clarifying each law’s legal elements and penalties, as well as the number of prosecutions in the past 15 years. This will provide Congress and the public with a better understanding of the breadth and use of federal criminal laws and will hopefully chart a path forward to reducing over-criminalization and over-federalization. Therefore, Due Process Institute urges members to cosponsor the Count the Crimes to Cut Act.

March 4, 2025–Due Process Institute and undersigned civil society organizations, wrote to new Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard to express interest in engaging on issues related to surveillance and civil liberties, especially on commitment to ensuring that a warrant is required before agencies subject Americans to queries of their private data acquired through Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). As Senator Mike Lee has stated, “The Fourth Amendment protects our right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, including the search of our private electronic communications.”

As Congress begins early discussions about the 2026 reauthorization of Section 702, we believe it is critical that policymakers and the public have access to key factual information that will ensure the legislative debate is based on a full and accurate understanding of the program’s impact. Accordingly, we urge you to take the following initial steps to enhance public trust and oversight of government surveillance authorities:

1. Declassify the Type of Service Provider at Issue in the New “Electronic Communications Service Provider” Definition: In the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), Congress modified the definition of “electronic communications service provider” (ECSP). Both the New York Times and multiple Senators during the floor debate indicated that the modification was intended to address a ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that data centers for cloud computing do not constitute ECSPs. But because that part of the FISC opinion remained (and still remains) classified, the RISAA provision was deliberately drafted in broad terms to conceal the type of provider at issue. On its face, the new definition significantly expands the National Security Agency’s (NSA) power, allowing the agency to compel nearly any U.S. business to assist in Section 702 surveillance.
2. Publish a U.S. Person Estimate for Section 702: For years, intelligence officials have refused to provide basic transparency about the number of U.S. persons whose communications are collected under Section 702 surveillance, despite repeated bipartisan requests from Congress. The public and lawmakers cannot meaningfully debate Section 702’s renewal without knowing its true impact on Americans’ privacy. While previous DNI officials have occasionally claimed that producing an estimate is infeasible (although ODNI’s position on this point has been inconsistent), Princeton researchers have published a paper detailing a methodology that could reliably estimate the scale of “incidental” collection of Americans’ communications. The intelligence community’s refusal to produce the requested estimate undermines trust and weakens the legitimacy of Section 702.

Finally, previous administrations have taken meaningful steps to engage with and meet with civil society organizations on surveillance and transparency issues on a regular basis, and we strongly encourage you to continue this practice. Ongoing dialogue between the intelligence community and civil society is vital to ensuring that surveillance policies reflect democratic principles and the public interest.

March 3, 2025–Due Process Institute submitted comment on the Commission’s January 2025 proposed amendments relating to Supervised Release and Drug Offenses. In the comment, we expressed unequivocally support for the recent proposals directing courts to base supervised release decisions on individualized assessments and removing recommended minimum terms of supervised release. Originally designed to be limited in use and only when necessary to preserve public safety, supervised release is unfortunately imposed in almost every single federal case. This has led to a bloated and burdened system, putting strain on actors in the criminal legal system as well as on citizens returning to their communities after completing their terms of sentence. The overuse of long periods of supervised release has created a number of undesirable consequences—probation officers are too overwhelmed to effectively supervise high-risk cases, low-risk defendants are unnecessarily recidivating under unnecessarily onerous burdens, and this broken system is costing American taxpayers $500 million annually.

In response to the Commission’s request for fine attunement of its proposals, Due Process Institute suggested the Commission consider strengthening its guidance towards courts by characterizing the early termination of supervised release as a rebuttable presumption, rather than merely a modification that “may” occur. This revision would ensure a much-needed course correction for our overburdened system, would more directly provide incentives for people reentering society on supervised release, and would free up resources for probation officers so that they could better focus on cases with serious public safety implications.

Due Process Institute also commended the Commission for seeking public comment on whether the Commission should reconsider the disparity between cocaine (“powder cocaine”) and cocaine base (“crack cocaine”) in the Drug Quantity Table at §2D1.1(c). Currently, the Drug Quantity Table reflects an 18-to-1 ratio between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Due Process Institute strongly encouraged the Commission to reconsider this disparity in a future amendment cycle.

The current disparity exists because of a well-intentioned but un-scientific overreaction to crack cocaine abuse in the 1980s. This initially led to crack cocaine being arbitrarily treated 100 times worse than powder cocaine in our federal sentencing laws, despite the fact that crack cocaine and powdered cocaine are pharmacologically the same. The primary differences between the drugs are that crack cocaine is cheaper and easier to access, particularly in poor communities that are already marginalized, and in the way the substances are typically ingested. The manner in which crack cocaine is ingested is, as the Commission has noted, “not a reliable basis for establishing longer penalties.”

However, the 18-to-1 ratio currently reflected in the Drug Quantity Table still does not reflect sound policy. There is no scientific basis for treating crack cocaine offenses more harshly than powder cocaine offenses. And there is no cultural or social impetus for the overly harsh treatment. In fact, the number of defendants whose primary drug type is crack cocaine has steadily declined from 6,168 in FY 2008 to only 855 in FY 2023. And crack cocaine defendants as a percentage of all drug trafficking defendants have declined from 26.8 percent in FY 1996 to 4.6 percent in FY 2023. The time has come for the Commission to correct the existing unnecessary and unfair disparity between cocaine offenses in the Drug Quantity Table.

February 19, 2025–Due Process Institute and 97 organizations wrote to Congress in strong support of  efforts to recognize Fred Korematsu’s legacy as a civil rights hero. Accordingly, we offer our endorsement and support for the reintroduction of the following legislation in the 119th Congress: (1) Fred Korematsu Congressional Gold Medal Act; (2) Recognizing the importance of establishing a national “Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution”; (3) Korematsu-Takai Civil Liberties Protection Act.

Korematsu stood against unfounded and racist actions. At the time, our institutions — our democracy — failed him. In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of excluding Japanese Americans from the West Coast in a 6-3 majority in Korematsu v. United States. The dissent by Justice Frank Murphy decried the majority opinion and declared that the order to detain Japanese Americans was the “legalization of racism” and that “[r]acial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life.”

We urge Congress to elevate this history for all Americans to learn from it and recognize the importance of this civil rights hero who took a stand on behalf of all of us, and urge the enactment of the following legislation:

Korematsu-Takai Civil Liberties Protection Act, which would prohibit detention or imprisonment based solely on an actual or perceived protected characteristic of an individual.

Recognizing the importance of establishing a national “Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution,” which will help to ensure that Fred Korematsu’s legacy is remembered and honored, and that the lessons of the incarceration are not forgotten.

Fred Korematsu Congressional Gold Medal Act, which will honor Fred Korematsu for his decades-long fight for justice, and will serve as a powerful reminder of the importance of protecting civil liberties for all Americans.

February 3, 2025–Due Process Institute and a host of civil liberties organizations joined to strongly condemn the White House firing of three Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) members, which shattered the independence that is key to the Board’s effectiveness. We urge Congress to act expeditiously to restore that independence.

PCLOB was originally proposed by the 9-11 Commission and has existed for nearly two decades as a critical oversight entity for protecting rights and combatting surveillance abuse. Its investigations and reports have debunked false claims by the intelligence community about mass surveillance programs, prompted declassification and disclosure of key facts about surveillance that had needlessly been kept secret, and spurred important legislative reforms.

Firing PCLOB members will significantly undermine the Board’s independence, and could make it impossible for it to conduct this type of effective oversight in the future. If at-will termination becomes acceptable, a President of either party will be able to block investigation of controversial or improper surveillance activities by removing any PCLOB member who begins to scrutinize conduct that the executive wants to keep hidden. The White House could kill any reports or findings from PCLOB it does not want issued, firing Board members to halt the release of information the White House wants covered up. Even the mere threat of firings would chill PCLOB from properly performing its duties, with members seeking to stay in the good graces of the White House rather than acting as a vigilant watchdog. It is for precisely this reason that Congress in 2007 removed a provision of PCLOB’s statutory charter indicating that its members “serve at the pleasure of the President.”

The effort to destroy PCLOB’s independence, and thereby significantly undermine its basic effectiveness as an oversight entity, raises significant concerns over how the executive’s surveillance powers could be misused by this or future administrations.