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    Congress Takes a Positive First Step to Address Overcriminalization

    On Tuesday, Congress took a definite step in the right direction toward addressing the serious problem of overcriminalization by announcing the creation of a bipartisan House Committee on the Judiciary Over-Criminalization Task Force of 2013. The task force, which will be chaired by Representative James Sensenbrenner (R–WI), will consist of … More

    Morning Bell: Immigration Bill Doesn’t Secure the Border

    Must Washington fix our broken southern border? You bet. Will the comprehensive immigration reform bill help? You bet it won’t. The number one flaw of the bill is it starts by giving amnesty to the unlawfully present population in the United States. As soon as the bill passes, those in … More

    Schumer-Toomey-Manchin Gun Control Bill: Cuts HIPAA Privacy for Mental Health Records

    American society has long recognized the importance of mental health and has encouraged those in need of mental health care to seek it. Effective provision of mental health services depends in important part upon open and honest communications between a patient and a psychotherapist. To encourage patient candor in the … More

    Morning Bell: 3 Reasons the U.N.’s Arms Treaty Is Useless

    It sounds nice to say there could be a treaty that would make all nations responsible when it comes to their arms exports. Of course, it’s also impossible. The latest draft of the U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which would regulate imports and exports of arms around the world, failed … More

    Fowl Statutory Language Puts the Innocent at Risk

    Eating a dead animal that you find on your property may be gross, but it may also be criminal. A Texas man recently learned this lesson. A white-winged dove flew into the side of Ryan Adams’s home and died on impact. White-winged doves are popular among hunters because of their … More

    Morning Bell: Obama Administration Will Pay Companies to Violate the Law

    The Obama Administration’s disregard for the law has struck again—and this time, it’s encouraging others to violate the law at taxpayer expense. That’s worth saying again: The Obama Administration is encouraging people to violate a law, and promising that it will use taxpayer money to cover fines incurred from this … More

    Morning Bell: Obama’s Imperial Presidency, Part II

    Sometimes the law just gets in the way. The Obama Administration hasn’t needed Congress to enact new regulations on the Internet, businesses, energy production, and religious institutions. It has used its power to give struggling labor unions a new edge. It has granted amnesty to illegal immigrants. This blatant disregard … More

    Senator Rand Paul Gets It Right on Overcriminalization

    Apparently, Members of Congress have not been reading our Overcriminalization blogs. How do we know this? Because the International Fisheries Stewardship and Enforcement Act (IFSEA) is the embodiment of much of what our blogs have highlighted is wrong with legislation. The Senate sponsors of IFSEA didn’t have the votes to … More

    INTERVIEW: Heritage’s Robert Alt on Overcriminalization

    Robert Alt is director of the Rule of Law Programs and senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. He sat down with us to discuss Heritage’s Overcriminalization project. Q: How long have you been working on the Overcriminalization project? A: Five years. Overcriminalization was … More

    Progressives Want to Send Innocent People to Jail…to Set an Example?

    Should society throw people into jail who admittedly did nothing blameworthy just to set an example for others? That is exactly what the Center for Progressive Reform has suggested doing in a recent report on the Occupational Safety and Health Act. In criminal law, the Supreme Court has embraced what … More