Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1486, I call up the bill (H.R. 8205) to amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to provide that Byrne grant funds may be used for public safety report systems, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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Mr. FITZGERALD. 8205.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand before you today in support of my bill, H.R. 8205, the Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets Act.

This bill defines the posting of cash bail by a corporate, nonprofit, or for-profit entity as engaged in the business of insurance, subjecting them to Federal insurance laws and our criminal fraud statutes.

My district, unfortunately, knows the painful consequences of some of the leftwing bail policies after a repeat offender drove his car through the Waukesha Christmas parade nearly 3 years ago. The Waukesha community continues to heal from this violence that was unleashed that day, but our community is resilient.

While we must take time to remember those whom we lost, we should also turn an eye toward preventing a similar attack from ever happening again. That starts through regulating the use of charitable bail funds, which have been abused time and again to release violent criminals back onto our streets with no consequences.

Charitable bail funds generally flew under the radar until 2020 when the George Floyd riots caused revenues to balloon in many of these funds. The solicitations were done, for the most part, from celebrities and politicians.

What used to be small, community-based organizations that helped post bail for nonviolent misdemeanors has now grown into a multimillion- dollar industry.

For example, the Minnesota Freedom Fund saw revenues increase by 18,000 percent between 2019 and 2020, no doubt benefiting from then- Senator Kamala Harris' tweet encouraging her supporters to help fundraise for the group. A snap of that is just to my right.

Perhaps most alarming, what was intended to help bail out low-level, nonviolent protesters has instead been used to release violent felony offenders back into the streets with little to no oversight.

In 2021, for example, the Minnesota Freedom Fund released a domestic abuser back onto the street. Two weeks later, that man, George Howard, was charged with second-degree murder for a road rage incident.

Michael DeWitt of Louisville, Kentucky, was bailed out by The Bail Project in February 2021 after being arrested on multiple charges. Two months later, he was arrested again for murder.

Shawn Michael Tillman, 3 weeks after having his bail paid by the Minnesota Freedom Fund, murdered a man at a light rail station in St. Paul and is now serving a life sentence for that crime.

Mr. Speaker, the list goes on and on.

According to an investigation conducted in Hennepin County, Minnesota, the Minnesota Freedom Fund has bailed out at least 65 defendants who were awaiting trial on felony charges involving violence, physical threats, or sex crimes.

Moreover, because these funds are often anonymous, or at least unrelated to the defendant, there is no incentive to show up for their court dates. It makes no sense. Many of them don't.

According to CNN, which took a look at this issue, nearly 42 percent of the roughly 500 defendants bailed out by the Minnesota Freedom Fund later failed to appear at one or more court hearings between 2021 and 2022.

Commercial bail companies, by comparison, had a failure to appear rate of only 22 percent during that same period of time. This is why many States have begun regulating the use of charitable bail funds. Unfortunately, a State-by-State patchwork has now developed, and it will not solve this problem.

That is why we introduced the Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets Act. The bill makes a small but important change to our criminal code to define bail bonds as an insurance product--it doesn't seem that significant; it is very simple--thereby subjecting them to the same Federal background check and regulatory requirements as those for for-profit bail agencies under the Federal Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1994.

This change would also bring charitable bail funds under State insurance regulation, giving States the ability to better scrutinize the use of the funds. There is no mandate on any of the State insurance regulations.

Let me be clear: This bill does not outlaw the use of charitable bail funds, nor does it regulate the posting of cash bail by family and friends of the accused. This bill merely says that if you are operating a not-for-profit with the purpose of posting cash bail, then you should be subjected to the same regulation and oversight requirements as those operating as for-profit entities.

This will bring needed oversight to organizations that for years have gone unregulated--$42 million in the Minnesota Freedom Fund--while ensuring accountability of these funds by subjecting them to Federal insurance fraud statutes if they misappropriate funds or misrepresent the use of these funds in any financial reports. We now will have some oversight.

It is a critical step toward reversing steps by the Democrats, like Vice President Harris, to remove bail safeguards and let violent criminals back into our communities to cause further damage.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Ohio, Chairman Jordan, for his leadership on this important issue, as well as Congressman Troy Nehls, Congressman Bryan Steil, Congressman Tom Tiffany, Congressman Clay Higgins, and Congressman Ken Calvert from California for their support of H.R. 8205.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage a ``yes'' vote on the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle mentioned that many of these bail funds operate locally and, therefore, do not affect interstate commerce. I think it is important to describe the current landscape of the charitable bail funds, and we are not trying to eliminate them.

According to the National Bail Fund Network, there are over 90 charitable bail funds operating across the country. Perhaps the largest fund by revenue, The Bail Project, operates in at least 19 States. That is according to a 2023 annual report.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, The Bail Project saw revenues triple after the George Floyd riots to a whopping $42 million in 2020. That is $42 million. There is zero oversight.

Thanks to solicitations from Vice President Harris and thanks to those generous donations, The Bail Project ended calendar year 2023 with an astonishing $71 million. I think an important part that has flown under the radar is that these donations are also tax deductible.

That is right. A lot of Americans are surprised by that. The bail for a violent felony offender could be paid and written off on a tax return, the same as if it were a donation to any charitable cause.

That is an incredibly important point in the context of regulating the payment of cash bail. The donors to these funds have no skin in the game, which makes it incredibly difficult to secure a defendant's appearance in court. They likely care more about their tax deduction than about who actually receives the bail money.

In other words, there is no disincentive to commit a new crime and have a bond forfeited because the source of funds are not tied to the defendant.

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Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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