Different colors. All woven and held together by a single precious thread of democracy. Paul has taught us so much and as students who followed him, worked with him, believed with him, loved him and now miss him, we could never, ever be more thankful. With that, mr. Trone and mr. Speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. Mr. Trone i recognize mr. Levin. Mr. Levin thank you very much for recognizing me, mr. Trone and i thank the majority leader for organizing this. Mr. Speaker, i rise to speak for mr. Sarbanes, senator sarbanes employees. And especially for my sisterinlaw milley freeman, who worked for Paul Sarbanes from december of 1989 to january of 2007. And im not going to talk about all the Amazing Things about senator sarbanes that his maryland colleagues have eloquently mentioned and john, im not going to talk about fathers and sons, but my dad who served in this house and my uncle carl levin who served in the senate, both loved him very much. Andlet me talk about nellie his
Task force will be in order to. We have to get this hearing in before the votes start between 11 30 and noon each though its noticed for 10 30, i think the time for Opening Statements will burn up the time between now and 10 30, so we can get to the witnesses. I would like to welcome everyone to todays hearing on the Judiciary Committees overcriminallization task force. The tenth and final hearing will focus on the abundance of federal criminal offenses on the books and the role that the Judiciary Committees jurisdiction or lack thereof under house rules plays on this issue. This committee is comprised of lawmakers with the ability to avoid redundancy with the awareness of the entire body of criminal federal law. With other recommendations we should consider the amendments to clarify not only to criminal Law Enforcement with legislation as well. Again i would like to thank the members of the task force i hope we can come together to address many of the concerns of over criminalization
Deal but one chair and can and did hold up the cyber bill until just recently. They did a program governor thompson referred to because they also have a referral and stopped the legislation from moving to the floor. I think it is counterproductive and dysfunctional and quite honestly that hurts the American People because we cant pass legislation that can protect them and in addition the oversight issue with 100 committees and subcommittees how can the secretary j. Johnson who had a Great Respect and admiration how can he do his job when hes constantly preparing for testimony and he has a very important job and the whole legislative shock us to do that. You look at the judiciary and it has the department of justice. They have the entire department of defense. Why doesnt the committee on Homeland Security have jurisdiction over the entire department of Homeland Security and not have to deal with all of these offshoots . We are passing bills to demonstrate the leadership from any other c
Our full yushry committee and the house of representatives in terms of these ten hearings that weve had this year and last year . I mean, what can we take . And i want to commend the chairman and Ranking Member sensenbrenner and scott for having put this together as they have. But where do we go from here . I think the immediate thing is reform of the mens rea problem. The immediate bandaid that is necessary is a defall rule of mens rea where with none appear in criminal statutes and are a rule of construction that applies a mens rea at least to all material elements. A single mens rea standard or. No, a uniform mens rea standards. Okay. Clearly defined across the board. Uhhuh. And what would you add, dr. Baker . Well, i would agree with that. Ive been involved a little bit in trying to draft that statute. I can tell you its not an easy statute to draft because of the way, first of all, the federal krips are drafted and how differently they are. I would add to those two things which i
Four legislative days remain in the 2024 regular session with high-profile bills — involving gambling, ethics reform and taxes — still awaiting final action this week or next.