Crime

Cummings, Nadler, Bass, and Booker Reintroduce the Record Expungement Designed to Enhance Employment Act

LOS ANGELES SENTINEL — Representatives Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform; Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary; and Karen Bass (D-CA), Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security; reintroduced the Record Expungement Designed to Enhance Employment (REDEEM) Act on the last day of Second Chance Month. U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) plans to reintroduce the bill in the Senate in the coming weeks.

Published

7 years ago

May 8, 2019

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By Sentinel News Service

Washington, D.C. (April 30, 2019) – Today, Representatives Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform; Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary; and Karen Bass (D-CA), Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security; reintroduced the Record Expungement Designed to Enhance Employment (REDEEM) Act on the last day of Second Chance Month. U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) plans to reintroduce the bill in the Senate in the coming weeks. The bicameral legislation would ease the barriers to re-entry for formerly incarcerated individuals by expunging or sealing offenses that are committed by a child and providing a way for adults to seal non-violent criminal records.

Providing formerly incarcerated individuals with the tools to effectively reintegrate into society is essential in preventing recidivism. One in three American adults currently has a criminal record. Unfortunately, over two-thirds of formerly-incarcerated people are rearrested within three years. Removing collateral consequences, including barriers to employment, education, and benefits, is one way to address this troubling trend.

“Tragically, in today’s world, a criminal record has become a life sentence carrying with it the possibility —and all too often, the reality— of it negatively affecting one’s employment, housing, access to credit, child support, and so many other issues. We know that sentences issued by our criminal justice system disproportionately affect Americans of color,” said Chairman Cummings. “The bill we introduced today will seal and expunge offenses committed by a child, provide a path for adults to seal their non-violent criminal records to ease re-entry, and help ensure that a criminal record does not become a life sentence. Future generations are counting on us to reform our broken criminal justice system now so they can see a system and an entire country in which they can believe.”

“The REDEEM Act is designed to enhance people’s ability to become productive members of society after serving their time for nonviolent offenses,” said Chairman Nadler. “Specifically, this bill will allow courts an opportunity, through the sealing and expungement process, to restore constitutional rights of individuals with nonviolent drug offenses, which generally pose a barrier for many citizens returning to our communities. It will also preserve an avenue for juveniles to get a fresh start by sealing their record three years after the juvenile serves a term for a conviction of a non-violent offense. These are sensible provisions, which will allow some relief in our efforts to reform our criminal justice system.”

“I’m proud to support this piece of legislation to ensure that after a prison sentence is served, our criminal justice system doesn’t tack on a life-sentence’s worth of obstacles affecting access to housing, employment, and other tools necessary to effectively reintegrate into society,” said Chairwoman Bass. “Successful criminal justice reform must pay close attention to this phase of incarceration in order to reduce recidivism rates in this country. As we continue our fight to reform this broken system, I encourage my colleagues to keep a close eye on how women are disproportionately affected by this system at every turn – from how they initially get entwined, to how they are treated in prison, to what happens when they are released. I look forward to continuing to work on this important issue.”

“The reality of mass incarceration has countless consequences, but when someone has paid their debt to society and returns to their community with hopes of a second chance, they shouldn’t continue to be shackled by our broken criminal justice system,” Senator Booker said. “Our bill will lessen the barriers of re-entry into society for those who have been convicted of nonviolent crimes and help thousands of young people adjust to life outside of prison. The REDEEM Act enacts common sense reforms that will strengthen our communities by helping formerly incarcerated individuals get back on their feet and reducing the rates of recidivism.”

Specifically, the REDEEM Act:

Incentivizes states to increase the age of criminal responsibility to 18 years old: Currently, several states have set the original jurisdiction age of adult criminal courts below 18 years old. This sends countless kids into the unforgiving adult criminal justice system. The REDEEM Act incentivizes states to change that by offering preference to Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant applicants to those that have set 18 or older as the age of original jurisdiction for adult criminal courts.
Allows for sealing and expungement of juvenile records: The bill would provide for the automatic expungement of records for juveniles who committed non-violent crimes before they turned 15 years old and the automatic sealing of records for juveniles who committed non-violent crimes.
Restricts use of juvenile solitary confinement: The bill would end the cruel and counterproductive practice of solitary confinement except in the most extreme circumstances in which it is necessary to protect a juvenile detainee or those around them. When confinement is necessary, the bill places strict time and condition limitations.
Offers adults a way to seal non-violent criminal records: The bill provides the first broad-based federal path to the sealing of criminal records for adults. The bill would provide for the automatic sealing of records of non-violent drug offenses. In addition, those who commit other non-violent offenses will be able to petition a court and make their case for the sealing of records. Furthermore, employers requesting FBI background checks will only receive relevant and accurate information – thereby protecting job applicants – because of bill provisions to improve the background check system.
Lifts ban on SNAP and TANF benefits for low-level drug offenders: The bill restores access to benefits for those who have served their time for use, possession, and distribution crimes.

The REDEEM Act has been endorsed by the Center for Law and Social Policy, the National Employment Law Project, JustLeadershipUSA, Campaign for Youth Justice, The Sentencing Project, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, National Crittenton, and the Interfaith Action for Human Rights.

Click here to read a section by section of the bill.

This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Sentinel.

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COMMENTARY: Our Voices — When Armed Power Appears at the Ballot Box

TEXAS METRO NEWS — “What terrifies me most is how casually these conversations are now happening. We are discussing armed federal presence near elections as though this were a normal political debate. Fifty years ago, Americans would have recognized immediately how dangerous this sounded.”

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2 weeks ago

July 20, 2026

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Rev. Peter Johnson / Credit: Courtney Collins / KERA

By Rev. Peter Johnson | Texas Metro News

There are sounds you never forget once you have heard them. The slow crunch of gravel beneath a sheriff’s boots outside a voting station. The sound of a shotgun being cocked. The silence of Black citizens standing in line, afraid to make eye contact. The sound of a church mother whispering, “Baby, if I don’t come home tonight, tell your daddy I tried.”

I remember grown men trembling before voter registration tables, not because they were weak, but because they understood exactly what power could do to a Black body in America. I remember pastors watching police cars circle churches where voter meetings were being held. I remember people disappearing from movements overnight. I remember fear sitting beside democracy like an armed guard.

That is why my spirit turned cold when I heard the discussion of ICE agents and Border Patrol officers being present at polling stations. Some of us have seen this movie before, and we know how it ends.

America keeps pretending voter intimidation belongs only to history books. It does not. It evolves. It changes uniforms. It changes language. But it always carries the same message: “Some of you should think twice before showing up here.”

Today, the target may be immigrants, Latino communities, Muslims, asylum seekers, or mixed-status families. Tomorrow it will expand. It always expands. History teaches that once fear is allowed near the ballot box, democracy itself begins gasping for air.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche publicly defended the idea of immigration enforcement officers near polling locations, asking why people would object. The answer is painfully simple: because law enforcement presence has long been used in America to discourage unwanted people from voting.

Not to protect elections. Control them.

During Jim Crow, intimidation was often psychological before it became physical. Officers stood near entrances. White citizens took photographs. Names were written down. Questions were asked loudly enough for everybody else in line to hear. The goal was not merely arrest. The goal was humiliation. The goal was fear. The goal was to make people decide that voting simply cost too much.

And let me say this plainly: federal immigration agents do not symbolize safety to immigrant communities. They symbolize raids, deportation, detention centers, separated children, midnight knocks, and disappeared neighbors.

People in Washington know this. That is exactly why the idea is dangerous.

You do not place armed immigration authority near polling stations unless you understand the chilling effect it creates. A grandmother who is a legal citizen may stay home simply because her undocumented grandson lives with her. A young Latino voter may avoid the polls because he fears being questioned. A Muslim family may decide silence is safer than participation.

Fear spreads faster than policy. That is what America keeps forgetting.

Some readers will accuse me of exaggeration. But I lived through and experienced enough to watch this country repeat sins it swore it had already repented. Every generation believes democracy is sturdier than it really is. It’s not.

Democracy survives only as long as ordinary citizens believe they can approach the ballot box without fear of government intimidation.

The moment fear enters that space, something sacred begins dying.

What terrifies me most is how casually these conversations are now happening. We are discussing armed federal presence near elections as though this were a normal political debate. Fifty years ago, Americans would have recognized immediately how dangerous this sounded.

Now people shrug.

That is how nations drift toward authoritarianism. Not all at once. Slowly. Quietly. One normalized outrage after another. First comes the rhetoric. Then comes the fear. Then comes the silence. Then comes the surrender.

I buried too many of my freedom fighter friends to stay quiet while America plays games with voting rights again. I have stood in churches where old men still carried scars from police beatings tied directly to voter registration efforts. I have spoken with women who were fired from jobs for attempting to vote. I have listened to stories of bodies found hanging from trees because somebody dared believe democracy included them, too.

So no, I will not calmly dismiss this moment, because history whispers before it screams, and what I hear whispering right now sounds disturbingly familiar.

The presence of ICE or Border Patrol near polling stations may begin as “security.” But history warns us that government power, once normalized around elections, rarely retreats peacefully. It expands. It tests limits. It searches for new targets.

That is why every American, regardless of party, should reject this path now. Not later. Now. Once citizens associate voting with fear, democracy is no longer functioning freely. It is surviving on borrowed time.

Peter Jerome Johnson, was the youngest staff member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. An alum of Southern University, he founded the Peter Johnson Institute on Nonviolence.