EXCLUSIVE — House lawmakers are urging passage of a bill to cut back on the tens of thousands of federal criminal statutes and regulations, which critics say are too sprawling and cause prosecutors to over-criminalize people.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who leads a panel on the Constitution and limited government, is spearheading the bipartisan effort along with Reps. Lucy McBath (D-GA), Steve Cohen (D-TN), and Andy Biggs (R-AZ).
Roy said the bill, the Count the Crimes to Cut Act of 2025, would mark the first step toward preventing people from finding themselves “in the crosshairs” of over-criminalization.
“Freedom is just an illusion when the government buries its own citizens under ridiculous and never-ending criminal laws,” Roy said. “Almost any adult in this country could be indicted for some kind of infraction at any given time, whether or not they were even aware they were in violation.”
The bill, introduced Friday, would require the attorney general and all executive branch agency heads to create reports that list out all federal criminal statutes and regulations that involve penalties. Such reports would allow lawmakers to identify and excise duplicative or unnecessary offenses, as well as identify inconsistencies.
At that point, “Americans will no longer have to fear being excessively punished, and criminal justice professionals can better protect the public,” McBath said.
McBath became an advocate of criminal justice reform after her 17-year-old son was murdered in a shooting in 2012.
The bill has been introduced in past Congresses but has seen no movement. Lawmakers have not signaled any objections to it, and aides familiar with the matter are hopeful it will crop up in a forthcoming committee hearing this time around and see advancement.
The Council on Criminal Justice has estimated there are nearly 5,000 criminal statutes and as many as 300,000 federal regulations that involve criminal penalties, but the group has said “no one really knows” and that they make up an “incredibly complex patchwork.”
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has endorsed Roy’s bill in the past and said “there is growing consensus” that the size of the criminal code is a “disgrace.”
The bill would require reports to include details about offenses’ “mens rea” requirements, which look at whether a person had criminal intent. Not all laws require this, as a man named Lawrence Louis learned several years ago.
Louis was raised in the projects in Maryland and lost his father and all three of his brothers at a young age. A Wall Street Journal report in 2011 highlighted how Louis rose from janitor to chief engineer of a retirement home, but his attempt to divert a backed-up sewage system where sick residents lived led to him pleading guilty in federal court to a Clean Water Act violation. He thought he was “doing the right thing” and ended up with a criminal record, he told the outlet at the time.
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Biggs and others have pushed for more consistent applications of “mens rea” in crimes. Biggs has also looked to address what he views as absurdities in laws, such as ones that make it illegal to dress up as a postal service worker, even for Halloween, or sell certain margarine unless it is shaped triangularly.
Biggs said “no government agency can even provide an official count” of the number of criminal statutes and regulations and that the high volume of them represents a “massive overreach” of the federal government.