Bills Introduced – 11-5-25
Yesterday with just the Senate in Washington, and the House still on extended vacation, there were 13 bills introduced. One of those bills may receive additional coverage in this blog:
S 3109 A bill to amend titles 46 and 49, United States Code, to require that individuals who commit human trafficking violations be permanently disqualified from obtaining certain licenses issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation, and for other purposes. Blackburn, Marsha [Sen.-R-TN]
HME-TWIC Requirements
I can find no bills in the 118th Congress that would be similar to S 3109. The description of this legislation does not specifically mention the hazardous material endorsement (HME) for commercial drivers’ licenses, but I am not aware of any other ‘licenses’ that DHS and DOT have any effect on, so I suspect that this bill would be adding human trafficking as a disqualifying offense for the TSA background check for HME’s and probably the Transportation Workers Identification Credential (TWIC), thus the reference to 46 USC. If either of these two programs would be affected by this bill, I will be covering the bill in this blog.
MIP Legislation
I would like to mention in passing one bill that will not receive additional coverage in this blog:
S 3104 A bill to make ideologically motivated crimes eligible for the death penalty. Kennedy, John [Sen.-R-LA]
Even if this bill were to only include the most heinous crimes in the list of offenses that would be eligible for the ‘ideologically motivated’ upgrade to the death penalty, it would still be fraught with problems related to protected thought and expression. Presumably, the bill would add certain political speech to the special circumstances that would make conviction of select federal crimes subject to the death penalty. The problem becomes who gets to decide what political speech is qualifying. Would speech calling for the violent overthrow of the United States government? Would speech that calls for the impeachment of President Trump? Or would speech criticizing the current haphazard application of tariffs qualify?