Bail reform needed to keep violent offenders off the streets

On Nov. 21, 2024, we will memorialize the third anniversary of the Waukesha Christmas parade attack. The Waukesha community continues to heal from the violence unleashed that day, but this community is resilient and continues to persevere. While we must take time to remember those lost, we should also turn an eye toward preventing a similar attack from ever happening again. That starts with fixing the radical left-wing bail policies that put dangerous offenders back on the streets where they may commit further crimes.

As we all know now, the perpetrator of the Waukesha Christmas parade attack had a lengthy violent criminal record stretching all the way back to 1999. In the year preceding the Christmas parade attack alone, he’d been charged with shooting at a relative and a relative’s friend during an argument; contempt of court and violation of court orders in a child support case; domestic violence in Georgia; and less than three weeks before the attack in Waukesha, he was arrested for punching a woman and running her over with a vehicle.

For that last crime, he was released after posting only $1,000 bail. A figure which Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm, who was responsible for the bail recommendation, later admitted was “inappropriately low.”

Unfortunately, the radical left-wing approach to prosecution and bail have had deadly consequences elsewhere in the country, too. Groups like the Bail Project and Minnesota Freedom Fund aggressively “crowdsource” funds to pay bail with little regard to the criminal histories of those they’re putting back out on the streets. The Minnesota Freedom Fund paid the bail for notable offenders, including George Howard, a man charged with domestic abuse. Two weeks after having his bail paid, Howard was charged with second-degree murder in a road rage incident. Another Minnesota Freedom Fund beneficiary was Shawn Michael Tillman, who got bailed out after he was held following an indecent exposure arrest. Three weeks later, Tillman murdered a man at a light rail station, for which he was convicted and is now serving a life sentence.

A 2023 analysis by CNN found that at least 65 defendants who were bailed out by the Minnesota Freedom Fund “were awaiting trial on felony charges involving violence, physical threats, or sex crimes. All were convicted.” So it should come as no surprise that in 2020, the then-interim executive director of that organization bluntly and profanely admitted that his organization does not check the charges against the individuals it bails out.

Making matters even worse, these organizations are blindly supported by liberal politicians. Then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), for example, tweeted a fundraising appeal to her supporters specifically to benefit the Minnesota Freedom Fund. With that kind of high-level support in government, it’s no wonder that there’s little transparency and oversight into the funds themselves.

These bail funds operate in the shadows, without any federal or state regulation in many areas. However, some states like Indiana, Georgia and Texas, have taken steps either to regulate or ban bail funds, bringing accountability and greater protection for the public. The state regulations are a first step, but more must be done to address the conduct of bail funds.

That’s why I’ve introduced the Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets Act, which will protect our communities by defining bail bonds as insurance products. This simple change will make entities that post bail liable under federal insurance fraud laws and subject to the same background check requirements as those in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. Additionally, this reform brings charitable bail funds under state insurance regulation. This would introduce a much-needed layer of scrutiny, ensuring that the people these organizations bail out aren’t violent criminals who pose a threat to the community.

It also ensures the source of funds is legitimate. States like New York have long been skeptical of crowdsourcing anonymized donations for bail, disguising the true source of the money. As one scholar describes, the use of crowdsourcing “creates an easy way to legitimize money, which would have otherwise been rejected by the court due to its likely being the proceeds of criminal activity.”

The Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets Act is the safeguard our communities desperately need, ensuring that our legal system prioritizes safety and accountability over dangerous ideological experiments. We need policies that protect the vulnerable, not empower the violent. Through this bill, and other commonsense reforms to our cash bail system, we can restore balance, protect our communities and ensure that justice serves its true purpose.

Scott Fitzgerald represents Wisconsin’s 5th Congressional District and is a member of the Judiciary Committee.