No Taxpayer-Funded Pensions for Sex Criminals Act introduced
U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) reintroduced the No Taxpayer-Funded Pensions for Sex Criminals Act, bipartisan legislation to prohibit registrants from collecting federal pensions.
Keep in mind that politicians and federal law enforcement are not the only ones who receive federal pensions. Hundreds of thousands of career civil servants, and administrative staff for federal agencies would be affected as well. In fact, the U.S. Federal Government is the largest single employer in the United States, with a total workforce of approximately 3 million people as of mid-2024. This figure includes civilian employees in various departments and the U.S. Postal Service, as well as active-duty military personnel. That’s double Walmart’s count and triple Amazon’s.
So now (assuming this passes, which hopefully it won’t), people on the registry will become a special class of individuals no longer getting a pension. Let’s compound that with Florida Rep. Steube’s introduction of the so-called CLEAN Act a couple of months ago, which would bar anyone on a sex offense registry from receiving ACA premium tax credits or federally funded Medicaid.
So now (assuming that passes, which hopefully it won’t), people on the registry will lose health coverage as well. Let’s compound that with the deep cuts to other benefits, such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that affect all Americans in need, registrants might lose their pensions, lose necessary health coverage, and lose food stamps.
So now again, compound that with 18 U.S.C. Sec. 13663, which specifically prohibits admission to subsidized housing for households containing someone subject to a lifetime registration requirement under state law (Florida is lifetime for ALL). So registrants – and their families – are ineligible for Section 8 housing.
For people on the registry, prison is becoming the closest thing America offers to a social safety net.
Can’t afford rent? Prison gives you a roof over your head. Sure, it’s a rusty bunk in a crowded concrete box with a toilet three feet from your face, but technically you’re not homeless anymore. Struggling to eat? They’ll give you three meals a day. Maybe “meal” is generous, but expired mystery meat still beats an empty stomach. Need healthcare? Congratulations. Incarceration finally makes you eligible for medical treatment. They may barely acknowledge your symptoms and hand you ibuprofen like it cures cancer, but hey, it’s more healthcare access than you’ll get on the outside.
Otherwise, if you’re burdened with endless registry restrictions, your pension evaporates, you’re excluded from housing and healthcare subsidies, excluded from all other assistance programs, unemployable in practice, and pushed further and further to the margins every year, there’s not much of a roadmap to success.
At some point, you have to ask whether the system is designed to encourage rehabilitation or whether it’s quietly making incarceration the only stable option left for us.
In all seriousness, the data consistently shows that sexual offense recidivism rates are low – that’s FACT. That means there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who may have committed an offense decades ago, but who have since lived law-abiding lives, raised families, followed every rule imposed on them, and genuinely tried to move forward responsibly.
But when laws and policies make housing unattainable, employment impossible, healthcare inaccessible, and basic survival a constant struggle, we have to ask what message is being sent. A system that removes pathways to success does not strengthen public safety. It undermines it. If we truly want safer communities, the answer cannot be to make lawful living harder than unlawful living for people who are trying to do the right thing.
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I’ve read some online analysis of the bill, and it appears that at this time, it is not retroactive and it applies only to persons convicted of certain crimes after the enactment of the legislation. It seemed particularly galling to some of the lawmakers that persons who were serving time in prison were still getting pensions. It seemed to escape them (or they don’t care) that innocent family members who depend upon that income for food, shelter, medical and other living expenses will suffer under the proposal.
As to the passport issue, according to the US State Department, HHS will now inform the State Department of all past-due payments of more than $2,500 and parents in that group will have their passports revoked. The first 2,700 revocations are now being conducted. Previously, the revocation policy only applied to those who attempted to renew their passports. There was never a pro-active enforcement action as there is now. The law is not new (and I never said it was), however the method and means by which it is being enforced is new.
If one researches online further beyond the government website, then one will learn they’re only doing the job at hand by the law on the books, starting with the 2,700 who owe $100k or more in back child support and will work down to those who owe $2,500.
The USG is doing this with the states in the name of the children who depend on the child support and holding the parents accountable to their support agreements. Nothing wrong with that. The totals of unpaid back child support goes into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Even those who still have an active passport and are deadbeat but are aware of this new enforcement have returned to paying child support as they should. Once the child support agreement is fulfilled for those who had the passport revoked, they’ll get their passport back to travel. There’s nothing nefarious about this by the USG. It wouldn’t surprise me, IMO, if the states or someone within the states asked for this help after exhausting all other measures to get back child support from someone who has a passport (which is the key marker here since not all deadbeats have passports).
If having a bigger stick enforcing the payment plan by revoking (or threatening to revoke) a passport helps the state collect back child support for the child, then great. This is not about finding other ways to screw the American citizen once low hanging fruit against PFRs is exhausted (as noted in the original post).
One source for your reading leisure on this: The U.S. Is Now Revoking Passports Over Unpaid Child Support (8 May 2026 Travel Pirates) (https://www.travelpirates.com/captains-log/us-passport-revocation-child-support). There are other articles detailing this effort as well. Deadbeats need to pay up, it is past time.
Let me start by saying that I am no conspiracy theorist. I believe man walked on the moon, there is no bigfoot and Oswald did in fact kill Kennedy.
However, it strikes me that there is something much more sinister afoot in the USA than just this proposed legislation. There is ample evidence that the US Government is actively targeting multiple groups of citizens for enhanced enforcement and harassment. Legislation targeting those forced to register is the low hanging fruit. This particularly odious piece of legislation is just the most recent example. But what happens when the low hanging fruit has been picked?
This happens. This week, the State Department said it was in the process of revoking or denying US Passports for citizens who owe more than $2500 in back child support. Some 2,700 people are targeted in the first round. The IRS is doing the same for people who are in arrears with their tax debt with no payment plan. The Justice Department announced it was denaturalizing US Citizens for certain crimes.
So you see, it isn’t just persons forced to register that are being targeted. That is why it’s so important for us, along with our friends and family, to speak out against this legislation at the appropriate time and to support FAC in whatever way we can. How many of us would have heard about the legislation if not for FAC?
I don’t know what the motive is here, I don’t know why it is happening all at once and I don’t know where this all ends. But history has shown us what lies at the ends of these roads, and it is never a good thing.
Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? The revoking of passports for unpaid back child support as an example is not new and been on the books for the thirty years already. It prevents those with debt such as this and others from being an overseas flight risk to avoid payment. Prevent fearmongering, research the actions being enforced today to see how old they are.
The 1996 law that allows the federal government to revoke passports for unpaid child support is the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), also known as the Welfare Reform Act (P.L. 104-193). It started at $5K and was lowered to $2.5K in 2005 via the Deficit Reduction Act. Prevents overseas flight risks of those who still owe. Given the passport is a govt doc, it is within their right to revoke as they see fit.
This isn’t just at the federal level. Back in 2010 or so, the State of Florida toyed with a similar proposal. That no one on the Florida Retirement System who was convicted of various sexual crimes would be eligible to receive a pension. If you didn’t know, virtually ALL government employees in the state are on the same system–county, city or state–all the same. I think Duval (Jacksonville) and Miami-Dade may have their own.
Anyway, as someone who had twenty years in the system, I took my retirement early so I wouldn’t lose it. As it turns out, that proposal never succeeded. Taking it early has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, I figured some of a little was better than all of none.
All this proposal is (at any level) is a “feel good” proposition designed to soothe the masses that “they are doing SOMETHING”. It should go no where. But, our leaders aren’t always what they should be.
Mark
They keep saying “over and over again” that the registry is not punishment. If my dad when I was a kid had my toy taken away, I was being punished. How is taking people’s pensions not punishment. Even if it didn’t pass, just the concept of that is punishing someone for something that they did decades ago. And if they would pass it, retro-actively punishing you.
If they could get away with it, they would send us all back to prison for life. (And probably saying that is not punishment either. They would make up something like a “Safety protocol”.