MADISONVILLE, La. – Sen. John Kennedy’s (R-La.) Small Business Mergers, Acquisitions, Sales and Brokerage Simplification Act has become law as part of the annual funding bill. Kennedy’s legislation will help small business owners by allowing them to be bought and sold more easily. This legislation does this by removing the need for a registered middleman to oversee these sales.

“At a time when Americans are struggling under Pres. Biden’s bad economic policies, this legislation will give small businesses more flexibility to create and sustain jobs. Getting rid of this bureaucratic ball-and-chain will support individual workers, job creators and the overall economy,” said Kennedy.

The current requirement disadvantages small- and medium-sized job creators, and that discourages growth across the American economy. The legislation will remedy this by allowing small business merger and acquisition (M&A) brokers to organize sales and purchases of ownership, as well as the control of private companies, without the burden of registering as “broker-dealers” with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). 

When building and selling companies becomes easier, investors are more willing to dedicate resources to them. That, in turn, creates jobs and grows the value of individual businesses and the economy as a whole.

MADISONVILLE, La. – Sen. John Kennedy’s (R-La.) Unclaimed Savings Bond Act has become law as part of the annual funding bill. Kennedy’s legislation will help Americans claim more than $29 billion in unredeemed savings bonds, including $337 million that belong to the people of Louisiana.

“Now that the Unclaimed Savings Bond Act is law, the Treasury will finally have to help Louisiana and other states reunite Americans with their hard-earned savings. Inflation is forcing Louisianians to pinch pennies, and it’s basic decency that the Treasury would help people find money that rightfully belongs to them and their families,” said Kennedy.

Background:

The Treasury Department is currently holding more than $29 billion in matured, unredeemed U.S. savings bonds, most of which the Treasury deems lost, stolen, destroyed or “unclaimed.” Many of these bonds were issued more than 70 years ago and have matured—meaning they no longer earn interest for bondholders. 

In cases in which bonds are not physically possessed by their rightful holders, only the Treasury has the names and addresses of the original bond owners. The Treasury also has the serial numbers needed to claim the bond proceeds.  

The Treasury has not taken any significant actions to proactively reunite bonds with their rightful owners despite its relaunch of Treasury Hunt, an online search tool that allows bond owners to locate bond information. The Treasury relaunched the tool at Kennedy's request. Individual states, however, conduct programs that reconnect their citizens with unclaimed property. 

Kennedy’s legislation requires the Treasury to provide states with information about matured and unclaimed bonds so these states can use unclaimed property programs to help find the original owners (or heirs of those original owners) of these bonds. 

Madisonville, La. – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) today joined Sens. Linsey Graham (R-S.C.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Tom Tillis (R-N.C.) in urging Pres. Biden to re-consider visiting the U.S.-Mexico border to address the influx of illegal immigration and drug and human trafficking. The senators’ letter comes in anticipation of the end of Title 42.

“The ongoing crisis at our southern border is a national security nightmare and a humanitarian disaster, and the amount of illegal drugs flowing through our southern border, particularly fentanyl, is at an all-time high. With the looming end of Title 42 deportation authority, the problems at the border are getting exponentially worse,” the senators wrote.

“You are the Commander in Chief, and you owe it to those working on behalf of our nation to secure our border to hear from them directly about the conditions they face. In many cases, seeing is believing, and it is now time for you to see,” they continued.

“We hope you will reconsider your decision to not visit the border before it’s too late,” they concluded.

The full letter is available here.

WASHINGTON – Today, Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the subcommittee chair, released a report entitled: Overprivileged: A Closer Look at Congressional Oversight, Executive Privilege and the Separation of Powers.

The new report breaks down the logjam of information disputes between the executive branch and Congress, which is challenging Congress’s constitutional authority to conduct oversight. The senators found that the executive branch’s compliance with the traditional “accommodation process” has waned under recent administrations of both political parties. They urged Congress to take up legislation to restore its constitutional oversight authority on a bipartisan basis. 

“The accommodation process developed as a way to balance the competing, legitimate needs of Congress and the executive branch, allowing each to carry out its constitutional responsibilities while respecting those of the other branch. That process served the country and the American people for more than 200 years, until recent developments disrupted it. The new process, fueled by the executive branch’s overreaching interpretations of executive privilege and the separation of powers, serves recalcitrant executive branch officials, not congressional oversight,” wrote Kennedy and Whitehouse.

For more than 200 years, Congress and the executive branch overwhelmingly engaged in good-faith compromise to settle disputes between Congress’s oversight authority and the executive branch’s authority to maintain confidentiality of sensitive information. In recent decades, however, the executive branch­—largely through the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)—has increasingly deployed hardball tactics and novel legal theories to obstruct congressional oversight in violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers.  

While OLC could end this obstruction by reevaluating its opinions related to congressional oversight, OLC has indicated that it is unlikely to do so voluntarily. In their report, Kennedy and Whitehouse lay out the breadth of legislative proposals to revitalize congressional oversight authority, ranging from sharpening existing enforcement tools to speeding up judicial resolutions. The senators urged their fellow lawmakers to take up bipartisan reform efforts to strengthen Congress’s hand in the accommodation process. 

“Without a robust oversight power, Congress cannot serve the vital function of exposing misconduct and providing accountability that our Constitution and our democracy demand. Accordingly, members of all parties should agree on the urgent need for reforms that would revive Congress’s oversight authority and restore Congress’s coequal position in the separation of powers,” concluded the senators.

The report comes after the Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights Subcommittee held two hearings on the process and substance of executive privilege determinations during the 117^th Congress. At the first hearing in August 2021, the subcommittee heard from a bipartisan panel of experts about the executive branch’s increasing use of executive privilege and related doctrines to withhold vast amounts of information and stymie oversight requests from Congress. At the second hearing in October 2022, the subcommittee heard from Christopher Schroeder, Assistant Attorney General for OLC, to better understand OLC’s perspective on executive privilege and the accommodation process. That hearing marked the first time in 20 years that a sitting, confirmed Assistant Attorney General for OLC had appeared before Congress.

The full report is available here.