WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today introduced the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act, which would require district attorneys (DAs) in many large jurisdictions to annually report information on their handling of certain serious crimes to the U.S. Attorney General. Under the bill, DA’s offices that do not report this data risk losing priority funding for their districts.

The bill would specifically require DAs in jurisdictions with more than 360,000 people to submit an annual report disclosing data on, among other things, the number of cases referred to them for crimes including murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault and burglary, and the number of these cases that the DA’s office dropped.

“American families deserve good prosecutors to keep them safe by enforcing the law, but too many district attorneys cater to far-left activists. The Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act would hold rogue prosecutors accountable for refusing to punish criminals and protect innocent Americans,” said Kennedy.

The bill would help correct a nationwide trend of DAs who decline to prosecute serious crimes. In recent years, a multimillion-dollar project has worked to hamstring effective policing in major cities by empowering soft-on-crime prosecutors.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) cosponsored the bill.

“With crime on the rise in Democrat-led cities across the nation, it is imperative that these Soros-backed prosecutors work, do their jobs and get these violent offenders off our streets, instead of allowing career criminals to run rampant in our community. Catch-and-release is enough of a disaster on the Texas-Mexico border. The last thing we need is to institute it in our courts. I’m proud to stand with Sen. Kennedy and our colleagues to demand transparency about this abdication of professional responsibility,” said Cruz.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) introduced the legislation in the House of Representatives.

“Over the last few years, we've seen a disturbing trend in big-city district attorneys working to keep dangerous criminals on our streets rather than behind bars. Look no further than my city of New York where Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg released a 'Day One' memo initially directing his staff to not prosecute certain crimes, downgrade other felony charges filed by police, and no longer seek sentences of life without parole. The same type of woke policies have been enacted by progressive DAs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, and voters have had enough. With prosecutors refusing to prosecute and governors only enabling their leniency, Congress has a responsibility to step in and arm the public with the information they need to make informed decisions at the ballot box,” said Malliotakis. 

The bill’s text is available here.

Kennedy first introduced the bill in the 118th Congress in Feb. 2024.