A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that would require the federal government to compile and publish a list of every single federal crime on the books.
These include statutes that Congress has passed and regulations imposed by federal bureaucracies.
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Chris Coons (D-DE) introduced the Count the Crimes to Cut Act to foster transparency and promote criminal justice reform.
The House already passed a version of this bill in December by voice vote.
Right On Crime applauds the U.S. House Judiciary Committee for passing three essential bills out of committee representing significant progress in addressing the federal overcriminalization crisis: the Count the Crimes to Cut Act of 2025, the Mens Rea Reform Act, and the End… pic.twitter.com/fd8E2zr2AZ
— Right On Crime (@RightOnCrime) June 10, 2025
Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Peter Welch (D-VT) are cosponsoring the measure.
If passed, the proposed legislation would instruct the attorney general to produce a detailed report listing every federal criminal statutory offense within one year. This includes each crime’s potential penalties, mens rea requirement, and prosecution data over the past 15 years.
Federal agencies would have to do the same for regulatory crimes they enforce. Within two years, the Justice Department would create a publicly searchable online database so the public can read them.
Congress has created an estimated 5,199 federal statutory crimes as of 2019, according to the Mercatus Center and the Heritage Foundation. But these only account for laws. There are also thousands of federal regulations in effect. Combined, the federal government has imposed between 7,000 and 8,000 statutory and regulatory rules, which means it is difficult to ascertain how many different ways the average American could unwittingly commit crimes.
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Cruz released a statement noting that “Criminal laws are opaque and scattered across thousands of pages of statutes and regulations, preventing Americans from understanding when they might be crossing into criminal conduct.” He asserted that “Congress has a responsibility to make the criminal code knowable and accessible to enhance transparency, accountability, and clarity in federal criminal law.”
RELEASE: Sens. Cruz, Lee, Coons Introduce Bill to Modernize Federal Criminal Code https://t.co/BVLdLYOcDH pic.twitter.com/4ypX4CLXp7
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) February 19, 2026
Coons argued that lawmakers must “reexamine the sprawling system of federal crimes and penalties tucked into new laws and inserted into old ones that Congress has created over decades.”
I’ll put it simply: This law needs to pass.
As Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch noted in his book, “Overruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law,” the government “produces such a large number of rules, at such a furious clip and with such complexity, that even the agency officials responsible for them had become confused.”
In the book, Gorsuch chronicles a bevy of stories in which ordinary Americans have had their lives ruined after unknowingly running afoul of the flood of arbitrary laws and regulations our government has instituted.
I’d wager that the vast majority of these laws and regulations are not only completely unnecessary, but they are also blatant infringements on our constitutional rights.
Every time the government passes a law or imposes a regulation, it grows. With each rule, the state has gradually expanded its power far beyond what the Constitution’s framers intended. Shrinking the size and scope of the government means removing the laws that allow it to become ever more intrusive in the lives of everyday Americans. If this bill passes, it could be a significant step toward stripping the government of power it was never supposed to have.
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