No state has fully complied with the sex offender registration requirements of the Adam Walsh Act, and only four have tried. Some would rather lose their meager crime prevention grants than spend the money it would take to comply. That alone should tell you that this is a bad law.

[The law] requires all states to adopt strict standards for registering sex offenders .... [It] makes it a federal felony to fail to reregister as a sex offender after moving to another state and requires states to toughen their penalties, now often misdemeanors, for failing to register at all.

It also requires offenders deemed especially dangerous to register for life and to renew their registration, usually in person, four times a year. In addition, the law expands the number of crimes for which sex offenders must register and requires states to collect more of their personal information and post much of it publicly.

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Making good on an important campaign promise, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act today. The law overturns a Supreme Court decision that precluded victims of gender discrimination in pay from obtaining relief if they didn't know of the discriminatory pay differential within 180 days of the time their pay was set.

The McCain-Palin ticket, echoing the Republican Party as a whole and business lobbyists, insisted that the legislation would encourage frivolous litigation -- defined, in Republican-speak, as any litigation brought by an employee against an employer. It is to the president's credit that he made this legislation one of the first priorities of his administration.

Said President Obama:

I am not enamored of the stimulus plan that passed the House because I think it is entirely too timid for the problems we face. In addition, it does not a thing for the housing crisis. For that reason, I think it is bad politics. Because for all the caterwauling, including from me, about Obama's post-partisan unity schtick, as in most cases, the politics of the stimulus plan will be determined by the results of the policy.

It is for that reason that I find Andrew Sullivan's analysis perplexing. First, Sullivan says he opposes the bill. But not 15 minutes later, he excoriates the House GOP for voting against the bill:

The House just passed the stimulus bill by a vote of 244-188. I think 2 NO Republicans voted for the bill.

NYTimes report.

Slow drivers, watch out. The Colorado House today passed the "slowpoke driver" bill.

House Bill 1042 would require drivers who are traveling below the speed limit with five or more cars backed up behind them to pull over at the first safe opportunity. They also can travel in the right-hand lane on two lane roads.

This just gives the cops another reason to stop motorists. And what if it's snowing or icy out? I always drive at a snail's pace when it's snowing or icy.

One criticism I think is far-fetched:

Lawmakers worried aloud Wednesday about leaving tanker trucks on the side of the road vulnerable to terrorist plots.

Like we've had so many of those here. It's far more likely wildlife will be killed crossing the highway. Friday, 16 elk were killed crossing I-70 as a result of a traffic accident.

American Prospect received a copy of the first ten bills that Sen. Harry Reid will seek to have passed in the Senate.

There's not a crime bill among them.

Democrats now control both houses of Congress with a Democratic president -- for the first time in 16 years.

The House stands at 256 to 178 with one vacancy. If Al Franken is sworn in, Dems will hold 59 seats in the Senate.

The trumpeted 2004-05 "reforms" of New York's notoriously harsh Rockefeller drug laws did little to help the state's inmates who had been unfairly sentenced. Anthony Williams, for instance, is 17 years into a 25-to-life sentence. He can't get relief because his offense was too insignificant.

Ironically, he was too small a fish in the ocean of the illicit drug trade to benefit from what have since proven to be anemic legislative charades. Most of the drug offenders who were re-sentenced and released under those incremental "reforms" had convictions for the possession or the sale of large quantities of illegal narcotics. But treacherous, counterintuitive twists in the "reform legislation" actually made it impossible for many low-level offenders to get retroactive relief.

Low level offenders serving potential life sentences are exactly the population that sentencing reform measures should target. It's time for real reform, not window dressing. [more ...]

Jenny Price is a crime victim. Her brother was murdered. It is understandable that she feels no good will for the murderer. Yet she opposes California's Prop. 9, the Victims Bill of Rights Act of 2008.

It would restrict offenders' rights from arrest to imprisonment in myriad ways. For example, it reduces the number of parole hearings inmates are entitled to and does away with state-provided lawyers for parole violators. What disturbs me most, however, is that prosecutors would be required to consider the opinions of victims' relatives on charges, sentencing and parole. The measure also would remove all limits on the number of family members who could speak at sentencing and parole hearings.

Opponents of Proposition 9 call it unnecessary (California has a victims' bill of rights, but it's not in the Constitution), expensive to enforce and vulnerable to challenges. They should be more direct: It is unjust.

In remarkably clear terms, Price explains the unfairness of a victim's "right" to influence sentencing: [more ...]

Give credit to Rep. Henry Waxman, who thinks Congress shouldn't respond to a crisis by enacting a law and leaving town to campaign. As chair of the House Oversight Committee, Waxman would like to provide some oversight right now.

Rep. Waxman is racing the clock as many congressional leaders will have left town to campaign for reelection. “This financial crisis has shaken the global economy,” he said last week when announcing five hearings. “Congress cannot wait until a new administration arrives in January to examine what went wrong and who should be held accountable.”

Among those scheduled to testify: SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, Lehman Brothers Holdings chairman Richard Fuld, and former executives of AIG.

Did you know this?

The bailout bill also gives the Internal Revenue Service new authority to conduct undercover operations. It would immunize the IRS from a passel of federal laws, including permitting IRS agents to run businesses for an extended sting operation, to open their own personal bank accounts with U.S. tax dollars, and so on. (Think IRS agents posing as accountants or tax preparers and saying, "I'm not sure if that deduction is entirely legal, but it'll save you $1,000. Want to take it?") That section had expired as of January 1, 2008, and would now be renewed.

[more ...]

Whether it succeeds or fails, elected officials and business leaders alike said it stands to fundamentally alter the relationship between government and the private markets perhaps in ways that are not immediately clear.

Passage was hardly a victory for the Bush Administration: [More....]

The Senate is about to vote on the bailout bill. Here's a thread to discuss bailout issues and the vote.

Update: So far it's 55 to 18. Looks like it will pass easily.

It's a done deal: It passed 74 to 25. Vrey few Democrats voted against it. Among them: Feingold, Johnson, Landrieu, Tester, Nelson,, Stabenow, Wyden, Cantwell, Dorgan.

Update: Here comes the self-congratulations: Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell are giving speeches about how great the Senate is. Reid says Chris Dodd did a yeoman's job. Reid said he was Dodd's lieutenant.