11/01/2026
It matters to your families safety, the insanity needs to stop
If Washington Changes Hands
How a shift in control of Congress could reach every licensed bail agent in America, from the Capitol to the county courthouse. By Michael D. Morrison
Every bail agent in America writes bonds under state law, in a state courtroom, before a local judge. That fact leads many agents to believe that what happens in Washington stays in Washington. It does not. If control of the House and Senate shifts from Republicans to Democrats, the effects would travel from Congress to the state capitols and down to the courthouses where we work every day, and no agent in any state would be outside their reach.
The first change would be to the legislation now moving in our favor. The Cashless Bail Reporting Act, H.R. 5625, passed the House in May 2026 and was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it still waits. It would require the Justice Department to publish a list of the states and local governments that release people accused of serious violent or sexual offenses without a secured bond. A companion bill would extend federal insurance fraud statutes to charitable bail funds that post bond for violent offenders. Any bill that does not pass before this Congress ends in January dies with it. Under a Democratic majority, the committee chairs decide which bills are reintroduced, heard, and brought to a vote, and bills like these would most likely never see the floor again.
The second change would be the return of bills written to move the country away from surety bail. Representative Ted Lieu and Senator Cory Booker have carried the Pretrial Integrity and Safety Act, which encourages states to replace their bail systems with risk assessments. Senator Bernie Sanders went further in 2018 with a bill that would end secured bonds in federal criminal cases, pay grants to states that adopt alternative pretrial systems, and cut off Justice Department grant money to states that keep cash bail. Congress cannot outlaw surety bail in any state. It can tie the federal dollars those states depend on to the policy Washington prefers, and that is the real threat in these bills.
For the next two years, there is a limit on all of this. President Trump would remain in office through 2028 and would veto these bills, and his administration has already put its position in writing through Executive Order 14342 and its support for H.R. 5625. The Senate filibuster would also remain in place. The likely result in Washington would be a standoff rather than new law against our profession. A standoff in Washington, however, is not a standoff in the states, and Federal grant money is the first path into the states. Congress controls the Justice Department programs that fund state and local courts, jails, and law enforcement. A Democratic majority could press for spending bills that pay for pretrial services agencies and risk assessment programs, with conditions that favor states moving away from secured bail. When a state budget depends on federal dollars, legislators, county officials, and court administrators feel that pressure directly, whether or not a single new federal law is ever signed.
That money does more than shape policy. It builds a competing system. Grants for pretrial services offices, electronic monitoring, and risk assessment tools create a government-funded release system that stands beside surety bail and competes with it. Once those offices are staffed and funded, they become their own lobby in the state capitol, and their argument never changes: the state has built something new, so commercial surety is no longer needed. I documented how government money has built this infrastructure before in The Anti-Surety Movement: https://mike-morrison-public-safety-and-accountability.ghost.io/the-anti-surety-movement/
The second path is the national stage. Democratic control would put Democratic chairs on the Judiciary committees, and those chairs would choose the hearings and the witnesses. That would give the organizations working against our profession a national platform, credibility in the press, and a strong fundraising message. The same groups would then carry that message into state legislatures, ballot measures, and local races for judge and prosecutor.
The third path is political pressure. If the national party makes bail reform a priority, state Democratic legislators would face pressure to follow. Bills modeled on the federal proposals, including the push to replace bail decisions with risk assessment scores, tend to appear in state sessions after they gain attention in Washington. An agent who has spent years building relationships in his own capitol could find the ground shifting because of a hearing held a thousand miles away.
The larger danger comes later. If a Democratic Congress is followed by a Democratic President in 2028, the standoff ends, and the bills that stalled for two years can become law. The groundwork for that moment would be laid in the next two years, through the hearings, the grants, and the state bills that come before it.
This is why a change in Washington is not a distant concern for any licensed bail agent. It does not matter whether you write bonds in a large city or a rural county, or whether your state legislature leans one way or the other. The money, the messaging, and the pressure all flow downhill to the same place: the local courthouse where we stand behind the people we bond and answer to the court when they fail to appear.
The profession has earned back a great deal of ground over the past two years, and that ground can be held. Holding it will take every agent staying informed about Washington, staying engaged in his own state, and staying in front of the lawmakers and judges who make the decisions that affect our work. Whoever controls Congress, our job remains the same. Show the results, tell our story, and keep doing the work that proves surety bail holds people accountable.
