Legislative Priorities - 116th Congress

FLEOA strongly supports legislation to enhance the performance and effectiveness of federal law enforcement officers, protect law enforcement pay and benefits, enhance recruitment and retention, improve officer safety, and strengthen homeland security and the criminal justice system. Likewise, FLEOA vigorously opposes any legislative attempt to strip federal law enforcement officers of their rights to due process, diminish the ability of agencies to continue to recruit and retain the highest caliber law enforcement personnel, or otherwise negatively impact the mission of federal law enforcement.

H.R. 1156 (Bacon, R-NE), the "Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA) Reform Act”—This legislation would address many of the issues confronting federal law enforcement officers under LEOSA, including: (1) revise the Gun Free Schools Act to include an exemption for LEOSA; (2) allow for carrying of a firearm on property otherwise open to the public and national parks; (3) allow ammunition magazines of any capacity; and (4) provide multiple options for retired officers to meet the qualification standards required by LEOSA.

H.R. 1256 (Connolly, D-VA) / S. 531 (Tester, D-MT), the "First Responder Fair RETIRE Act”—These companion bills are intended to protect the retirement status for those federal law enforcement officers who are seriously injured or disabled in the line of duty. Specifically, the bill preserves a disabled officer’s 6(c)/LEO status even when the nature or extent of an injury prevents the individual from returning to federal service in a covered law enforcement position.

H.R. 1866 (Pascrell, D-NJ) / S. 1504 (Tillis, R-NC), the "Probation Officer Protection Act”—This legislation would provide arrest authority to U.S. Probation Officers for any third party who assaults, resists, intimidates, or interferes with a Probation Officer in the performance of their official duties.

S. 4977 (Lankford, R-OK & Sinema, D-AZ), the "RAS Clarity Act”—S. 4977 corrects the erroneous, extralegal determination by OPM in 2016 concerning the divisibility of a FERS retirement annuity supplement (RAS) between a retiree and his/her former spouse. Specifically, the bill clarifies current law, puts an immediate stop to OPM’s collection efforts against retirees, and requires the agency to repay every dollar it has improperly seized.

H.R. 6864 (Cuellar, D-TX) / S. 3732 (Cornyn, R-TX), the "Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila Federal Law Enforcement Protection Act"—This legislation, named after the Hero ICE Agents attacked by a Mexican drug cartel in 2011, corrects a recent federal appellate decision that effectively eliminated the murder conviction for two cartel members responsible for the death of Agent Zapata by finding that 18 U.S.C. 1114 does not apply extraterritorially.

H.R. 1195 (P. King, R-NY) / S. 473 (Booker, D-NJ), the "Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act”—This bill would amend the definition of "law enforcement officer” for retirement purposes to extend 6(c)/LEO retirement to all law enforcement employees who currently do not receive it.

The "CI Realignment Act”—This legislation would transfer the functions, personnel, assets, and obligations of the Internal Revenue Service's "Criminal Investigation Division" to a newly-created "Bureau of Criminal Investigation" within the Treasury Department. This reorganization would subject CI to administration by a Senior Executive Federal Law Enforcement Official as opposed to civilian leadership.

FLEOA is the largest nonpartisan, nonprofit professional association exclusively representing nearly 29,000 active and retired federal law enforcement officers from over 65 different agencies.