Bill would bar federal pension to convicted child predators
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mt., wants to ensure this doesn’t happen again and on Monday re-introduced the Denying Pensions to Convicted Child Molesters Act. The bluntly titled bill would automatically stop, upon conviction, tax dollars from going to pay for the retirement of child predators who worked for the federal government.
Daines previously introduced the bill in May 2019 and again in September 2020 at a time when Weber was still collecting the pension. Each time it was stalled in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
Who is Weber?
Once again, people are placing certain crimes on a completely different level than any other. Where are the bills to deny murderers their pensions? The message is that sexual contact with a minor is worse than killing them. That’s the takeaway. Society has gone off its wheels.
Sounds like extra-punishment to me. Has Florida given up any pretext of a public-safety component?
Just another way for a desperate politician to get notoriety . There is no way it could be legal if someone were to challenge it.
Just another dumb as a stick politician.
But it’s not punishment…
Taking earned and entitled monies from someone’s presumed lifelong career sounds like punishment to me.
where do they come up with these ludcirst bills
there no way the snowflakes in Washington will vote Yay on this
the watchers watching us dont want to lose there pensions if they are caught,
Note that the penalty is NOT ex post facto— a redeeming quality of this bill.
Specifically, sexual abuse (not other registerable offenses)
They must be thinking that this added penalty will discourage sexual offending. What they don’t realize is that sexual offending is not based on calculated decision making. It is based in many cases on cognitive distortions about many things, but almost never about money. This won’t change anything about the offense rate, other than making new offenders in that specific situation destitute and more desperate.
So since the RSO registry lives on the “slippery slope concept” this bill has horrible implications in so many ways. I am retired military. Would I lose my retirement? I am receiving Medicare. Would I lose that benefit? I am receiving a monetary allotment from the VA for disability rating. Would I lose that benefit? I am receiving SSDI. Would that benefit be withdrawn as well?
If the answer is yes to any of those answers, I would be financially destitute in a matter of days and homeless within a few months, with no hope insight. This is the part the elected officials dont consider. Again creating problems where they dont need to exist.
It’s not retroactive.
@Big Al
Your military “retirement” is not a pension but delayed (and reduced) income according to Barker v State (KS) for reasons of taxation. KSC concluded that military retirement benefits constitute reduced pay for reduced current services. If this was to be federally reclassified as a pension, then it would need to be then made applicable to military retirees and their survivors (which would cause a firestorm by both considering they are under a different Title altogether when it comes to military law). They also couldn’t withhold the TSP contributions and gains I believe either since that is just another investment method for those who were military.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/503/594.html
https://law.justia.com/cases/kansas/supreme-court/1991/65-848-3.html
In other words your money, you earn, with your labor…..is not yours.
I agree with Ryan. Society, as a whole, place some crimes way, waaayyy above others that, in other times, were considered abhorrent. Believing that a sexual crime is worse and above taking the life of another human being? Because that is what it looks to me.
I don’t see many bills about domestic batters, femicide, drivers that kills others while 1-intoxicated with alcohol and/or drugs, street racing, and plainly mad with the world with complete disregard for the safety of others?….why we don’t see bills about themselves as politicians who dive into corruption and erodes the public trust and yet, makes the system more corrupt?
All I see is a world of politicians putting another block on top of another block for the hell of it, alienating and encasing an specific segment of the population that already paid the price for the their crime and then some to protect, (not the population because really, they don’t give a rat ass damn about anyone but themselves) their own interests.
It sucks, truly does, and I don’t know what would be our future, it surely be a constant fight…..the only ones who cares for us are us themselves and those who are around us who loves us, no one else.
I truly hope that everything changes….may not be on my lifetime….but at the least, in someone’s lifetime.
Nothing but rampant whataboutism.
What about police forfeiting their pensions when they are successfully sued, or found guilty of a crime while on duty?
Of course, just because it hasn’t passed the first couple of times does not mean it won’t pass in the future. What then? Denial of social ssecurity? Food stamps? Medicaid?
We should cut this congressman’s pension instead.
This is nothing by reelection grandstanding. He knows its not going anywhere but he can put it on his little reelection mailing brochure he sends to his uneducated constituents who don’t know any better.
It will never make it out of committee for the sole reason that it is unconstitutional as hell. My guess is the US Supreme Court would overturn it 9-0.
“Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mt., wants to ensure this doesn’t happen again”
What doesn’t happen again? And as Riff Raff said, who tf is Weber? It’s hard to make rational comments on a portion of an article with no source listed.
Here is the source article, for those asking, who is Weber, etc.:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxbusiness.com/politics/bill-federal-pension-convicted-child-predators.amp
Weber abused his position as pediatrician to engage in serial sexual abuse of children on a reservation. That’s worse than what put most registrants on the registry. And, fittingly, the bill applies to a narrow range of crimes. It is not applicable to most registrable offenses. It is not applicable to ANYBODY currently on the registry, except for those few who will re-offend, because it is NOT ex post facto.
Weber would have lost his pension anyway. This bill does not change that. All it does is prevent one from collecting during the review process.
It’s not a bad bill, guys.
No it does not automatically cancel pensions for murderers, who, like Weber, get more due process before losing their pensions. But how many murderers do we think are out there collecting Federal pensions?
A few of observations:
If Weber would have lost his pension anyway, what is the need for the legislation? There are already agency administrative processes for revoking pensions.
It appears that only federal crimes are included. An employee who commits an equivalent state crime would not lose a pension.
This bill would likely have a disproportionate effect on natives–not to mention veterans.
I also worry about the provision for a foreign conviction which specifies being “convicted by an impartial court of appropriate jurisdiction within a foreign country.” Although the bill specifies due process that is “comparable” to that provided in the US, and for equivalent evidence admissibility standards, how is this determined and by whom? Talk about a bowl of legal spaghetti!
This bill is not necessary and is more collateral punishment, just as is the registry. Anyone opposed to registries should oppose this legislation as well. Some may argue deterrence. In law, deterrence is one of the four justifications (incapacitation, retribution and rehabilitation) for punishment resulting from committing a crime. Neither deterrence nor retribution should be a motivation for collateral damage–particularly to spouses and children–as results from this bill.
Veritas.