Sponsors
The bill creates a placeholder for a new federal crime in statutory tables without providing substantive text, trading no immediate clarity for the risk of legal confusion and additional administrative work.
No clear immediate benefits specified in the bill text (no substantive provisions are added in the cited section).
Federal defendants and the public could face legal uncertainty because the bill inserts a placeholder entry for a new federal offense without any substantive elements, leaving criminal liability undefined until later text is added.
Federal courts and the Department of Justice will incur administrative and interpretive burdens because they must later interpret, implement, and potentially litigate the parameters of the offense once substantive language is added.
Researchers, publishers, and information users may be misled because codifying a chapter/table entry without substantive text can create the appearance that a completed criminal offense exists when none is yet defined.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Adds a chapter-table entry and a new empty section slot to Title 18 for an "under color of law" provision but supplies no substantive offense language, penalties, funding, or effective date.
Adds a short title and creates a new placement in the federal criminal code for an offense addressing actions taken "under color of law," but does not include any substantive criminal text, penalties, funding, or implementation details. The measure changes the table of chapters in Title 18 and inserts an empty statutory slot; it has no immediate substantive legal effect until actual offense language is enacted or inserted.
Introduced February 9, 2026 by Cory Anthony Booker · Last progress February 9, 2026