Press Releases

Today, ranking member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) attended President Obama's address on surveillance reform at the Department of Justice. In his remarks, the President concurred with many of the findings of the review group he convened on Intelligence and Communications Technologies-including its recommendation that the government should no longer engage in the bulk collection of telephone metadata at the National Security Agency (NSA).

Following the bipartisan tradition of the Voting Rights Act, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), joined with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) Thursday to introduce bipartisan legislation to uphold the most vital principles of the historic law. The legislation supported by a range of civil rights groups, is a bicameral, bipartisan response to the Supreme Court's Shelby County decision which struck down a core provision in the Voting Rights Act.

Today, all of the Democratic women on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee – including Representatives Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and Karen Bass (D-Calif.) – sent a letter to Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) urging him to shift his focus away from denying women their constitutionally guaranteed right to make their own healthcare decisions, and towards critical Committee issues. This letter comes following the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice's hearing last Thursday on H.R.

Today, Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), along with 65 other members of Congress, wrote Ambassador Samantha Power, the Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), about the UN's inadequate response to the cholera epidemic in Haiti. Specifically, the letter detailed how in October 2010, UN peacekeepers in Haiti introduced cholera to the Caribbean nation and urged the UN to take immediate legal responsibility for the resulting harms. While the UN has expressed a desire to repair the damage, to date, no significant action has been taken.

(DETROIT) – On Friday, the Obama administration announced two executive actions to strengthen the federal firearms background check system. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is issuing a proposed rule to clarify terminology used in prohibiting firearms purchases on the basis of certain mental health reasons.

(DETROIT) – Today, President Obama commuted the sentences of eight federal inmates serving lengthy time behind bars for nonviolent offenses related to crack cocaine under an older sentencing regime. This decision follows the implementation in 2011 of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, landmark criminal justice legislation that reduced mandatory minimum sentences for crack offenses and minimized the arbitrary disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Ranking member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee John Conyers, Jr.

(DETROIT) – Today, Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Co-Chairs Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) joined Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), CPC member and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, to urge the president to take swift action on 46 recommendations made by a presidential taskforce to reform the surveillance program at the National Security Agency (NSA) to protect Americans' civil liberties:

(DETROIT) – Today, U.S. House Judiciary Chairman Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) responded to U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon's ruling yesterday that the National Surveillance Agency's (NSA) bulk metadata collection program, which collects information on virtually all telephone calls in the United States, is likely unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. Specifically, Judge Leon, who is an appointee of President George W.