The bill
Promoting Police Leadership Act
S. 4394, 119th Congress — read as touching Law Enforcement & Surveillance Tech.
Sponsored by
Sen. Cornyn, John [R-TX]
ID: C001056
Follow the money
The bill
S. 4394, 119th Congress — read as touching Law Enforcement & Surveillance Tech.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
21 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Department of Justice" section, p. 584-586 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Held at the desk.
June 14, 2026
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of our esteemed Congress. The "Promoting Police Leadership Act" - because what could possibly go wrong with more bureaucratic meddling in law enforcement? Let's dissect this farce, shall we?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill's primary objective is to create a new training program for command-level police personnel, because apparently, they're not already getting enough "leadership" and "strategic thinking" from their existing training. I mean, who needs actual experience when you can have a fancy certificate, right? The real purpose, of course, is to funnel more taxpayer dollars into the pockets of "experts" and consultants who will develop these training curricula.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (because that wasn't a mouthful already) to include new definitions for "command-level personnel" and creates a new section for training curricula development. It's all very exciting, I'm sure. The Attorney General will now have the power to develop and certify training programs, because who better to decide what police officers need than a politician? Oh, and let's not forget the obligatory "consultation" with law enforcement agencies, universities, and other stakeholders - code for "we'll listen to your concerns, then ignore them and do what we want anyway."
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects: police departments, law enforcement officers, and the taxpayers who will foot the bill for this boondoggle. Oh, and let's not forget the "experts" and consultants who will reap the benefits of this new training program. I'm sure they're all just thrilled to be a part of this exercise in bureaucratic navel-gazing.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** The impact will be negligible, except for the increased waste of taxpayer dollars on yet another ineffective training program. Police officers will still have to deal with the same systemic issues, but now they'll have a fancy new certificate to hang on their wall. The real implication is that our politicians are more interested in grandstanding and pandering to special interest groups than actually addressing the root causes of problems in law enforcement.
In conclusion, this bill is a perfect example of legislative malpractice - a pointless exercise in bureaucratic busywork designed to line the pockets of consultants and "experts" while doing nothing to address the actual issues facing law enforcement. It's a symptom of a deeper disease: the corruption, cowardice, and stupidity that plagues our political system. So, let's just give it a nice, shiny new name - "The Police Leadership Act" - and pretend like we're actually accomplishing something. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be stuck paying for this farce.
Sen. Cornyn, John [R-TX]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
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No committee contributions found
This bill has 10 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
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Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 32 nodes and 34 connections
Total contributions: $34
Showing top 20 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 1 helped.
Section 2 amends the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act to develop training curricula for command-level personnel, including topics like leadership, critical incident response, risk management, officer wellness, data analysis, evidence-based decision making, and building community trust. This benefits law enforcement and surveillance technology vendors (e.g., Axon, Palantir) by potentially increasing demand for training programs, certifications, and related services.
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"The bill focuses on improving law enforcement leadership and community trust through training, which aligns with Project 2025's broader goal of reducing violent crime and enhancing policing effectiveness, though it does not address the specific accountability or federal intervention measures emphasized in the policy."
— 552 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise The Director of the FBI must remain politically accountable to the President in the same manner as the head of any other federal department or agency. To ensure prompt political accountability and to rein in perceived or actual abuses, the next conservative Administration should seek a legislative change to align the FBI Director’s position with those of the heads of all other major departments and agencies. RENEWING THE DEPARTMENT’S FOCUS ON VIOLENT CRIME Despite the DOJ’s pronouncements that violent crime continues to be a top pri- ority, it has increased across the United States. The department’s leadership must make actually reducing violent crime a priority across the United States—and it must do so in partnership with state and local officials in a manner that is tailored to the needs and conditions in those states and localities. Targeting Violent and Career Criminals, Not Parents. The next conserva- tive Administration must ensure that the Department of Justice devotes significant effort to reducing violent crime nationwide. The Attorney General should require all U.S. Attorneys to develop a jurisdictional-specific plan—whenever possible in coordination with state and local law enforcement—to reduce violent crime within each of their districts. Then the Attorney General should hold each U.S. Attorney accountable for achieving actual results. In recent years, federal and state officials have succumbed to calls from anti–law enforcement advocates for so-called criminal justice reform. The pleas- ant-sounding terminology of reform masks the darker reality of this movement, which is one that has supported dismantling effective federal, state, and local law enforcement and stripped away some of the most fundamental tools that law enforcement has long had at its disposal. This campaign is not just ill-advised; it has clearly had real-world consequences in the form of catastrophic increases in crime—particularly violent crime—nationwide. As discussed in the next section, the Department of Justice has a special obligation to restore law and order in such districts.37 Juxtaposed against this increase in violent crime are things like Attorney Gen- eral Merrick Garland’s October 4, 2021, memorandum directing the commitment of significant resources and energies to combating imaginary, politically conve- nient threats of violence toward members of school boards and their staffs during the heat of the Virginia gubernatorial race.38 There was no similar effort to inves- tigate elected officials and other public officers who conspired with outside allies to target and harass parents who were merely exercising their constitutional and statutory rights.39 If we are to continue to have informed and civil dialogue in the United States on issues of public concern, the DOJ must enforce applicable civil rights laws in an even-handed way when citizens’ livelihoods are threatened merely because they have exercised their rights. — 553 — Department of Justice Enhancing the Federal Focus on and Resources in Jurisdictions with Rule-of-Law Deficiencies. A disturbing number of state and local jurisdictions have enacted policies that directly undermine public safety, leave doubt about whether criminals will be punished, and weaken the rule of law. While the prose- cution of criminal offenses in most jurisdictions across the country must remain the responsibility of state and local governments, the federal government owes a special responsibility to Americans in jurisdictions where state and local prose- cutors have abdicated this duty.40 Jurisdictions suffering from deficiencies in the rule of law warrant, as appropri- ate within our federal system, greater attention and additional federal resources that are sufficient to protect the rights of American citizens and federal interests. In the next conservative Administration, the DOJ, acting primarily through its U.S. Attorneys, should therefore: l Use applicable federal laws to bring federal charges against criminals when local jurisdictions wrongfully allow them to evade responsibility for their conduct.41 The department should also increase the federal law enforcement presence in such jurisdictions and explore innovative solutions to bring meaningful charges against criminals and criminal organizations in such jurisdictions. l Where warranted and proper under federal law, initiate legal action against local officials—including District Attorneys—who deny American citizens the “equal protection of the laws” by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions. This holds true particularly for jurisdictions that refuse to enforce the law against criminals based on the Left’s favored defining characteristics of the would-be offender (race, so-called gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) or other political considerations (e.g., immigration status). l Pursue policies and legislation that encourage prosecution of violent crimes as well as appropriate sentences for such offenses. The Biden Administration has adopted policies that do not prevent armed career criminals, who actually commit violent crimes, from committing those crimes. A recent U.S. Sentencing Commission report shows that armed career criminals are consistently sentenced below their minimum sentencing guidelines range.42 There are valid reasons for sentence reductions in particular cases (for example, if the defendant has provided substantial assistance in prosecuting other offenders). At the same time, the DOJ must ensure that its line
AI Analysis:
"The bill focuses on law enforcement leadership training and transparency, while the Project 2025 Education section deals with executive orders on guidance documents, First Amendment protections, degree requirements, and DEI accountability. Only the general themes of transparency and accountability overlap weakly."
— 357 — Department of Education NEW EXECUTIVE ORDERS THAT THE PRESIDENT SHOULD ISSUE Guidance Documents l The President should immediately reinstate and reissue Executive Order 13891: Promoting the Rule of Law Through Improved Agency Guidance Documents, 84 Fed. Reg. 55235 (Oct. 9, 2019), and Executive Order 13892: Promoting the Rule of Law Through Transparency and Fairness in Civil Administrative Enforcement and Adjudication (Oct. 15, 2019). These executive orders required all federal agencies to treat guidance documents as non-binding in law and practice and also forbade federal agencies from imposing new standards of conduct on persons outside the executive branch through guid- ance documents. They required all federal agencies to apply regulations and statutes instead of guidance documents in any enforcement action. President Biden revoked these executive orders on January 20, 2021, demonstrating that these executive orders effectively restrained the abuses of an expansive administrative state. l Require APA notice and comment. The President should issue an executive order requiring the Office for Civil Rights’ Case Processing Manual to go through APA (Administrative Procedures Act) notice and comment. l Protect the First Amendment. The President should issue an executive order requiring grant applications (SF-424 series) to contain assurances that the applicant will uphold the First Amendment in funded programs and work. l Minimize bachelor’s degree requirements. The President should issue an executive order stating that a college degree shall not be required for any federal job unless the requirements of the job specifically demand it. l Eliminate the “list of shame.” Educational institutions can claim a religious exemption with the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education from the strictures of Title IX. In 2016, the Obama Administration published on the Department of Education’s website a list of colleges that had applied for the exemption. This “list of shame” of faith-based colleges, as it came to be known, has since been archived on ED’s website, still publicly available. The President should issue an executive order removing the archived list and preventing such a list from being published in the future. — 358 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise NEW AGENCY POLICIES THAT DON’T REQUIRE NEW LEGISLATION OR REGULATIONS TO ENACT Transparency of FERPA and PPRA Complaints l The Department of Education should be transparent about complaints filed on behalf of families regarding the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA). l At the same time, the Department of Education should develop a portal and resources for parents on their rights under FERPA and PPRA. This portal should also contain an explanation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) and public school procedures to demonstrate that the law does not deprive parents of their right to access any school health records. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program In 2011, Congress added new requirements to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program stating that participating private schools must submit to site visits by the program administrator, inform prospective students about the school’s accreditation status, mandate that teachers of core subjects have bachelor’s degrees, and require participating students to take some form of nationally norm-referenced test. Notably, the 2011 reauthorization also required, for the first time, that participating private schools be accredited or be on a path to accreditation. The 2017 reauthorization went further, requiring that each participating school supply a certificate of accreditation to the administering entity upon program entry, demonstrating that the school is fully accredited before being allowed to participate. The list of approved accreditors is entirely too small to serve the mission of the diverse schools in the nation’s capital. l Although the accreditation regulations should be removed entirely by Congress, in the meantime, the next President should issue an executive order expanding the list of allowable accreditors. Transparency Around Program Performance and DEI Influence The next President should issue a series of executive orders requiring: l An accounting of how federal programs/grants spread DEI/CRT/ gender ideology, l A review of outcomes for GEAR UP and the 21st Century grants programs,
AI Analysis:
"The bill focuses on state/local police leadership training and community trust, while the Project 2025 excerpt concerns internal DHS reforms in intelligence, legal counsel, and communications; there is only minimal thematic overlap."
— 162 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise components as well: CBP, TSA, etc. all have their own intelligence operations and are better situated with their subject-matter experts to make their own assessments. The National Operations Center (NOC) within the Office of Operations Coor- dination (OPS) should absorb those select I&A functions and tactically proficient personnel that need to be maintained (for example, technical support to the National Vetting Center). The remainder of I&A should be eliminated. The OPS entity should maintain IC status, and the only intelligence mission set should be to provide situational awareness and the dissemination of operational information or raw intelligence (no analysis or products) at classified and unclassified levels to executive leadership across the department, not outside of DHS. OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC) Needed Reforms OGC should advise principals as to how DHS can execute its missions within the law instead of advising principals as to why they cannot execute regulations, policies, and programs. Instead of each component’s chief counsel reporting to the Headquarters Gen- eral Counsel (with a solid line) and indirectly to his or her component head (with a dotted line), the accountability should be reversed. Due to the different missions throughout the department, the components can better manage the legal issues of their specific mission than headquarters can. Thus, the chief counsel (or equiv- alent) of each component should report directly to the component head, report indirectly to the DHS General Counsel, and be accountable to the component head. The report to the General Counsel is to ensure consistency of advice across DHS. OGC should hire significantly more Schedule C/political appointees who in turn supervise career staff and manage their output. DHS’s mission is politically charged, and the legal function cannot be allowed to thwart the Administration’s agenda by providing stilted or erroneous legal positions and decision-making. OGC should serve as the center of the response to the legal challenges facing the department to ensure a streamlined, consistent response to a litany of issues facing the department. It is important to ensure consistency across all potential legal positions taken by the department, including those arising in litigation, congressio- nal oversight, and inquiries received from the Inspector General, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), and Congressional Research Service and pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. OGC should invest in e-discovery software and contract with a vendor to manage the department’s e-discovery. This would be beneficial both in litigation and in responding to congressional oversight. Removing delays in e-discovery processing would also reduce the issuance of subpoenas to the department and the generation of negative press for the Administration that comes from delayed responses. — 163 — Department of Homeland Security The old practice of relying on Executive Secretary taskings to pull documents for congressional requests does not work: It is slow, the metrics for what documents are gathered and how are unclear, and the components do not gather responsive material in an efficient manner. Document gathering should come from the Office of the Chief Information Officer or a relevant technological element within the department that can pull responsive communications quickly. OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS (OLA); OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS (OPA); AND OFFICE OF PARTNERSHIP AND ENGAGEMENT (OPE) DHS’s external communications function should be consolidated and reformed so that the President’s agenda can be implemented more effectively. The Office of Partnership and Engagement should be merged into the Office of Public Affairs. In many Cabinet agencies, outreach to companies and partner organizations is similarly performed by the Office of Public Affairs. This would also accomplish a needed DHS organizational and management reform to decrease the number of direct reports to the Secretary. Both public and legislative affairs staff in the components should report directly to their respective headquarters equivalent. This would help to avoid a failure by the department to speak with one voice. It would also allow the component staff to perform more efficiently, overseen by expert managers in their trade. This would also allow DHS to respond to crises effectively by shifting staff as needed to the most pressing issues and better use underutilized staff at less active components. Only political appointees in OLA should interact directly with congressional staff on all inquiries, including budget and appropriations matters. To prevent congres- sional staff from answer shopping among HQ OLA, the DHS OCFO, and components, DHS legislative affairs appropriations staff should be moved from MGMT OCFO into OLA. Regarding components, budget/appropriations staff should move from component budget offices into component legislative affairs offices. Because dozens of congressional committees and subcommittees either have or claim to have jurisdiction over some DHS function, DHS staff from the Secretary on down spend so much time responding to congressional hearing and briefing requests, letters, and questions for the record that they are left with little time to do their assigned job of protecting the homeland. The next President should reach an agreement with congressional leadership to limit committee jurisdiction to one authorizing committee and one appropriations committee in each cham- ber. If congressional leadership will not limit their committees’ jurisdiction over DHS, DHS should identify one authorizing and appropriations committee in each chamber and answer only to it. To focus more precisely on the DHS mission, OLA staff should also identify outdated and needless congressional reporting requirements and notify Congress
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.