Press Releases
February 3, 2016
Chairman Goodlatte: The Constitution grants Congress all legislative powers, leaving the President to execute those laws faithfully, according to the will of the people as expressed through their duly-elected legislative representatives in the House and Senate.
Yet presidents from both parties have for too long stretched their powers beyond the limits intended by our Founding Fathers. And too often their abuses have gone uncorrected. As law professor David Bernstein has written, “The authors of the Constitution expected that Congress as a whole would be motivated to preserve its authority against presidential encroachment. The Founders, however, did not anticipate the development
February 3, 2016
Washington, D.C. – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) issued the following statement on the Committee’s plan to markup the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 699), a bill to reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986:
“In March, the House Judiciary Committee plans to markup the Email Privacy Act, a bipartisan bill to reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. Over the past several years, the Committee has conducted robust oversight of this decades-old law and has worked with stakeholders to identify reform priorities.
February 3, 2016
Chairman Goodlatte: Hard-working Americans are some of the leading victims of frivolous lawsuits and the extraordinary costs that our legal system imposes. Everyday local business owners routinely have lawsuits filed against them based on claims they have no substantive connection to, as a means of forum shopping on the part of the lawyers filing the case. These lawsuits impose a tremendous burden on small businesses and their employees.
February 3, 2016
Washington, D.C—House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee Chairman Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), and the bill’s sponsor and House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) released the following statements upon House Judiciary Committee approval of the Fraudulent Joinder Prevention Act of 2015 (H.R.
February 2, 2016
Chairman Goodlatte: Today’s hearing will look at design protection to determine whether amendments should be made to the law to limit protection for component parts of automobiles.
Chapter 16 of the Patent Act allows an inventor a design patent for any new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture.
However, the chief limitation on the patentability of designs is that they must be primarily ornamental in character.
If the design is dictated by the performance of the article, then it is judged primarily functional and ineligible for design patent protection.
Combined with the cost of patenting, this explains why some inventors, including car companies, have tr
January 29, 2016
Washington, D.C. – On Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 2:00 p.m., the Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Subcommittee will hold a legislative hearing to examine H.R. 1057, the Promoting Automotive Repair, Trade, and Sales (PARTS) Act. The PARTS Act limits the term of protection for patented designs of automotive repair parts used to restore automobiles.
Witnesses for Tuesday’s hearing are:
- Mr.
January 29, 2016
Washington, D.C. – The House Judiciary Committee has announced its schedule for the week of February 1-5, 2016.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 210:00 a.m. | Full CommitteeClassified Hearing on: FISA Amendments Act
*This hearing is for Members only.
Witnesses:
- Mr. Robert S. Litt, General Counsel, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
- Mr. Jon Darby, Deputy Director for Analysis and Production, Signals Intelligence Directorate, National Security Agency
- Mr. Stuart J.
January 29, 2016
Washington, D.C. – On Thursday, February 4, 2016 at 9:00 a.m., the Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee will hold a hearing titled, “Another Surge of Illegal Immigrants Along the Southwest Border: Is this the Obama Administration’s New Normal?” At the hearing, members will examine the swell of unaccompanied alien minors and family units crossing the southwest border and the Administration’s lack of vetting of unaccompanied children’s sponsors in the U.S.
Recent statistics from the Border Patrol indicate a significant increase in the number of unaccompanied alien minors and family u
January 28, 2016
Washington, D.C. – House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas.), House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), and Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.), the author of The Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, today sent a letter to President Obama regarding his unilateral changes to the law allowing certain people who have traveled to nations of terrorism-related concern (i.e. Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and Syria) to travel to the United States visa-free.
January 25, 2016
Washington, D.C. – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) issued the following statement on the Associated Press investigation finding that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lowered its safety standards during the border surge and placed unaccompanied alien minors in sponsors’ homes where some were sexually assaulted, starved, or forced to work with little or no pay.
“The ongoing surge at the southwest border is a crisis of President Obama’s own making and places innocent children’s lives at risk.