District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act of 2025

This bill makes detention and cash bail mandatory for a range of offenses in the District of Columbia. A judicial officer must order pretrial detention for anyone charged with a crime of violence or a dangerous crime, and post-conviction detention for anyone convicted of one. It broadens the definitions of dangerous crime and crime of violence so that burglary and robbery count when they are first-degree, attempted first-degree, or committed with a dangerous weapon. It also creates a new category of public safety or order crime, covering failure to appear, obstruction of justice, fleeing a law enforcement officer, rioting, inciting a riot, destruction of property, stalking, lesser burglary or robbery, and prior convictions for such offenses, and requires that a person charged with one be released only on a secured appearance bond, meaning cash or property posted as bail. The bill defines secured appearance bond, adds procedures for a surety to arrest and surrender a released person, and applies to offenses charged 30 days or more after enactment.

At least 10 organizations named this measure in a lobbying filing. A floor, not a total: they were counted by the client name on 22 quarterly reports filed by 2 lobbying firms and by 8 organizations lobbying for themselves in 2025 Q3, 2025 Q4, 2026 Q1, 2026 Q2 and 2026 Q3. An organization that lobbied this measure without naming it is not counted here.

The filings record that lobbying was reported on the measure. The form has no per-bill dollar figure and no field for a position, so nothing here says how much was spent or which side an organization took.

5 of them, in no ranking: League of Women Voters of the U.S.; Southern Poverty Law Center, Inc.; National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL); Conference of Provincials of North America; American Civil Liberties Union. Listed as filed, in the order the filings were read, and 5 others are not shown. These are not the largest, the earliest or the most active: we keep five names per measure, and the filings give no ranking.

From the LD-2 quarterly lobbying filings published at lda.gov by the Senate Office of Public Records. Read for 2025 Q1, 2025 Q2, 2025 Q3, 2025 Q4, 2026 Q1, 2026 Q2 and 2026 Q3. Our copy holds 24 fewer filings for 2025 Q1, 39 fewer filings for 2025 Q2, 42 fewer filings for 2025 Q3, 33 fewer filings for 2025 Q4, 28 fewer filings for 2026 Q1, 48 fewer filings for 2026 Q2 and 218 fewer filings for 2026 Q3 than the Senate's register counts, so those quarters are the filings we could read rather than every one filed. 2026 Q4 is still inside its filing window, so that quarter is only the filings posted so far.