Rep. Chip Roy is advancing new federal legislation aimed at repeat offenders as he prepares for a May runoff election in Texas to replace Attorney General Ken Paxton, where he will face state Sen. Mayes Middleton.
He told Breitbart News, “For too long, soft-on-crime policies have tied the hands of law enforcement and weakened sentencing, allowing career criminals to wreak havoc on our streets and forcing law-abiding Americans to pay the price. The Career Criminal Accountability Act draws a hard line: if you repeatedly commit violent and serious crimes, you will go to prison for a long time. My bill targets the worst repeat offenders, restores consequences that deter crime, and puts public safety first.”
Roy’s proposed “Career Criminal Accountability Act of 2026” would amend federal sentencing law to create a revised “three strikes” framework designed to focus penalties on repeat and serious offenders while incorporating adjustments intended to address criticisms of earlier versions of similar laws. The legislation was developed in collaboration with the Manhattan Institute’s Policing and Public Safety Initiative.
According to a policy memo exclusively shared with Breitbart News, “the federal justice system has been weakened since the crime clampdown of the 1980s” and says “it’s time for new legislation to address the worst repeat, violent offenders victimizing communities nationwide.” The memo emphasizes that a relatively small group of offenders drives a significant share of serious crime, noting that “over a ten-year period, a majority (56%) of violent felons had a prior conviction record,” including nearly 40% with prior felony convictions and 15% with prior violent felony convictions.
The legislation builds on the existing federal “three strikes” statute under 18 U.S.C. § 3559(c), which can mandate life sentences for certain repeat offenders. However, as the memo notes, “three-strikes regimes have not gone without criticism,” including concerns that “a non-violent, minor offense can trigger a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life.” To address those concerns, the new proposal would refine the framework by introducing a tiered strike system and tailoring sentencing enhancements based on the severity of offenses.
Under the bill text, a new section, 18 U.S.C. § 3559A, would require courts to determine whether a defendant qualifies as a “three-strikes offender” and to “sentence said defendant in accordance with this section.” The framework directs courts to calculate “the number of strikes accrued by the defendant” based on prior convictions, assigning different weights depending on severity. Specifically, “any conviction for a strike-eligible misdemeanor… shall count as one-quarter (¼) strike,” while “a strike-eligible non-violent felony… shall count as one-half (½) strike,” with more serious “firearm-related” and “violent felony” convictions carrying greater weight under the statute.
The measure also includes provisions addressing juvenile offenses, specifying that “a defendant shall not accrue any strikes” for misdemeanor convictions committed while a minor. It further provides that certain felony offenses from that period would count at reduced weight, with non-violent and firearm-related convictions counting as only a fraction of a strike and violent felonies carrying a reduced strike value compared to adult convictions.
A key feature of the proposal is a “credit system” that allows strikes to be reduced over time following periods without reoffending. According to the memo and one-pager, the system would “reduce strikes based on years of non-offending” while still maintaining enhanced penalties tied to “the most serious conviction,” particularly in cases involving violent offenses.
The bill outlines sentencing enhancements based on the most serious offense in a case, stating that a qualifying offender “shall have a consecutive sentence of 10 years imprisonment added” if the underlying offense is a nonviolent felony and “15 years imprisonment added” if it is a firearm-related felony, while permitting “a consecutive sentence of life imprisonment” for certain violent felony cases where the defendant has multiple prior qualifying convictions and sufficient felony-based strikes. It also specifies limitations, noting that a defendant “shall not be eligible for a sentencing enhancement” if the threshold is reached through a misdemeanor alone and that a defendant may not be deemed a three-strikes offender when “all strikes stem from a single episode of criminal action.”
The proposal defines a broad set of “strike-eligible offenses,” including certain federal and state crimes. These range from drug trafficking and organized criminal activity to firearm-related offenses and violent crimes such as murder, kidnapping, robbery, and human trafficking. The bill text states that these offenses include violations under federal law as well as comparable state-level crimes, including burglary, extortion, and assault with a deadly weapon.