Democrats Are Ending the Year on a Particularly Dumb Note

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Earlier this month, shortly after a string of Democratic victories in off-year elections, during a government shutdown and in plummeting poll numbers for President Donald Trump, a number of key Democrats made unusual choices. First, New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer began touting the Porch Pirates Act again, a bill that no one seemed to have asked for and that could come back to haunt his party if passed. Then, this week, the Democratic National Committee announced that it would not release its much-anticipated autopsy report for 2024.

Why, amid its first signs of life since the devastating 2024 election results, does the party seem determined to take several steps backward?

Let’s start with Gottheimer and the Porch Pirates. Standing proudly at a podium set up in his home district on Dec. 1, Gottheimer preached how private companies like Amazon, United Parcel Service and FedEx should receive even bigger protections that the federal agency of the United States Postal Service. Currently, it is a federal crime to steal mail from any post office, mailbox, or USPS mail receptacle, with offenders punishable by a fine and prison time not to exceed five years. The Porch Pirates Act would expand on this, adding Americans’ porches to the protected mail space, and make stealing a package from a private porch a federal crime punishable by up to 10 years jail time and a $250,000 fine.

The legislation would also give the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice and federal task forces the authority to “thoroughly investigate porch theft.” There are already laws in place that cover these types of thefts and any larger potential conspiracies that might be involved. The Porch Pirates Act is not only redundant, it is also excessively punitive, especially when Democrats have spent several general election cycles in a row battling the image among young voters of having favored mass incarceration during the 1990s. It seems unwise to reopen this fight.

The Porch Pirates Act was first introduced in 2022, but has since seen virtually no movement in Congress. Last year, Democrat Dean Phillips, a former representative and sponsor of the bill, went so far as to film a video in which he followed a UPS driver who seemed amused at best to share his route with a member of Congress. The end product looks and sounds alarming like a paid UPS ad rather than a real explanation of the need for the Porch Pirates Act. Now it appears Gottheimer is trying to push the legislation forward.

Let’s be clear: Among all the problems American consumers are currently facing, like looming health care costs, stubbornly high inflation in everyday goods, and rising unemployment, why do some Democrats consider package theft a top voter concern? (A previous version of the bill had 17 Democratic co-sponsors, although it’s unclear how many this one has.)

Aside from the irrelevance of the Porch Pirates Act, it also risks contributing significantly to the nation’s mass incarceration problem. Penalizing thieves for stealing certain Amazon packages with prison sentences and fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars would further strain an already overburdened criminal justice system, inevitably also increasing the cost of operating state and federal prisons. It is well established that mass incarceration leads to poor physical, psychological, and economic outcomes for those imprisoned, ultimately harming all American communities.

The USPS Office of Inspector General even released a white paper earlier this year recognizing the pesky problem of package theft and recommending collaborative strategies rather than criminal penalties. “Offer and utilize flexible and secure delivery options, leveraging technology to improve tracking and theft prevention, [and] the use of discreet packaging and placement of package delivery” were among the recommended solutions.

The Porch Pirates Act also threatens to be a repeat of the infamous 1990s crime bill, which led to steadily rising incarceration rates over the next decade and for which Democrats paid dearly. The party certainly does not want to take responsibility for adding a new access route to the prison.

Unfortunately, it appears Democrats want to end 2025 on the wrong foot. Instead of acknowledging his flaws and addressing his consistently low approval ratings this year, the Democratic National Committee decided to continue ignoring his problems by canceling the release of his 2024 autopsy report. Claiming that this would only distract and divide the party, the lack of accountability now paves the way for Democrats to repeat the same serious mistakes in the 2026 midterms and beyond. The party establishment continues to exert its iron grip, no fundamental changes will be made to the Democratic agenda, but hey, at least they can say they fought for Americans’ front porches.