President Joe Biden signed 50 bills into law on Christmas Eve, on topics as varied as combating higher education hazing and making the bald eagle the nation’s official bird. Among the highlights of the nation’s newest laws:
- Legislation (H.R. 5646) establishing the first-ever federal anti-hazing standards to address violence and deaths occurring on higher education campuses around the country;
- A measure (S. 932) preventing members of Congress from collecting their pensions if convicted of certain crimes;
- S. 4610, which makes the bald eagle the official bird of the United States;
- A bill (H.R. 663) aimed at boosting tools for Native American tribes to combat child abuse and family violence;
- The Eliminate Useless Reports Act (H.R 5301), which as the name suggests, would curtail the number of outdated and unnecessary reports coming out of federal agencies;
- A measure (S. 1351) pushed by Paris Hilton aimed at addressing child abuse in institutional facilities for at-risk youth;
- Legislation (S. 3998) to convert temporary judicial posts in Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Texas into permanent ones;
- A measure (S. 4077) — opposed by several dozen House Republicans — to name a post office in California after the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D);
- S. 5314, which names a Veterans Affairs facility in Oklahoma after the late Sen. James Inhofe (R).