Get Out the Bail Vote in America

Two years of progress are on the ballot this November, and PBUS is leading the effort to protect it from Washington to your hometown

Bail is on the ballot this November, whether the candidates say the word or not. Over the past two years the country has moved back toward the idea that pretrial release must carry accountability, and that movement did not happen by accident. Now the midterm elections will decide whether that momentum holds or whether it gets handed back.

Look at Washington first. In August 2025 the President signed an executive order directing the Attorney General to identify jurisdictions that have substantially eliminated cash bail for serious offenses and to review whether federal grants to those jurisdictions should be suspended. In May of this year the House passed the Cashless Bail Reporting Act, 308 to 116, with 96 Democrats voting yes. The bill requires the Department of Justice to publish a list of every state and local government that releases people charged with violent, sexual, or public-disorder offenses on personal recognizance or unsecured bonds. It sits in the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Whether it moves depends on who controls the Senate in January.

Now look at the states. Since 2023, voters in Colorado, Texas, and Wisconsin have amended their constitutions to add conditions to the right to bail. Texas passed Proposition 3 last November with 61 percent of the vote. Alabama voters approved Amendment 1 in May, and the legislature sent it to them unanimously. Indiana votes on a pretrial bail amendment on November 3, and Louisiana and Tennessee have bail-related measures on the same ballot. Be precise about what these are. They expand a judge's power to deny bail to dangerous defendants. They do not restore surety bail by themselves. But every one of them moved in the same direction, and the direction is what matters. The public wants release decisions tied to public safety and appearance, not to a risk score and a promise. A voter who says a dangerous defendant should be held is the same voter who says a released defendant should answer to someone. That is the principle surety bail has stood on for a century.

This shift came from results, not rhetoric. Yolo County, California, tracked its own zero-bail releases against defendants who posted bail and found the zero-bail group committed 169 percent more new crimes. New York amended its 2019 law in 2020, 2022, and 2023, each time handing discretion back to judges. When the people who wrote the reforms start rewriting them, the argument has already been lost on the ground.

The anti-surety movement knows this, which is why the rhetoric has gotten louder. Louder is not the same as winning. The organizations that spent a decade selling risk assessments and cashless release are now defending their records in Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and California. That is a movement on defense.

The battle is not over. A different Senate stops the federal package cold. A different governor in a swing state signs the next expansion of cashless release. And the local races matter most of all, because sheriffs, judges, county supervisors, and city councils are where bail policy actually gets applied. Those races are decided by hundreds of votes, not millions.

That is where the profession comes in, and PBUS is again taking the lead. The Professional Bail Agents of the United States is working with state associations across the country on one question: how do we work together to get out the Bail Vote in America? Every licensed agent has a network built over years: family, church, clients, and courthouse relationships. Multiply that across every state association and you have a bloc that reaches into thousands of counties in nearly every state.

The job is simple. Ask the candidates where they stand. Research what they have done, not what they say. Then vote, and bring your people with you. From Washington to your home state to your hometown, November will either strengthen the position this profession has earned back or hand it away. Bail works. Now it needs the votes to keep working.

Michael D. Morrison is the 2026 PBUS National Bail Agent of the Year, President of the Mississippi Bail Agents Association, and owner of Mike Morrison Bail Bonding Company in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Licensed as a bail agent since 1991, he presents on bail policy at the Mississippi Judicial College, leads the MBAA Master Class Series, and publishes on surety bail, pretrial accountability, and public safety at Mike Morrison | Public Safety & Accountability and on Medium.

© 2026 Mike Morrison. All rights reserved.