H.R. ____ · S. ____ · the private bill, revived
The only organization in America built to get private bills passed by Congress.
Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum
When the federal government wrongs someone and the courts are closed to them, one part of the Constitution still works: a bill written for them, by name. A.M.E.N.D.S. finds those cases, drafts the bills, and lobbies Congress until they pass.
Our mission
A.M.E.N.D.S. is the only organization in the country built specifically to get private bills enacted by Congress.
A.M.E.N.D.S. lobbies Congress to pass private laws for the benefit of specific individuals who were wronged by the federal government and who have no other path to justice: people barred from suing the federal government, federal contractors, or another party protected by legal immunity or a statute of limitations; people who missed the deadline to claim funds they were owed because they were never informed the deadline, or the program, existed; and people who could have sued the federal, state, or local government but could not get an attorney to take their case, and who still deserve reparations. Where funding allows, A.M.E.N.D.S. aims to provide free legal representation to every applicant it works with.
For the relief of —
Who a private bill is for
Not everyone the government wrongs has a court to go to. A private bill is Congress acting as the court of last resort, for one person, by name.
FINDING 1
Barred by law, not by facts
People the government is legally immune from, or whose case is barred by a statute of limitations, even when nobody disputes what happened to them.
FINDING 2
Never told the clock was running
People who missed a deadline to claim money the government already owed them, because no one ever told them the deadline, or the program, existed.
FINDING 3
Right, but unrepresented
People with a real claim who could not find a lawyer willing to take it, and had nowhere else to turn.
For everyone in that position, A.M.E.N.D.S. aims to provide the legal work for free, where funding allows.
Why private bills disappeared
Congress built two exits, and federal employees were locked out of one of them
Before 1946, a private bill was often the only way to get anything from the federal government for a wrongful death or injury. Here’s how that changed, and why one law changed it more completely than the other.
1792
The first private bill for a wrong like this becomes law. For most of the next century and a half, it’s often the only remedy that exists.
1916
The Federal Employees’ Compensation Act creates guaranteed, no-fault pay for federal workers hurt or killed on the job — and bars them from suing the government instead. This saved the government money but punished victims.
1935
The House adopts the rule A.M.E.N.D.S. is reviving: private bills can be bundled into one combined vote, an attempt to process a still-growing backlog faster.
1939–40
It isn’t enough. The 76th Congress alone considers more than 1,700 private bills; over 300 become law.
1946
The Federal Tort Claims Act finally lets ordinary citizens sue the federal government in court for negligence, instead of asking Congress for a favor. Private bill volume collapses within a generation.
Today
Since 2012, Congress has enacted seven private laws, total. The tool still exists. Almost nobody uses it.
FECA didn’t just offer federal employees an alternative to suing. It shut that door behind them. By law, FECA is “exclusive and instead of all other liability of the United States” — meaning a federal employee, or their survivor, cannot sue the government for negligence at all, under the FTCA or any other statute, no matter how the death happened. An ordinary citizen gets to go to court. A federal agent’s family does not.
That trade might be defensible if the guaranteed payment were fair. It isn’t: the government’s own model says a life is worth $14.1 million, and FECA and its companion programs pay a small fraction of that — with no exception for cases where the government’s own negligence caused the death.
A.M.E.N.D.S. exists for exactly the people this left behind: the ones who can’t sue, can’t wait for a general law to catch up, and have nowhere left to go but a bill written for them, by name.
Sources: 5 U.S.C. §8116(c) (FECA exclusivity) · Congressional Research Service, “Private Bills: Procedure in the House,” “The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA): A Legal Overview,” and “The Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA),” congress.gov · House Practice, govinfo.gov.
What we do differently
Four things no other organization is built to do
SEC. 1
Reviving the omnibus private bill
House rules have allowed private bills to be bundled together into a single combined vote since 1935. It hasn’t been used in decades. A.M.E.N.D.S. is reviving it, and naming the first bundle after what it asks Congress to do.
“The Liberty Bill.”
The Liberty Bill is a very special omnibus private bill which is designed to announce that private bills are back, with a bang. Congress can’t quietly ignore The Liberty Bill, because this bill is built for goldstar families who have been denied justice. Opposing this bill while continuing to vote for funding for foreign nations is a statement about who Congress serves and who Congress does not serve.
☎ “Ring your representative about the Liberty Bill.”
SEC. 2
A search engine for two centuries of private law
Every private law Congress has passed since 1789 is already public record, just scattered across separate, unsearchable federal archives. A.M.E.N.D.S. is building the first place to search all of it by subject, so every new case can be argued with the full weight of precedent behind it.
SEC. 3
Campaigns you can actually watch
Every case gets its own public page and its own story, the way a crowdfunding campaign would. Every dollar goes into A.M.E.N.D.S.'s general fund, allocated by the board and informed by public support, so donations stay tax-deductible and no one’s case is used as a fundraising gimmick.
SEC. 4
Advocacy and lobbying on individual private bills
Most private bills never get introduced at all, because no one does the unglamorous work: finding the right case, drafting bill language a member’s office will actually accept, and staying on that member until they agree to sponsor it. A.M.E.N.D.S. does that work case by case, whether or not the bill ever joins a bundle like the Liberty Bill.
Our policy position
The government already told us what a life is worth. It should pay accordingly.
In March 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services set its official number for valuing a life at $14.1 million — the figure federal agencies use to decide whether a safety rule is worth what it costs.
Compare that to what survivors actually receive. And look closely at the rule, because the rule itself is part of the problem.
Public Safety Officers' Benefits
By law, PSOB pays whichever is greater: the rate in effect on the date of death, or, if a claim takes more than 365 days to decide, the rate in effect on the day it’s finally decided. In practice, that means a claim resolved quickly is locked to the rate from the year the officer died. Only a claim left pending for over a year gets today’s rate.
That’s not a hypothetical edge case, it’s the default: a family that finally gets a fast, compassionate decision is punished for it with a smaller check. A.M.E.N.D.S. has already drafted a bill that fixes exactly this rule.
Military Death Gratuity
Service members killed in the line of duty fare even worse. The death gratuity has been frozen at $100,000 since 2006. A bipartisan bill introduced in 2026, the Honoring Our Nation’s Obligation to Remember Gold Star Families Act, would finally double it to $200,000.
And every figure above is usually the total for the whole family, not the amount each survivor receives — split among a spouse and children, one person’s share falls even further below what the government’s own model says that life was worth.
A.M.E.N.D.S. is calling for a floor: no survivor family of a service member or officer killed in the line of duty should be offered less than the government’s own valuation of the life that was lost — and no one should be paid less for having their claim resolved quickly.
A floor isn’t a ceiling. Where the government’s own gross negligence caused the death, not the ordinary risk of the job, families should be able to receive more than $14.1 million, not stay capped at the same number owed for an ordinary line-of-duty loss.
Sources: Kearsley, A. “HHS Standard Values for Regulatory Analysis, 2026.” HHS/ASPE, March 2026. · 34 U.S.C. §10281(i) and PSOB benefit history, Bureau of Justice Assistance (law.cornell.edu, bja.ojp.gov). · Death gratuity: 10 U.S.C. §1475, Military OneSource.
Ring your representative about the Liberty Bill.
Two minutes, one phone call, for a bundling rule that’s been sitting in the House rulebook since 1935, unused for four generations.