“To amend section 1951 of title 18, United States Code (commonly known as the Hobbs Act), and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section fully revises 18 U.S.C. 1951, commonly known as the Hobbs Act, to prohibit whoever obstructs, delays, or affects commerce by robbery or extortion, or threatens physical violence in furtherance thereof, with penalties of a fine up to $100,000, imprisonment up to 20 years, or both. The revision (1) defines commerce (i.e., interstate or other commerce over which the United States has jurisdiction), extortion (i.e., obtaining property by force, fear, or under color of official right), labor dispute (as defined in the National Labor Relations Act), and robbery (i.e., taking property by force or fear of injury); (2) exempts conduct incidental to otherwise peaceful picketing during a labor dispute that consists solely of minor bodily injury or property damage and is not part of a pattern or coordinated violence (with such exempted conduct subject to prosecution only by state and local authorities); and (3) specifies that the section does not affect section 6 of the Clayton Act (15 U.S.C. 17)—which states that the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce and exempts certain labor organizations from the antitrust laws—section 20 of the Clayton Act, the Norris-LaGuardia Act, the National Labor Relations Act, or the Railway Labor Act.