April 4, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 59 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Page H3091]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    MOVING FORWARD TO PROTECT WOMEN

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, today, we finished one stop of a 
journey, and that is the journey to pass the Violence Against Women 
Act.
  I have had the privilege to see and shepherd this bill throughout my 
congressional tenure, having stood alongside senior Members many years 
ago in the first reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. 
This bill was started today in 2016. We began to work and reach across 
the aisle to do what is right for the victims of so many horrific 
crimes.
  We wanted children to be protected, immigrant women to be protected. 
We wanted to make sure that Native American women were protected.
  We wanted law enforcement and prosecutors to have the tools. We 
wanted to stop the backlog in rape kits that had not been processed.
  We did that today with a collective group of Republican and 
Democratic Members on a bill that should be nonpartisan.
  We worked hard, and I was gratified that we wound up giving a bill to 
the Senate and that they must ask the question: Are they not going to 
support a bill that was bipartisan?
  Madam Speaker, I thank Monalisa Dugue, Milagros Cisneros, Joe 
Graupensperger, Amy Rutkin, and Chairman Nadler. I thank Karen Bass and 
all those women who worked together, including the outstanding work 
that was done on the MTR with Debbie Dingell.
  Madam Speaker, we are thanking them because we are moving forward to 
protect women in this country, including against sex trafficking, which 
was in the bill.

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