Political Quotes

“Mr. President, let me speak a moment about this act. The sponsors, as you have just heard, and supporters like Senator Portman have proceeded with very good intentions. As you just heard, a compelling case for finding ways to help people who have made a mistake or more have an opportunity to turn their life around. One of the reasons I am concerned about the legislation is, all of the kinds of programs that have been spoken of here to enable people to learn new skills or change their attitudes about life so they will not commit crimes again, we will not have more recidivism--one of the concerns is, there is nothing to prohibit any of these programs from being done today, and they are being done all over the country in State prisons, in Federal prisons, and the like. The concern I have is, the effort to provide rewards for people to participate in these programs may have more negative than positive effects, and I think the sponsors of the bill need to look at that in order to persuade some of us that these rewards are necessary, in addition to the programs that are already in existence. The other thing that concerns me is, there is a forgotten person in this whole equation; that is, the victim of the crime. Ever since I came to the Senate, I have worked on legislation to support crime victims. Finally, I think it was my first term in the Senate that Senator Feinstein and I were successful in getting enacted and signed into law the Federal crime victims' rights bill.…”