Political Quotes

“Madam President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota for her remarks. For a long time, I had been the only woman on the Judiciary Committee, and I am just delighted that she is there as well and that we share the same point of view with respect to this bill. I rise today to urge the Republican leadership of the Senate to allow this piece of legislation that protects American women from the plague--and it is a plague--of domestic violence, stalking, dating violence, and sexual assault to come to the floor of this Senate for a vote. I was in the Judiciary Committee, and I voted for the original Violence Against Women Act. It was authorized for 6 years. We reauthorized it. It served another 6 years. And now the bill is up for reauthorization. It came out, surprisingly, from the Judiciary Committee on a split vote. Unfortunately, that was a party-line vote. I might say, I was stunned by this vote because never before had there been any controversy--in more than a decade and a half, in all of this time--about this bill. This act is the centerpiece of the Federal Government's effort to combat domestic violence and sexual assault, and it has positively impacted the response to these crimes at the local, State, and Federal levels, and I hope to show this.…”