Katie Porter: “This bill does not matter on its face if our children are not safe. This body, with an amendment that I passed last…”

“This bill does not matter on its face if our children are not safe. This body, with an amendment that I passed last year, has helped protect 27 million more children across this country by providing for school districts that could not in the past do criminal background checks. In this session alone, we passed additional legislation to help kids that are in Head Start by giving them additional protection for 1 million children who did not have that before. An example of what is happening in this epidemic nationwide is we have teachers, we have professionals, we have individuals that are predators, sexual predators following our children. We need to make sure we add one additional tool, and that eliminates barrier to help fund these programs that we passed last session and this session. What I am asking this body to do is to use common sense, allow for these school districts to eliminate one more barrier to help them pay for these backgrounds checks. It is common sense. It is a way to provide protection.”