Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today I am introducing the DUE PROCESS Act. I am very pleased that Senator Leahy is a cosponsor of the bill. This legislation will make important reforms to the practice of civil asset forfeiture. The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings last year on the problems associated with civil asset forfeiture. This is a process by which a person who has been convicted of no crime, and in fact is often not even charged with a crime, can nonetheless lose his property if the property is suspected to be owned as a result of wrongdoing. Civil asset forfeiture has a place in our society, including gaining control over assets used to further terrorism and the drug trade. But there have been excesses, and this bill is designed to address many of them. Working together in a bipartisan and bicameral way, we have had months long discussions about how to draft legislation to improve the fairness of civil asset forfeiture. The bill that I am introducing today has been introduced and passed through the House Judiciary Committee on a bipartisan voice vote. It is the result of these bipartisan and bicameral discussions. The Senate should consider the same bill. The DUE PROCESS Act broadens the timelines for an owner to challenge forfeitures. It extends protections in existing law to judicial forfeitures, not only administrative forfeitures.…”