Steny Hoyer: “This is clearly a bipartisan, nonpartisan bill. My colleagues before me have spoken on the priority, the premise, the…”

“This is clearly a bipartisan, nonpartisan bill. My colleagues before me have spoken on the priority, the premise, the focus that was articulated in 1980, and that was that we ought to unify families. My wife, who supervised early childhood education in Prince George's County, and I talked about this because of a case that was reported in the Washington Post of a young man named Dooney Waters. He was a young man who lived in a crack house. He was a young man who was not fed for days at a time. He was a young man whose bedroom was unavailable to him because it was being used to light up. There is a recent story that my colleagues may have read, those of them who serve here, about a 5-year-old in Montgomery County, reunited with his father after his father had physically abused him. Judges with whom I have talked have been concerned about the premise of the Federal statute which said that we must reunite unless we can make an extraordinary finding to mitigate against that conclusion. Previous speakers have said, the premise must be, and this bill adopts that premise and furthers that premise, the best interests of the child. There is no excuse for society to return or to allow a helpless, defenseless child to be subjected to abuse by those who society believes ought to be that child's major protector.”