Chris Smith: “I thank the ranking member of the subcommittee for yielding. I thank him for his leadership. I thank Chairman DeFazio so…”

“I thank the ranking member of the subcommittee for yielding. I thank him for his leadership. I thank Chairman DeFazio so very, very much for his championing this legislation. I thank my good friend, Tom Suozzi. We have partnered before on human rights legislation, particularly as it relates to China. It is great to be working with him so closely again today. I thank Ranking Member Graves. I will get to some further thank yous in a few moments. Madam Speaker, in late March of 2019, University of South Carolina senior Samantha, or Sami, Josephson left a late night outing with her friends alone because she had to work in the morning. The extraordinarily talented student, who had recently earned a full scholarship to Drexel University Law, ordered an Uber. In a congested part of Columbia known as Five Points, a predator pretending to be her Uber driver took her in his car and brutally murdered her. Less than 24 hours later, Sami was found in a field. The alleged murderer, Nathaniel Rowland, was caught, jailed, and awaits trial. Last month, a judge rightly denied bond. Almost immediately after her death and notwithstanding their excruciating agony over the loss of their precious daughter Sami, her parents, Seymour and Marci, began pushing for comprehensive new protection policies at Uber and Lyft and legislation to ensure that no one else ever loses his or her life or gets assaulted by a rideshare driver or a predator who pretends to be one.…”