Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Grassley has been a wonderful colleague in this effort. It is the culmination of years of work, including multiple committee hearings, briefings at home in Rhode Island and elsewhere, and really working the regular order of the Senate to get this done. Chairman Grassley has been both patient and persistent, and I really appreciate his leadership. I also thank our ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Feinstein, for her work. I thank Senator Rand Paul. He would have liked to have seen a stronger bill, but it simply--as would we have, by the way. He held on for a while, hoping we could strengthen it, but it turned out there was objection to that--and he was gracious about yielding--and now we are able to move forward bipartisanly and unanimously. The history of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act is a noble history. It is because of this law that children aren't locked up in adult prisons any longer. It is because of this law that children don't get placed in solitary confinement for extended periods or shackled when they are arrested for things like running away from home or not coming to school, but it had been a while since this bill was updated. The last time it was reauthorized was 13 years ago, and we have learned a lot about adolescent development and the best practices for dealing with children in those 13 years. So we are moving forward today.…”