Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the honorable gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse) for yielding. I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to highlight, to call attention to a crisis that is facing our Tribal communities--really, our Tribal communities throughout the country--and that is violence against American Indian women. More than 1.5 million American Indian women have experienced violence--ultimately, sexual violence--during their lifetimes. The numbers are staggering. They have experienced violence, murder, and kidnapping at much, much higher rates than other women--1.5 million women. I know some of these women. Like my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I have looked in their eyes. I have heard their heart-wrenching stories of violence, of trauma. I have held their hands. I have hugged them as, through tears, they have described to me events that I otherwise could not imagine. In just the last few years, we have had 6,000 American Indian women, our countrywomen, who have gone missing; and just a few, just a handful of those cases have been logged with the Department of Justice. In that way, our Federal Government is not doing enough to combat this problem. We know--every one of us here tonight knows--that we can do better. That is why I have felt so good about how many of my colleagues today have mentioned Savanna's Act, which, clearly, I am a cosponsor of, I am a supporter of. It is not a perfect bill.…”