Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I live in the State of South Dakota. I have some of the poorest counties in the Nation in my State, and they happen to be my Native American Tribes. They face 80 to 90 percent unemployment, poverty like no other place in the country, and they are isolated. They also have very high drug and crime rates. In fact, we have seen a record number of murders in these communities, especially on the Pine Ridge Reservation, in this calendar year, and it is deeply discouraging and disheartening to me to think of someone who could have committed a murder in one of my communities in the State of South Dakota, that there is a felony warrant out for their arrest, and that we may not be able to find them. This bill will fix that situation. If that individual is receiving SSI payments, that helps law enforcement locate those individuals who have gone out and committed crimes against innocent people. Rape, murder, kidnapping, they all happen in my Native American Tribes, and this helps law enforcement find them and bring them to justice. It is one of the important things that this legislation will help us do in some of our most vulnerable communities. I also recognize that the previous speaker talked about the fact that we need criminal justice reforms, and that is a very good debate that we should be having in Congress.…”