Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, for nearly 20 years the Violence Against Women Act has supported programs that assist victims of domestic abuse, stalking, and sexual assault. I'm proud to support the legislation that's on the House floor today because it reauthorizes those programs, strengthens them by targeting more funding to programs that need it, and processing that needs it, and also gives some new provisions which I helped work on with the Judiciary Committee to better serve our Native Americans. This piece of legislation which provides services to all victims without discrimination has always enjoyed broad bipartisan support. Unfortunately, because some in Congress saw an opportunity to use abuse victims as a prop in a political game, today we're having a different discussion, and I feel it's shameful. House Republicans are not going to allow the Violence Against Women Act to get sidelined because of politics. It's simply too important. One area of particular concern to people back home in South Dakota is provisions for Native Americans and Native American women. Native American women suffer from higher levels of abuse than non-Indian women, but all too often they don't get to see their perpetrators brought to justice. It's simply unacceptable. This Violence Against Women Act improves upon many of the programs that are designed specifically to aid Native American women, and it also includes new provisions to improve Congress's response to potential problems they may run into.…”