Political Quotes

“Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from Iowa for her leadership on so many issues, including this one. Obviously, through her work on the Judiciary Committee, where we both serve and from where this important piece of legislation emanated, this has been a long journey. Unfortunately, the politics of the day seem to have slowed almost everything up that we are trying to do. In particular, I also want to recognize the good work of the Senator from Iowa on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. I am a proud cosponsor of the legislation she is leading on. My hope is that after the fever breaks, sometime after the first of the year--I keep hoping for that moment--we will get back to the nonpartisan reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. In the meantime, I am happy to join the Senator on the floor and to talk about the importance of the Debbie Smith Act and to celebrate its imminent passage. Since 2004, the Debbie Smith Act has been the guiding force behind our Nation's effort to eliminate the rape kit backlog. Just so everybody understands, at one point there was a report that there were as many as 400,000 of these forensic kits, which are used to collect DNA evidence following sexual assault, sitting in evidence lockers and police stations or in labs and which remained untested.…”