John Cornyn: “in my previous life, I was attorney general of the State of Texas. In that capacity, I had the opportunity to work with…”

“in my previous life, I was attorney general of the State of Texas. In that capacity, I had the opportunity to work with numerous victim rights groups, primarily because part of my responsibility--the office's responsibility--was to administer the Crime Victims Compensation Fund, which took a small portion of the fees paid by criminal defendants who are convicted of crimes or pled guilty to crimes and put it into a fund that could be used then to help victims. As attorney general of Texas, I became a supporter of the crime victims rights community and their interests as well as the VAWA. This is really an important point. Since it was first enacted in 1994, the VAWA has been reauthorized on two separate occasions, each time by unanimous vote of the Senate. Let me say that again. On the two previous occasions the Senate has voted to reauthorize the VAWA, it has been unanimous. There were no differences between Democrats and Republicans--we were all together in supporting this legislation. For that reason, I hope Members of both parties will think long and hard before turning this critical law into just another vehicle for scoring political points or bowing to special interests instead of the public interest. I am enormously proud and grateful that this bill contains a version of the SAFER Act, which I first introduced last year with strong bipartisan support.…”