Pete Sessions: “the bill we have just considered is a very important piece of legislation that has been the subject of considerable…”

“the bill we have just considered is a very important piece of legislation that has been the subject of considerable effort for over a year now in the Judiciary Committee in the House. Great efforts have been expended by all parties interested in this legislation to achieve a piece of legislation that would provide enhanced protections to private property owners and at the same time would not undermine, in a real and significant and unnecessary way, the ability of law enforcement agencies to seize and forfeit to the interest of the Government assets from illegal drug dealers and other criminal assets that are forfeited. In the early 1980s, this Congress passed one of its most historic pieces of legislation that attacked crime in America. It was the asset forfeiture law. At that time, I was a U.S. attorney in Mobile, AL. This Federal law became a daily part of the work of my office. We instructed our assistant U.S. attorneys that whenever they were prosecuting a drug case, it was not just enough to sentence and punish the criminal, they ought to be sure the ill-gotten gains, the profits they made from selling illegal substances in this country, would be seized and forfeited to the United States. On a regular basis that was done all over this country. It was a major, important, historic step against crime, particularly against drug crime in America. Hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of dollars, have been forfeited from illegal enterprises since that day.”