On the recordApril 3, 2019
I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Collins and I have been working on any number of issues dealing with criminal justice reform, and certainly we have spent the last couple of years on the Judiciary Committee. He may not recall, but working with our chairman in the last session of Congress, who acknowledged that the Judiciary Committee had many opportunities to work together--and I totally agree--one of those issues was, of course, the Violence Against Women Act. We engaged with the staff quite extensively because we wanted this to be a bipartisan bill. So, for a 3-year period, we engaged, I engaged, many women of this Congress engaged, and we think we have come up with a product that recognizes that, as we speak here today, there are women who are dying from domestic violence. As we stand here today, law enforcement will tell you that the most difficult, or one of the most difficult, calls they have to make is a domestic violence call. Maybe it is like my constituent, Candice, whose bill I introduced, who was laying in the bed with a little baby and her other children were moving around the house, and a significant other--a husband, a boyfriend--took his gun and killed Candice while that baby was lying next to her. The little children had to hear that, and they were scurrying. They had to run to another house to try to get help for mommy.…
