Sheila Jackson Lee: “I thank the gentlewoman for her kindness. In the last year alone, an estimated 160,000 students across the country…”

“I thank the gentlewoman for her kindness. In the last year alone, an estimated 160,000 students across the country skipped school because they feared being bullied. I started out by saying, and let me specifically note, in 2018, 7.1 percent of LGBTQ students were verbally bullied because of their sexual orientation. Twenty-eight or 30 percent of those students were physically bullied. Let me just say this. This is an excellent bill. It brings us all together. It announces our attempt to respond to Danny's mother, to attack an epidemic of bullying in our schools. We don't know where it starts. We don't know where these children come from. But we have to help them because bullying destroys the lives of the bully and of the one bullied. Madam Speaker, as a cosponsor and senior member of the Judiciary and Homeland Committees, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3659, ``Danny's Law,'' which requires the President to establish an Anti-Bullying Roundtable to study bullying in elementary and secondary schools in the United States. The 13-member roundtable will consist of relevant stakeholders, including but not limited to teachers, parents of schoolchildren, and guidance counselors, who will submit a report to Congress on best practices concerning bullying upon 270 days of convening.…”