Sheila Jackson Lee: “I will take the opportunity to say good morning to the manager of the bill, my co-member on the House Judiciary…”

“I will take the opportunity to say good morning to the manager of the bill, my co-member on the House Judiciary Committee. I start this way, Mr. Speaker, and to my colleagues, because I always want to emphasize when I am on the floor that the Judiciary Committee has had many instances of bipartisanship. I am very glad to have been on the Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Subcommittee for more than a number of years. I have seen our work, and it has certainly been in a bipartisan mode. I want to acknowledge the chairman of the committee, Mr. Goodlatte, and the ranking member of the committee, Mr. Nadler. In many instances on the crime reform issues, we have tried to work hand-in-hand together. It seems that criminal justice reform has partners on both sides of the aisle. It is certainly an issue that draws a vast number of stakeholders, particularly my friends in the faith community; social justice community; my friends in the libertarian community, if you will; and, certainly, giants like the ACLU, the Lawyers' Committee, and many others that have been engaged in these issues, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. So you can see that we bring people together. So I rise to discuss H.R. 6691, the Community Safety and Security Act of 2018, which amends section 16 of title 18. Section 16 sets forth the universal definition of what constitutes a crime of violence for the entirety of the criminal code.…”