On the recordApril 1, 2011
I thank the gentlelady for yielding time, and I appreciate the work she has done on this issue and for bringing it to the House's attention today during this Special Order. Domestic violence, as you said, affects the entire country--all races, all economic groups. No one is exempt from this dastardly deed. It's my honor to serve as chairman of the Victims' Rights Caucus. It's a bipartisan caucus. Congressman Jim Costa is the co-chair. We hope to help promote the concept that victims are people, too, that they have rights, and that the same Constitution that protects defendants protects the rights of victims as well. I appreciate the gentlelady for being a member of that caucus. In my other life, before I came to Congress, I'd spent most of my time at the courthouse in Houston for 30 years. I was a prosecutor and a criminal court judge, hearing criminal cases, and I saw a lot of people come down there. A lot of people were down there because they had committed crimes against their families. We need to understand that when you hurt someone in your family, it is not a family problem only-- it is a criminal problem--and society must get to the point where we believe that it is socially unacceptable to commit crimes in the family. Probably the most important person in my life when I was growing up was my grandmother. She never forgave me for being a Republican; she always considered herself a Democrat, God bless her.…
