Political Quotes

“I appreciate the work the leadership has done, and I know Senator Murray has been very involved with that too, and I appreciate her help in getting us to a point where we now have a unanimous consent to get to votes and we can finally pass this bill. I think sometimes a bill like this is an abstract matter. It is not an abstract matter to the women's organizations that support it. It is not abstract to law enforcement who support it. And if I might speak personally for a moment, it is not an abstract matter to me. The distinguished Presiding Officer and I come from probably the safest, lowest crime State in the country, but we both know that crimes do happen. We also know that in a rural State, oftentimes domestic violence is not reported. We don't talk about this outside the family. And I know that in some of those instances, when I had the privilege of serving as a prosecutor in Vermont, they didn't talk about it. I first heard about it usually in the morgue or at the great Fletcher Hospital. I learned about it because when the body was picked up, either the undertaker or the police or the ambulance driver realized this was not a natural cause, and then we would sort of roll the clock back. In rolling the clock back, we found that all these warning signals were there. There was nowhere for the victim to go. The things we now have were not there then. I was able to prosecute a number of these people.…”