Regarding the Dui Reporting Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the DUI Reporting Act, a bill I introduced today with my Judiciary Committee colleague Steve Chabot.

If enacted, it would plug a glaring hole in our nation's drunk driving laws that inadvertently enables repeat offenders to be tried as first time offenders.

Currently, when police make a drunk driving arrest, they don't always have access to information about all of the driver's previous arrests for driving under the influence.

The reason is because not all police report DUI arrests to the National Crime Information Center, or ``NCIC'' for short, which is the national crime database that is made instantly available to police right from their patrol cars.

The consequences of this lack of reporting can prove tragic. Just last year there was a terrible accident in northern Mississippi, just outside of my Congressional District. Two teenagers were killed when the car they were driving was struck by a drunk driver who had accrued seven DUI charges since 2008 and had been allowed to plead guilty five times to a first-offense DUI.

The reason, according to a local investigation, was that none of the driver's DUI history had been reported to the NCIC.

When the highway patrol ran his driving record in the national database, his past DUI convictions never showed up.

This is shameful. This information should be reported so police can access it and get drunk drivers off the road.

Our bill would make that happen, by creating a financial incentive for states to require DUI arrests to be reported to the NCIC.

This bipartisan bill will save lives, and I urge my colleagues to help pass it quickly.

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