Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. COSTA. I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for yielding 2 minutes, and I want to thank her and the chairman, the gentleman from Virginia, for their hard work on this very important piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, as the lead Democratic cosponsor of the Justice for All Reauthorization Act and the co-chair of the Congressional Victims' Rights Caucus, along with my good friend and colleague Congressman Ted Poe, who I know wanted to be here and who has worked so hard on this legislation, we as the chairs of the bipartisan Congressional Victims' Rights Caucus want those groups out there throughout the country to understand how important this legislation is. The broad coalition of groups that are supporting this and the bipartisan group of lawmakers who worked tirelessly to get this legislation on the House floor today is making a difference.

The Justice for All Reauthorization Act will improve our criminal justice system, and it will strengthen programs for victims of crimes. The healing process for the survivors of violent crime, as we all know, can be extremely painful and it can be difficult.

This legislation also helps those survivors by providing resources to reduce, as has been noted already, the rape kit backlog. It also improves housing rights for domestic violence victims. We have these centers in our congressional districts that many of us are familiar with where spouses and children go to escape violence. It also assists with hiring full-time sexual assault nurse examiners in every hospital throughout the country.

Additionally, this bill ensures that the guilty are punished and helps to protect the wrongfully convicted by improving access to postconviction DNA testing. One thing we have learned for certain over the last decade is that, in law enforcement, DNA testing has become an important tool to apprehend and to prove guilt where, in fact, we did not have that tool before.

These strengthened policies will better provide support for victims of crime throughout the country.

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Mr. COSTA. I thank the gentlewoman.

Mr. Speaker, these policies will provide better support for victims of crime throughout the country, especially those who live in rural regions, and we have many rural regions throughout the country. I represent one of those areas in California, the San Joaquin Valley.

I urge my colleagues in the House to support this bill, and I hope the Senate acts swiftly before the end of the year so this Justice for All Reauthorization Act is enacted before Congress adjourns.

Let us remember, Mr. Speaker, that these victims of crimes are members of our families; they are our neighbors; they are people who we know in our communities and in our congressional districts. We know who they are, and we know that these are innocent victims of crime. This legislation goes a long way to address their issues. I urge the support of my colleagues.

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