Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, throughout my career, dating back to my days as Texas attorney general, I have long been a proud advocate for crime victims' rights. I believe we all have a responsibility to provide men and women impacted by such traumatic events the resources and care they need when they need it.

Right now the Congress has an opportunity to pass two separate pieces of legislation to support victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Sadly, both bills have been caught in the crosshairs of political jockeying in the House, with Democrats using a tit-for-tat strategy that has frozen both bills.

One of those bills is called the Debbie Smith Act. The namesake of this legislation is a woman whom I have had the honor of working with many times over the years. She is a fierce advocate for victims of sexual assault.

Like so many victims, her advocacy was born from a personal experience. In 1989, she was abducted from her home and raped in a wooded area. She reported the crime to police and went to the emergency room for a forensic examination, but there were no immediate answers. Though exact numbers are difficult to estimate, some experts believe that there are hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits that remain across the United States.

For 6\1/2\ years the DNA evidence of Debbie's attacker sat on a shelf in an evidence locker while she constantly wondered who her attacker was and when he would appear again. Channeling that fear and frustration, Debbie made it her mission in life to eliminate the rape kit backlog. I have no doubt that because of her and the important legislation this Congress has passed for the past 15 years, we were making some pretty incredible progress toward her goal.

In 2004, the Debbie Smith Act was signed into law to provide State and local crime labs with the resources to end the backlog of unsolved crimes. More than $1 billion has been provided to these forensic labs because of this law, and the legislation passed by the Senate in May will provide even greater resources for the program.

While the original purpose of the legislation was to reduce the rape kit backlog, this DNA evidence serves multiple purposes. It enables law enforcement to identify and convict people who commit other violent crimes and takes more criminals off the street. It also has a corresponding benefit for the wrongfully accused. It can actually exclude people based on the DNA test results in the forensic rape kit.

Because of the Debbie Smith Act, more than 860,000 DNA cases have been processed, and 360,000 DNA profiles have been uploaded into the FBI's database. This accounts for 43 percent of all forensic profiles in the FBI's DNA database. The benefits of this law cannot be overstated. That is why the Debbie Smith Act was easily reauthorized in both 2008 and 2014.

Now it is time once again to reauthorize this important legislation. Earlier this year, Senator Feinstein and I introduced the Debbie Smith Act of 2019, which reauthorizes the important funding that supports the testing of this DNA evidence. Things like training for law enforcement, correctional officers, training for forensic nurses and other professionals who assist victims of sexual assault are also included in this bill. When the Senate voted in May, not a single Senator voted against it--not one. It was unanimous. But here we are nearly 2 months later and the House of Representatives hasn't lifted a finger.

The bill isn't partisan. It is not divisive. It is not controversial. So why do they refuse to bring the bill up for a vote? Well, they are not holding this bill up because they are working on a different version or because they disagree with any of the provisions or because they simply don't like it. No, they are actually holding it hostage to try to force a vote on their ultrapartisan version of the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, the second piece of legislation they are stopping. Actually, Democrats allowed the current Violence Against Women Act to expire over Republican objections so that they could maintain this leverage to pass their ultrapartisan version of VAWA sometime later.

Folks on both sides of the aisle can agree it is time to make some important improvements in VAWA, and our colleague Senator Ernst from Iowa has been working very hard to try to come up with a good bipartisan bill. It deserves to be reauthorized and strengthened to ensure victims have access to the services and protections they need.

Going through the regular order is something I support, and it is an effort that has been led by, as I said, Senator Ernst from Iowa. But the version of the bill that has passed in the House is a far cry from any kind of consensus legislation. It includes provisions that would never pass in the Senate, and that is why it passed the House, in order to create that conflict and that obstacle.

It is not fair to Debbie Smith and other victims of sexual assault for House Democrats to hold them hostage over a separate bill that is still being negotiated in good faith by Members on both sides of the aisle.

Despite repeated requests from advocates and victims' rights groups to pass the Debbie Smith Act freestanding, the House has, once again, chosen to play politics.

I understand Debbie has requested to meet with leadership in the House, and I strongly encourage them to take the time to talk to Debbie and hear her perspective on why this legislation is so critical and why it must be passed now. House Democrats refuse to pass the Debbie Smith Act and help crime labs eliminate the rape kit backlog. They refuse to negotiate in good faith on VAWA, Violence Against Women Act, reauthorization and what that might look like. Unfortunately, they have succumbed to the temptation of playing partisan politics with pretty important legislation and hurting a lot of innocent people in the meantime. I find that absolutely unacceptable.

I would urge our colleague Speaker Pelosi to bring the Debbie Smith Act up for a vote and quit using sexual assault victims as a bargaining chip.

nomination of t. kent wetherell ii
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