Providing for Consideration of S.J. Res. Termination of National Emergency Declared By the President on February 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Speaker, I understand how CRs work, but also the set-asides go away. We have a standalone bill from the Senate right now. We could put it on the Consent Calendar.

Just to give a little history, the Debbie Smith Act originally passed in 2004, and in 2008, under Democrat control, the House passed the reauthorization under a suspension of the rules by voice vote. The Senate, which was under Republican control, passed the bill with an amendment by unanimous consent. The House subsequently passed the Senate amendment version, and it was signed into law by George W. Bush.

In 2014 under Republican control, the House passed the bill under suspension by voice vote. The Democratic-controlled Senate passed it under unanimous consent. It was signed by President Barack Obama.

So the question is: Why can't we take a standalone bill?

Why, all of a sudden, in this Congress did it need to be part of a larger bill that turns into partisan gamesmanship and a fight between the two Chambers and the two parties?

In 2017 there were approximately 136,000 rapes. Only four in ten rapes even go reported. That is actually an improvement. Not so many years ago it was only two in ten. Mr. Speaker, 90,671 of those rapes are unsolved. Many of them are never charged. Out of every 1,000 sexual assaults, 995 perpetrators will go unpunished.

Just earlier this week I sat in the Rules Committee, and we argued on the repeal of forced arbitration. By the way, I agree with my Democratic colleagues. Sexual assault should never be forced into arbitration. But if we are going to make the argument of forced arbitration and deal with that in a civil proceeding or an employment proceeding or those types of issues, clearly, we can all agree that the single best way to put violent sexual predators behind bars in jail and in prison is with DNA testing.

Mr. Speaker, I said it yesterday, and I will say it again: You have the best ability to convict criminals--the worst kind of criminals--and you have the ability to do it without revictimizing the victim through a criminal process, through a deposition, through a jury trial. Many of the reasons these crimes go unreported or unconvicted, particularly child victims of sexual abuse, are because of the trauma associated with a criminal proceeding.

Do you know what happens in a criminal proceeding with DNA evidence?

You get guilty pleas, because you can't beat the evidence.

So conservative estimates say that the number of rape kits is around 170,000 which are untested. Every single one of those kits represents a human being, and it is somebody's mother, sister, daughter, or granddaughter. That person has gone through a horrible, terrible, and grotesque trauma, and they deserve justice.

This is easy. This is easy to do. We could do it today. We could do it tomorrow before we go home. But here's the deal: it expires in 14 days, and while we are gone for 2 weeks in recess, 5,000 more rapes will be committed.

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