Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to join my colleagues here on the importance of the VAWA reauthorization. In particular, I want to thank Senator Ernst for her months of hard work that she has put into this bill that we are introducing today. I am a proud cosponsor on that bill.

You saw in her remarks earlier her passion, her energy, and her focus on rural America, which is very important to me and my great State of Alaska. I am hopeful, as all of my colleagues here are, including our friend from California, Senator Feinstein, that we in the Senate are going to get to a place where we can have a bipartisan bill that is going to reauthorize VAWA. This is hugely important for America, and it is hugely important for Alaska.

I come down to the floor every week and I talk about someone who is doing something great in my State. I like to brag about the great State of Alaska. It is an amazing place, but, I will tell you, there is one area where we are not so amazing. My State, unfortunately, has the highest rates of domestic violence and sexual assault of any State in America. It is horrendous. The number of victims and the carnage that this leaves in Alaska and throughout our country are something we should be able to come together and fix. We can do this.

I want to talk about a provision in Senator Ernst's bill that is something that I have been working on with her, but, importantly, with many Senators, including a lot of my Democratic colleagues. It is title XII of the bill. It is called the ``Choose Respect'' title. This is a series of bills that I have introduced with Senators Gillibrand, Harris, and Coons, my Democratic colleagues, and it is focused on trying to change the culture and get more legal resources to victims and to survivors.

Why is that so important? When you look at the studies that show what is the best way for a survivor to break out of the cycle of violence that they often find themselves in, one of the answers is to get them an attorney. It empowers them. It enables them to use the justice system to their advantage. Yet here is the problem. When you look-- literally, on a daily basis--at the lack of legal representation for victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, it is endemic across the country. So a number of the elements of this bill, particularly under the ``Choose Respect'' title, are going to try to change this.

Last year, we had legislation that I authored that was passed into law and was then signed by the President. It was called the POWER Act and was about getting more legal resources for survivors. It was a good start, but it didn't do enough. The bill this year--again, a bill that I cosponsored earlier with Senator Harris of California--focuses on this issue.

Think about this: If you have an accused abuser--let's say an accused rapist--and if there is an indictment, under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, that perpetrator gets a right to counsel. OK. That is our Constitution. That is fine. What does the victim get? What does the survivor get? Right now, the victim gets nothing. Far too often, victims go without any legal representation, and that is often the beginning of a cycle they fall into.

One of the provisions of this would be, once there is an indictment of a crime of violence, that the Federal Government would help to ensure the goal of having the victim also get an attorney through State domestic violence counsels. These are just some of the elements of this bill.

Senator Gillibrand and I have legislation that is part of this. It is called the Choose Respect Act, which would have a public advocacy program to try to get young men in particular to start changing our culture. It is not just a problem in Alaska; it is a problem throughout the country.

There are many things in this bill that are very bipartisan, and I certainly am committed to working with Senator Cornyn, Senator Hoeven, Senator Blackburn, Senator Feinstein, and Senator Ernst in order to get to the compromises we need to make in the Senate to pass this bill. That is what we want to have done. That is why we are all here on the floor, talking about this passionately. I think we can do it because it is too important to miss this opportunity to pass legislation that is going to help some of the most vulnerable people in our country and in my State, and I am certainly committed to working with everybody here to make it happen.

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