Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to H.R. Affordable Insulin Now Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Fairness for Families Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to comment on one portion of the rule, H.R. 8987, which is a bill that is incredibly important to me and to those that I represent. As a matter of fact, I drafted the legislation. On August 5, I had introduced the language as part of H.R. 8667. We garnered bipartisan support for this very important bill.

What the bill does is finally make whole so many of our families that were affected by 9/11 because they lost loved ones, but they were not compensated properly under the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorist Fund.

So we are talking about 5,347 widows and children that were excluded from this fund by this body; and it was an injustice that should have never been allowed to happen. As a result of their initial exclusion, widows and children missed the first two payments of the USVSST fund, creating a massive disparity between their restorative justice payments and others that were included.

This bill would catch up those widows and children to the other victim groups and ensure that, moving forward, they are no longer left out, forgotten, or excluded. So this bill is truly about fairness and doing what is right for the wives and the children or the husbands and the children of our first responders killed on September 11.

Twenty-one years later, this House is finally going to do the right thing, and I am very happy to have played a part in helping them move this forward.

In the gallery I have a special guest, Angela Mistrulli, who is the head of the 9/11 Children for Justice. She is a tireless advocate who has been affected personally, and I thank her for working with our office over the last 6 months and the advocacy of all of her members in seeing this through. I hope all my colleagues support this on the floor when it comes up later today.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge that we amend the rule to also include H.R. 7967, which is the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act. My legislation would hold prosecutors accountable and create transparency by letting the public know how many cases prosecutors are declining to prosecute, the number of offenses committed by career criminals, and the number of criminals released.

Over the past 2 years, we have seen a disturbing trend in progressive district attorneys in cities across the country who are refusing to prosecute violent criminal offenders. Look no further than my city of New York, our city of New York, where Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg released a Day 1 memo initially directing his staff not to prosecute certain crimes, including drug possession, trespassing, sex trading, driving with a suspended license, resisting arrest, and public obscenity. He even directed his staff to downgrade felony charges filed by our police, including armed robbery, weapons charges, and drug dealing.

Worst of all, his office will no longer seek sentences of life without parole, which means that the most heinous murderers, including terrorists, serial killers, cop killers, and perps who kill young children in connection with sex crimes will be released back onto our streets in 20 years or less.

These policies have sent a clear message to the criminals. It is, go ahead, break the law because we will not enforce it. With prosecutors that refuse to prosecute, violent career super-criminals are free to wreak havoc on our streets.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question today so we can hold woke prosecutors accountable for failing to do their jobs and protect.

We want to be able to add this legislation to the rule because it is incredibly important that the public knows which prosecutors are refusing to do their job; and as we saw in San Francisco, they did repeal one of their prosecutors. Many States, like ours, do not have a recall law, but this would give them the information they need to make informed decisions when it comes to selecting who is going to be the prosecutors for their cities, because prosecutors should actually be prosecuting crimes. They should not be acting like criminal defense attorneys.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. Madam Speaker, I understand that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't believe in transparency, that they believe this information should be kept from the public. But these prosecutors work for us.

Quite frankly, crime has soared in my city. People are getting killed. People are getting assaulted. Nearly every single category of crime has risen in New York City, and our prosecutors are refusing to put people behind bars.

If the Democrats feel that public safety and crime skyrocketing in America's cities is not an issue, that explains why you support defunding the police, bail reform, and all of these ridiculous policies.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source