Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004

UNBORN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE ACT OF 2004

AMENDMENT NO. 2859

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I have an amendment No. 2859 at the desk. I ask for its immediate consideration.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.

The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Washington [Mrs. Murray] proposes an amendment numbered 2859.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

(The amendment is printed in today's RECORD under "Text of Amendments.")

The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 2 hours equally divided on the amendment. The Senator from Washington is recognized.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, today I am offering an amendment to help prevent violence against women and children. We have heard a lot of talk today about punishing abusers. Now it is time to see who is serious about preventing abuse in the first place.

As someone who has spent my entire public life talking with victims, visiting shelters, working with advocates in law enforcement, and funding the programs victims rely on, I am here this afternoon to offer an amendment that will help women and children get the help they need to be safe and, most importantly, to save their lives.

Mr. President, the amendment I am offering this afternoon is built on what victims and experts have told me they need. That is why this amendment has been endorsed by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Family Violence Prevention Fund. These organizations know what victims need, and they say the Murray amendment will really help victims of violence.

Mr. President, I am honored to say that my amendment is named for Paul and Sheila Wellstone, who were such champions for victims of domestic violence. Senator Wellstone and I introduced legislation which is today included in this amendment. Paul's desk was just behind me here on the Senate floor. I can still see him behind me waving his arms and making the case for people who have no voice.

This amendment is a real tribute to Paul and Sheila and the fight we carry on for the millions of people who need a voice in the U.S. Senate. Whenever Paul debated an issue, you could always tell who was really standing up for families and who was just talking. The vote on my amendment will reveal who is truly concerned about giving women and children the tools they need to escape violent relationships, and who is more interested in playing politics and attempting to undermine women's constitutional rights. Any Senator who is truly concerned about the safety of women and children will join me and give battered women the support they need to escape violent relationships before it is too late.

Now, I have a feeling that during this debate we are going to hear a lot of excuses. Some Senators are going to stand up here and claim that preventing violence against women is somehow not relevant. Senators will stand up here with the talking points that have been prepared for them by the Chamber of Commerce and say that protecting women from deadly abuse is somehow bad for business.

We are going to hear a lot of excuses. But I have something stronger. I have the actual stories of dozens of women who are being abused, who have escaped abuse, or who have been killed by their abusers. Those are the voices that need to be heard on the Senate floor, not talking points from lobbyists, not the same old excuses from the very people who are cutting Violence Against Women Act programs by $10 million. We have had enough of that. We know where it has gotten us: 2 million women assaulted every year.

Nearly 1 in 3 adult women are assaulted. There are 4.9 million intimate partner rapes and physical assaults, and thousands of women every year are killed by a spouse or a boyfriend. We know what all those excuses have produced: Women who are beaten, raped, and murdered.

Some lobbyists and Members of Congress want to bury my amendment. You know what. We have had to bury enough people already. Let's see who is serious about helping to prevent violence and who is just playing politics with the lives of battered women.

Let me read a note I received from an advocate for victims of abuse. She writes:

I have had many many clients over the years who have come to me after they have been fired from work because they missed a day of work to go to court to get a civil protection order. In some of these instances, the women had sick days, but they were still fired. Several of these women were forced to return to their batterers after they lost their jobs because they lost their income and they and their children would have been homeless if they did not return.

These are some of the women who are trapped today and who desperately need our help. Mr. President, my amendment is especially important because the Bush administration is cutting or freezing funding for critical domestic violence programs. Every year, 2 million American women are sexually assaulted, stalked, or physically assaulted-2 million women every year. You would think that the White House would recognize the need to fund domestic violence programs, but the President's latest budget offers more bad news to victims of violence.

Let me give you some examples. The President's budget cuts Violence Against Women Act programs by $10 million. It cuts a Justice Department rape prevention program by $29 million. It freezes funding for the domestic violence hotline, and it freezes funding for grants for battered women shelters, precisely at a time when we need increases because evidence shows us that domestic violence increases during tough economic times just as we are having today.

So I find it pretty ironic to be here today with a bill before the Senate that purports to help victims of domestic violence while it ignores all we know about preventing it. Anyone who has talked with victims' advocates and law enforcement knows that domestic violence prevention requires more support, not less-not less. It is clear that we need to help victims escape violent relationships, and the Paul and Sheila Wellstone domestic violence prevention amendment will help.

Mr. President, my amendment does several things. It gives victims of abuse access to unemployment insurance if they have been forced to leave their job because of violence. It gives victims of violence access to expanded emergency leave so they can go to court or to the police to stop the abuse. It protects victims from employment and insurance discrimination. It provides services for children who witness domestic violence so we can end that cycle of abuse. It helps health professionals screen for abuse and respond appropriately. It gives victims better access to critical health services. Those are the steps we need to take today to protect the more than 2 million women who are sexually assaulted, stalked, or physically assaulted every single year.

Mr. President, let me say a word about the relevance of my amendment. I expect some Senators will come here and claim that preventing violence against women is somehow not relevant to the bill we are debating today. To them, it never seems to be the right time. There is always an excuse. In fact, these Senators are sending a message that victims are not relevant until they are dead. If any Senator wants to come down here and tell women across America that the abuse they face is not relevant, then they will have to make that insulting claim alone because I am going to keep fighting to get victims the help they need, to prosecute abusers and break the cycle of violence. You tell a woman who is being abused she doesn't deserve more help; you tell a child who is witnessing abuse every night that my amendment is unnecessary. I am not going to tell victims that. My amendment gives them the real help they need.

Mr. President, victims of violence have heard a lot of excuses over the years. Claiming that their daily abuse is not relevant to this Senate debate is just another of the excuses that have trapped women every year in this country. That claim is as insulting as it is false.

Just look at the recent debate in the House of Representatives on this underlying bill. During that debate, every single anti-choice Member who spoke referred to criminal acts of violence against women. Violence against women is a central part of this debate. Preventing violence against women and helping women and children who are being abused is central to this discussion.

Opponents cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim that their bill is needed to address the violence against women and then claim we should not debate ways to prevent violence against women. This amendment is clearly relevant and will truly help women and children.

Anyone who wants to claim it is not relevant will have to answer to the victims to whom they are denying help. Either you are serious about helping women and victims or you are playing politics and making excuses.

Women and children who are being violently abused every day deserve to know where their Senators stand, and Members of Congress are certainly hearing from outside groups on this, from groups that are not known-not known-for their advocacy on fighting domestic violence.

Yesterday, Senators received a letter from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce urging them to oppose my amendment. Bruce Josten, the Chamber's Executive Vice President for Government Affairs, makes the Chamber's case rather forcefully in his letter. He writes:

It is important to note as a preliminary matter that H.R. 1997 is clearly an inappropriate vehicle for this amendment as the issues involved are completely unrelated.

"Unrelated." We are dealing with a bill that claims to address the crime of violence against women, but an amendment that would actually prevent violence is "unrelated," according to the Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Josten goes on to write:

The ill-designed programs promise to impose significant costs on business, particularly small business.

So the Chamber argues that the cost of preventing further violence against women is too high to pay. In other words, preventing domestic violence and giving women the tools to escape from abusive relationships is bad for the bottom line.

Let's, for a minute, examine the economics of domestic violence. There are costs associated with allowing domestic violence to continue, not just for women but for businesses.

In 2002, economists Amy Farmer of the University of Arkansas and Jill Tiefenthaler of Colgate University published a report on the economic impact of domestic violence. They examined publicly available studies performed in the United States, including the annual National Crime Victimization Surveys, two Physical Violence in American Families studies, and seven studies in the national violence against women survey.

As Ms. Farmer explained:

Each study was intended to answer different questions, so the data sets have different strengths and weaknesses. When we incorporated these data into a single model of domestic violence, a different picture emerged that can be seen from any one study.

They found that absenteeism, tardiness, and turnover rates are all high among domestic abuse victims. Farmer's research also concludes that domestic abuse may result in almost 7 million lost work days annually-7 million-reduced workplace productivity, increased insurance costs, and lower profits.

The researchers also cited a 1995 Roper report that found that 49 percent of the Fortune 100 executives surveyed believed that domestic violence hurt their company's productivity, and 33 percent said it lowered their profits. So this is a problem that is real, and it has real costs for businesses.

If you go to the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence, you can learn some other interesting facts about domestic violence and how it affects the bottom line. On their site, you will find medical expenses from domestic violence costs $3 billion to $5 billion a year. Businesses are paying $3 billion to $5 billion a year in health care for victims of domestic violence.

You also learn that 94 percent of corporate security directors rank partner violence as a high security problem. They estimate that 75 percent of victims of domestic violence are harassed at work by their abuser.

Here is a startling fact they have on their Web site: Homicide is the No. 1 leading cause of death on the job, and 20 percent of those murders were committed by their intimate partner at the workplace.

What should we conclude from this data? Domestic violence is bad for business. It has real and it has painful costs on employers. So for those Members who want to weigh this measure against its economic merits, as the Chamber does, the facts are clear. Providing the tools that will allow abused women to escape abusive relationships can help offset billions of dollars in costs that domestic violence imposes on businesses.

But I hope my colleagues will consider more than the economics as they cast their vote. I hope my colleagues will consider the cost to the women and children who are the victims of domestic violence-the cost in pain, the cost in lives-and the pain and the lives we can protect by giving women the tools they need to escape abusive relationships.

I would like to share with my colleagues this afternoon some of the stories of the women we are trying to help with this amendment. These stories were shared with me by a nationally recognized advocate for domestic violence victims.

Let me tell my colleagues a story about a woman who had worked at a medium-sized organization for over a year as an administrative assistant. Her husband had been beating her on and off for over 15 years of their relationship. When things escalated, she missed work due to a severe beating. She called in to work and was honest about what happened to her. She came in to work the next day and was told she was fired. Her company told her they were afraid that her husband would come to the workplace and hurt her coworkers, although that had never happened before.

She did not qualify for job guaranteed leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act because the company employed less than 50 employees and, arguably, her injuries from the beating did not qualify as a serious health condition. So it made her firing legal.

If VESSA-the act we are talking about-had been in effect, she would have had access to job guaranteed leave or perhaps a provision prohibiting employers from discriminating against victims of domestic violence. She applied for and was denied unemployment insurance.

This is a real woman. This is what happened to her. It could be your next-door neighbor. It could be your daughter.

There is another woman who worked as a hospital nurse. She just left her batterer and was concerned that he might follow her to her workplace. She told her employer of her fears, and they fired her. She applied for unemployment insurance. She was denied.

Another story: Abusers often contact employers themselves to get the women they are abusing fired. One batterer called up the workplace and told them his victim was HIV positive. He then told the employer that the woman was a liar and was missing work so she could file a frivolous restraining order against him. The woman took an earned sick day off from work, but when she returned to work, she was told she was fired because she was a victim of domestic violence. If VESSA had been in place, that would have been illegal.

Another story: A woman was assaulted by her batterer in the parking lot at her workplace. She was then fired for "being in a fight."

Let me tell you about a woman who was strangled by her batterer. Her doctor told her to stay home from work for 5 days after being strangled. She called in sick to work, and she was fired because she did not have enough vacation days and she did not qualify for family and medical leave because her employer was too small.

These are real people, Mr. President. These are our next-door neighbors. These are women who live in our communities. These are real stories.

Another example: One morning a woman was getting ready to go to work and her abuser came to her home with a gun. He told her that if she left the house, he would kill her. She was able to call the police, and the police came to her home and arrested the batterer. She got a police report. She called her workplace and explained why she was unable to come to work that day. The next day she returned to work and was fired for missing work and was denied unemployment insurance.

Let me tell you another story: One woman got a call at work from her abuser. Her coworker overheard the conversation, and then her employer took her aside and said since she was dealing with so much, she couldn't possibly continue to work for him and fired her.

Here is an example of what happens when a woman tried to go to court to get help. A woman told her employer that she was in a violent relationship and that she would need to take a day off from work to go to court to get a protection order.

The employer seemed supportive and agreed, so she took the day off and went to the court. The next day when she arrived at work, her supervisor called her into his office and she was fired for missing work, even though she had obtained permission the day before.

These are just some of the people who desperately need our help. These are real stories. These are real women. They need this amendment to break out of these abusive relationships.

Let me take a minute to put this amendment in context because it is the next logical step in the progress that we have been making in fighting domestic violence. We have come a long way over the past few years in dealing with domestic violence. Not long ago domestic violence was considered a family problem. It was something people did not talk about. That climate made it very difficult for victims to seek help. It prevented friends or neighbors from getting involved in what was considered someone else's business.

Today stopping domestic violence is everyone's business, thanks to the Violence Against Women Act, which I was proud to work on and help pass. For the first time, the Violence Against Women Act recognized domestic violence as a violent crime and a national public health crisis. It laid out a coordinated strategy to bring advocates, shelters, prosecutors, and law enforcement professionals together to fight domestic violence. I was proud to help reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act in 2000.

Over the years, I have been proud to work with advocates from Washington State and across the country to strengthen these violence against women programs, to increase the funding, and to help raise awareness. So the Violence Against Women Act was the first step and it helped us respond to the immediate threat of abuse. Now it is time for us to address the long-term problems that victims face. We need to break down the economic barriers that trap these women in abusive relationships, and we need to reach out to the children who witness this violence, help health care professionals stop the cycle of violence and truly protect women and children.

Let me take a few moments to walk through the parts of my amendment and show how it will help prevent and stop abuse. My amendment gives victims of violence access to unemployment compensation. Specifically, it provides victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking with unemployment insurance if they have been separated from their employment as a result of the violence.

Many abusers trap their victims financially, limiting their ability to work and forcing them out of a job. I will share some statistics that have been compiled by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Many victims of domestic violence have current or former partners who interfere with their efforts to work by harassing them on the job, threatening them and their children, withholding transportation, or beating them so severely they cannot work. In addition, more than 25 percent of domestic violence victims surveyed in three national studies reported they lost a job due at least in part to domestic violence.

We know that a job is often the only way for a victim to build up resources for themselves to eventually leave a violent relationship, but abuse and stalking can make it impossible for a victim to keep a job. We know of cases where abusers will deliberately sabotage a victim's ability to work, placing harassing phone calls, cutting off their transportation, showing up at the workplace and threatening employees. When a victim loses her job because of violence, she should have access to unemployment insurance compensation benefits.

During this debate some may claim this is some big, onerous expansion. I have seen the talking points from the groups that want to kill this genuine effort to protect women from violence, and they have it wrong. This is not some dramatic expansion. In fact, today 25 States already provide some type of unemployment insurance assistance for victims of domestic violence. We can offer that same protection to victims in every State, and we have an obligation to do it.

My amendment will also protect victims by allowing them unpaid time to get the help they need. Today a woman can use family and medical leave to care for a sick or injured spouse, but many women cannot use that act to go to court to stop the abuse. My amendment fixes that. We know that taking a day off of work to go to court or to go to the police can save a woman's life. My amendment ensures women will not be punished for taking those steps that they need to take to protect themselves from abuse.

Let me turn to another part of my amendment which deals with the children who witness domestic violence. Batterers often harm children as well as their intimate partners, and witnessing violence can have a serious impact on young children and all children. Let me offer some statistics about abuse and children to put this in perspective.

Between 3.3 million and 10 million American children annually witness assaults by one parent against another. In 43 percent of households where intimate violence occurs, at least one child under the age of 12 lives in that home. Children are caught in the crossfire of abuse, and while we know all children are affected differently, we do know that children who witness violence at home may display emotional and behavioral differences as diverse as withdrawal, low self-esteem, nightmares, or aggression against their peers, family members or property.

We know that witnessing abuse by a child can contribute to the cycle of violence. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the U.S. Department of Justice finds that as many as 40 percent of violent juvenile offenders come from homes where there is domestic violence. In my home State of Washington, we are now all too aware of the price children pay in cases of domestic violence.

In April of 2003, the Tacoma police chief, David Brame, shot and killed his wife Crystal. Then he took his own life, all while their two young children watched. The final tragic act was the last in a long history of abusive events that often played out in front of their two small children.

According to the police report, David Brame had been driving around in a shopping center parking lot in Gig Harbor that day when he spotted his wife Crystal and the couple's children as she was parking the car. Brame shot her and then turned the gun on himself.

According to a witness, 7-year-old Haley told her:

My daddy is a policeman and he is very mean to my mommy. I think my daddy has killed her.

Then Haley told officers she had seen her dad point a gun at her mom's head in the past.

Detectives talked to the son, David, 5 years old, at the hospital a few hours later as the mother was fighting for her life. They asked the little boy, 5 years old, "Did you see the gun?"

He answered:

Yeah. And, it shooted my mom into flat dead.

The children talked about past anger between their mother and their father and what led to that terrible day. That is just one terrible example of the trauma that children who live with domestic violence have to live with. It should be our collective goal to help them overcome it.

This is how this amendment would help children who witness domestic violence. It establishes grants to children who have been exposed to domestic violence such as I just described. It supports direct counseling and advocacy, early childhood and mental health services, legal advocacy and specialized services. It provides training for school personnel to develop effective prevention and intervention strategies. It helps child welfare agencies, domestic violence, and sexual assault service providers work together to protect the children.

Finally, it supports multisystem intervention models and crisis nurseries for children who are exposed to violence in their home.

Children who witness domestic violence have special needs. They are not being addressed today. We have an obligation to change that.

Let me turn to the next part of my amendment, which increases health screening so more victims can get assistance. More than one in three women who seek care in emergency rooms for violence-related injuries were injured by their intimate partner. Unfortunately, most victims who seek health care leave the doctor's office without addressing the underlying cause of their injuries. They leave that untreated, and that is the violence they suffered. The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion every year; $4.1 billion of that is for direct medical and mental health care services.

Health care providers can do a great deal to stem the tide of domestic violence before it becomes life threatening. A 1999 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found only 10 percent of primary care physicians routinely screen for intimate partner abuse during new patient visits, and 9 percent routinely screen during periodic checkups.

Emerging research shows us hospital-based domestic violence interventions could reduce health care costs by 20 percent.
My amendment will help ensure health care providers are trained in how to identify and serve victims of domestic violence, and provide grants to strengthen health care systems' responses to domestic violence.

My amendment will promote public health programs that integrate family violence assessment and intervention into basic care. It encourages collaboration between health care providers, public health programs, and domestic violence programs.

My amendment will lead to more effective interventions, more coordinated systems of care, greater resources to educate health care providers about domestic violence, and ultimately what we all want, more women receiving help.

In December of 1999, the New England Journal of Medicine published a major study on the risk factors for injury to women from domestic violence. Here is what one of the researchers, Dr. Robert Muelleman, had to say.

A lot of women who have died from domestic violence had been seen in their local emergency rooms at least 2 years before their deaths. In America, 2 to 4 million women are injured each year, and 1 to 2 million of those show up in emergency rooms. Of these, 2,000 to 3,000 a year end up as homicides.

It's clear that medical professionals in the emergency room can be a great help in identifying at-risk women and directing many of them to supportive resources before it's too late.

That is from Dr. Robert Muelleman of the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Let me turn to another part of my amendment, which expands the services available to victims of abuse. My amendment gives the States the option to use Medicaid to help victims, it ensures domestic violence screening and treatment is covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program, and finally my amendment ensures States use some of the maternal and child health block grant on domestic violence screening and treatment.

Those are the main provisions of my amendment. Extending unemployment insurance benefits for victims of abuse, offering family and medical leave so a victim can go to court or the police station to get help, ending insurance and employment discrimination, providing help for those children who witness abuse, offering access to health care for victims, and improving the way our health care providers screen for domestic violence.

My amendment combines the protections and services victims, law enforcement, and advocates tell us are needed, based on their real world experiences every day on the front lines of domestic violence. We have an opportunity today finally to make a real difference for millions of women who are being assaulted. We can save lives and we can eliminate all the costs domestic violence imposes on our businesses, on our families, and on our communities. The question is whether we are serious about helping to prevent violence against women.

The underlying bill before the Senate today focuses only on penalties after a woman has been abused. My amendment aims to prevent that abuse in the first place. After a woman has been killed, it is too late. We have to stop this abuse before it ends up killing some woman. My amendment gives women today the tools to escape deadly abuse.

Are the Senators in the Chamber serious about helping victims of abuse? That is the question before us.

Frankly, I don't care what the lobbyists say out there. The Chamber of Commerce has lobbyists lined up and down the hall, and they have plenty of people making their case. But I tell you, the women whose stories I shared with you today don't have lobbyists lined up in the hall.

I have been to the shelters. I talked to the women who have been beaten. I have looked in their eyes and I know the odds they are up against. I know what I would say next time I am looking into the eyes of the victim of abuse.

My colleagues will have to decide for themselves if they are going to give her excuses or throw a lifeline to help her escape the violence that may kill her. I say to my colleagues, what are you going to say to the victims of abuse? Your vote will speak volumes.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I listened carefully to the Senators from Ohio and Utah and Wyoming express their concerns about the amendment as we have written it. I know the underlying bill was not marked up in committee either, so I find that argument hard to believe.

I hear their argument. I understand they are going to defeat this amendment. I want to move forward on the issue of domestic violence. It is extremely important that when we are talking about the abuse of women, that we do something to prevent it. I want to make sure we do take a step forward.

Therefore, I ask unanimous consent to send a modified amendment to the desk.

Mr. DeWINE. I object.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, that is frustrating. I listened to the Senators from the other side say they want to do something about prevention. I hear them saying they have objection to specific concerns. I am willing to make a modification to my amendment to move it forward. It is fairly clear the Republican leadership simply doesn't want to engage in a serious debate to address the cycle of violence. That is unfortunate. We could take steps forward to change lives for women who have been victims of abuse.

I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Louisiana, and I ask unanimous consent that she be listed as a cosponsor of the amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, if my colleagues on the other side are going to yield back, I will take a couple of minutes to wrap up. I know my colleagues want to get to the vote and final passage, so I will take only a few minutes to end the debate on this amendment.

I have listened carefully to the other side. They raised concerns about the tax credit side of it, and the budget point of order. I asked unanimous consent to send an amendment to the desk to at least move the other parts of the bill forward without the objectionable part and they refused. That says to me that, despite the rhetoric we have heard from the other side, they are not very willing to do something truly about preventing domestic violence.

I have heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say the reality of this place is that if this amendment gets added that it will kill the bill. I have been in the Senate almost 12 years and I know the reality of this place is when Members believe in something and want to solve a problem we can move mountains to get it done.

To the millions of women across this country who have been victims of domestic violence, what they are going to see on the Senate floor today is Senators being allowed the opportunity to say whether they are actually going to do something to prevent domestic violence or if Senators are only willing to deal with domestic violence after the woman has died.

I believe we have the responsibility to do everything we can to prevent domestic violence. I hope the bill Senators are putting forward today never has to be used because we have prevented violence, but the fact is they are going to prevent us today from offering an amendment that would preclude the underlying bill from ever having to be used. I think that is a tragedy. I think it is a tragedy for the Senate. I think it is a tragedy for the country. I certainly think it is a tragedy for women who face abuse every single day.

Two million women are assaulted every year. I introduced this bill with my colleague Senator Paul Wellstone 3 years ago. We introduced it in three consecutive Congresses and the other side has not allowed us to bring it forward. I keep hearing that we have not had hearings on it. Well, we would love to have hearings on it. We would love to move forward, but it is always said that the time is never right. That is certainly something victims of abuse hear far too often.

This bill simply allows women the time to be able to go to court to get a court order to prevent their abuser from tracking them down and killing them. It allows them the ability to make sure that children who have seen domestic violence get the kind of help they need so they do not create a cycle of violence in their lives, which we know happens too often. It makes sure we offer health care to victims of domestic violence. These are victims who are still alive and need help. It makes sure our health care providers screen for domestic violence so we do not end up with murdered victims every single day. Not relevant? The Chamber of Commerce says this is unrelated? How can anyone look in the eye a woman who has been abused by a batterer and tell her we are not going to help you until you are gone, until you die? I think that is a real tragedy. I am sorry my colleagues on the other side see it that way. I don't.

I have heard rhetoric out here from some of my colleagues-and I do want to commend the Senator from Ohio. He has worked on this issue. I do want to work with you. But I find it a tragedy today that, again, the time is not right. That is what women who are victims of domestic violence hear every single day: The time is not right. We can't help you today. That is what we are doing today. I find that a tragedy.

I am going to continue to work on this issue. I know my colleagues on the other side are going to defeat it today. I know they are going to move on. They have other issues they are going to deal with. But this issue is critical. I have been to the shelters; I have looked the women in the eyes; I have promised them I will not forget, and I will not.

This amendment is named after Senator Paul Wellstone. Every one of us here know he and Sheila cared and were adamant that we provide victims of abuse with the ability to get out of their abusive situation. I hope my colleagues will continue to work with us and that the rhetoric we have heard on the other side about working with us is not forgotten when this bill is gone.