Justice For Victims Of Trafficking Act Of 2015 -- Resumed

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, like every Member of this body, I am frustrated we haven't been able to reach an agreement to pass the bipartisan Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act.

So today--just now--we have offered a compromise amendment that provides a path forward on this important legislation. I want to express my gratitude to the majority leader for teeing up this amendment and this vote and helping us move forward to resolve this problem.

Briefly, this proposal would completely strike a provision in the underlying bill that Members on the other side have objected to regarding the application of the Hyde amendment. The proposal would replace this language with a provision negotiated by Leader Pelosi from H.R. 2, the so-called doc fix bill that we just passed overwhelmingly and that passed the House a few weeks ago 392 to 37--180 House Democrats supported this language in the House bill. The Pelosi language from this bill is similar to my proposal, in that it simply says that any funds used to provide services to human trafficking victims would be subject to the same requirements as funds under the Public Health Services Act. This would clarify that all money in the Domestic Trafficking Victims' Fund must be derived from the General Treasury, the routine and ordinary source of all Federal funding.

In other words, requirements placed upon funds under my bill would not be placed on money derived from criminal fees or penalties, something our Democratic friends seem to have some objection to, but they would only be placed upon money drawn from the General Treasury. This is exactly what Members on the other side have asked for.

Finally, as an additional measure of good faith, my proposal would also include an amendment drafted by Senator Leahy, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that has been supported by every Democratic Member of that committee. This amendment would authorize the appropriation of additional funds into the Domestic Trafficking Victims' Fund.

Some Members on the other side of the aisle have filibustered this important legislation because they say they objected to language I included that references the Hyde amendment. I have now agreed to strike that language. They are also filibustering because they objected to attaching routine Hyde restrictions that have been the law of the land for nearly 40 years--the money that is outside of the General Treasury process. Now, I have agreed to change the language of my bill so the Domestic Trafficking Victims' Fund only includes money drawn from the General Treasury. I have also agreed to accept the amendment from Senator Leahy that I previously opposed in the interest of trying to get to ``yes.''

I plan to speak more on this tomorrow, but I am hopeful that by finally making these changes, we can be met at least halfway by our friends across the aisle. I feel like we have continued to try to make changes in this legislation in an interest of giving them an opportunity to vote for a bill they said they all support but which they ultimately filibustered because of the objections I just addressed, and both of the major objections are addressed by this amendment and this legislation.

So I hope we can get to a resolution on this bill. The victims of human trafficking are typically young girls between the ages of 12 and 14 years old. This is justly called modern-day slavery, because these victims of human trafficking are literally enslaved and sold for sex or held for involuntary servitude against their will. Many of them come from other countries, but the vast majority of them come from right here in the United States of America.

We need to do something about this. This legislation does that ``something,'' and I think we have more than demonstrated good faith in trying to meet our colleagues' objections across the aisle by proposing language that works, that accomplishes the result but removes the objectionable language our colleagues across the aisle have seen fit to filibuster on.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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