Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act - May 16, 2012

I want to say thank you to Sandy Adams for the excellent leadership and the perspective that she has brought to the work that we have done in reauthorizing VAWA. As you all know, this came onto the books in '94, and the reason Republicans took the lead on VAWA in '94 is because we knew the need in our local communities for this. Sandy is a law enforcement officer who brought her expertise of dealing with violence against women to help us as we work through this reauthorization. Many of the women in our conference have worked with establishing our domestic abuse centers and have worked with our child advocacy centers, and we know firsthand the importance of having a workable law. I was visiting with one of my child advocacy centers on Monday, and we were discussing this issue. I was reminded that, in my home state of Tennessee, over half of all the crimes against individuals are domestic violence crimes. It is imperative that we continue the education and the law-enforcement efforts on this issue, and I am grateful to Ms. Adams for her expertise that has been brought to bear on this issue.

Speech from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDkSFlrNSpI