Unanimous Consent Request - H.R. 5963
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, soon I will offer a unanimous consent request with regard to a bill that would reform and reauthorize Federal juvenile justice programs. This bill is known as the Supporting Youth Opportunity and Preventing Delinquency Act of 2016. It passed the other Chamber last month by a vote of 382-29.
The bipartisan House bill is modeled closely to one that I introduced over a year ago with the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Whitehouse.
That legislation was titled the ``Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act.'' It has 19 Senate cosponsors and cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair, without a single dissenting vote last year. The House companion before us today also won the unanimous approval of a committee in the other Chamber before passing the House with overwhelming support a few weeks ago.
The two bills are remarkably similar in most respects, indicating their objectives. One such objective is to extend the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act for 5 more years. That Federal statute was last reauthorized in 2002, and it is long overdue for an update.
Congress is still funding juvenile justice programs that expired in 2007, nearly a decade ago.
I think my colleagues know of the hard work of Senator Enzi, chairman of the Budget Committee, and a program that he has of the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money we are spending that has not been authorized by the authorizing committees. So getting a lot of bills that have expired reauthorized is in the spirit of what Senator Enzi is trying to promote among the 15, 16, or however many committees we have in the Senate that don't do their work on a regular basis.
The centerpiece of the 1974 act is its core protections for youth.
Over 40 years ago, Congress committed to making Federal grants available to States that observed these core protections, of which there are now four.
The first core protection discourages the detention of children and youth for extremely minor infractions, such as truancy, underage tobacco use, disobeying parents, and running away. No State would ever jail an adult; that is an important emphasis. No State would ever jail an adult for this same conduct. And research shows that nothing much positive comes out of locking up children for conduct that isn't even criminal.
The second core protection calls for juveniles to be kept out of adult facilities except in certain very rare instances. The third calls for juveniles to be separated from adults when they are held in adult facilities. And the fourth calls for States to try to reduce disproportionate minority contact in their juvenile justice system.
That is from 1974, and those goals are still legitimate goals. Under our proposed legislation, as under this current law, if a State commits to meeting these core protections for youth, it can expect to continue receiving Federal grant money to support its juvenile justice activities.
Our second objective for this legislation is to make reforms to current law so that taxpayer-supported juvenile justice programs will yield best possible outcomes. To that end, our bill reflects the latest research that works best with at-risk children and youth.
We added provisions to promote the rehabilitation of runaways who are at high risk of being trafficked. We included language to discourage shackling of pregnant juveniles during childbirth. After learning that a handful of States receiving Federal grant funds are locking up children as young as 8 or 9 for minor infractions, such as truancy, we called for a phaseout of valid court orders permitting that practice.
Last but not least, we responded to concerns voiced by whistleblowers by adding accountability measures to protect the taxpayers and promote more oversight of justice reforms.
These accountability measures are something I have been working on both as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee and chairman of that committee for a long period of time, not just on the juvenile justice program but on a lot of other programs where taxpayer money is being wasted by having different standards in some programs versus the others, particularly when the bureaucracy at the Justice Department is not policing what States do and they let the States get out. We have all kinds of GAO reports or reports from inspectors general that come back to us saying that this money to the States is not following the intent that was intended by Congress. I think all Senators assume a responsibility to make sure that taxpayer money will go as far as it can. So we worked some of those accountability issues into every bill I can get out of the Justice Department that affects these programs.
Groups such as the Campaign for Youth Justice, the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, Boys Town, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, among many others, endorsed the legislation and contributed input. We also consulted the National Criminal Justice Association, the National District Attorneys Association, and a coalition of roughly two dozen anti-human trafficking groups that endorsed the legislation as well.
The House bill before us today includes many or most of the same provisions that Senator Whitehouse and I championed, and it enjoys the support of virtually all of the same 100-plus organizations that endorsed the versions we sponsored in this Chamber. The House made a few key changes to preserve more flexibility for States.
Speaking of those 100-plus organizations, I feel a responsibility to them to work as hard as I can to get this legislation passed because they have worked so hard at the grass roots level.
Let me go back to the flexibility we give to the States that the House put in. States that object to phasing out the detention of status offenders over a period of 3 years can invoke a 1-year hardship exception. That hardship exception is renewable every year for an indefinite period, and that is at the State's option.
The House-passed measure also includes a modified version of legislation by Senators Inhofe, Casey, and Vitter in this Chamber. That language would encourage the rehabilitation of youth who are at risk because of involvement in gangs or the criminal justice system.
The House bill shouldn't be controversial, which is why we are requesting unanimous consent to have the Senate pass it today. Again, I remind my colleagues that the other Chamber passed it by an overwhelming vote in September, after the Education Committee, under Chairman John Kline's leadership, reported the measure without a single dissenting vote.
I also thank our cosponsors, which include the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, as well as ranking member Senator Feinstein, for their support of this legislation.
Unfortunately, when we sought to bring up the Senate version by unanimous consent back in February, a single Senator objected, preventing its passage. He has objected to the language that would require States to embrace one of the 42-year core principles.
Before this Congress comes to a close, we have a great opportunity to pass an important piece of legislation to help some of the most vulnerable children and youth in the United States. But it is not only these at-risk children who would benefit due to the reforms we have included in this bill; the legislation would benefit taxpayers as well.
I see Senator Whitehouse on the floor. Before I ask unanimous consent, I wish to yield to him for the purpose of his speaking on the bill.
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