Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 1652
Floor Speech
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I want to acknowledge and thank my colleague and friend from Illinois for his leadership on this issue. He has outlined well the situation in front of us with regard to the status of the Crime Victims Fund.
Again, this is a nontaxpayer source of funding, which is designed to help the millions of victims of crimes--those who have been violated, those who are extraordinarily vulnerable. And we are at a place where, as he has indicated, we have a proposal here that could help address how this fund is replenished to, again, ensure that those who have been made victims can receive some level of compensation.
We are kind of stuck here this morning, which is extraordinarily unfortunate. Folks back home in Alaska are just starting their day, and they are looking with anticipation and hope and, quite honestly, prayers that today might be the day that they get good news on this.
Right now, I have about 30 organizations in Alaska, including our domestic violence shelters, our child advocacy centers, our victim advocacy organizations--they have all been notified that they are going to expect a 35-percent cut to their funding, effective the 1st of July, so just in a couple of weeks here.
And because of this broken VOCA deposit issue, this cut is set to affect their funds for not only this year but for next year going forward.
So think about it. You are the shelter in Kodiak, where I was just 6, 8 weeks or so ago. When you are told you have a 35-percent cut to your budget coming and you have a small community, where are you going to find those resources? Because, believe you, me, the individuals who still require those services are not staying at home and saying: Well, I guess we didn't have the services here on this big island of Kodiak; so I am just going to stay put.
The need is still there. In fact, the need is more enhanced or exacerbated than ever before. We have seen this as a follow-on from COVID. We have seen those aftereffects, that aftershock, when you have been in an isolated situation where you have been forced to kind of shelter in place, if you will, but your home is not a safe shelter. It is not a shelter in that sense of the word. But you don't have services. And so where do you go? You stay with your abuser. You stay in the situation that is unsound, unsafe, because you don't have anyplace to turn. So the need out there is considerable.
We had a situation last summer of devastating loss, with five village residents in different villages who had died in domestic violence murders over a course of 10 days. These are small villages where everybody knows everybody, and the loss of one person--an elder, a child, or a victim--is extraordinary. And so we looked at that, and we said: Well, that is exacerbated by COVID and what has happened.
But, no, this has been a situation for us long prior to COVID, in terms of, unfortunately, the levels that we see of domestic violence, sexual assault, the victimization that we see--so being there to provide funding for services to help prevent these deaths, the trauma that children experience when they are in the room, the murders that affect families for generations. There is a story in the news just today--a domestic situation, the husband and the wife. The husband took the wife's life and then took his own, and it was a 6-year-old with an iPad who notified the authorities.
I think about the reality of what a 35-percent cut means, what it means when you say your service providers are faced with $6 million less in funding for victims services. The shelters are calling out to us for help. One domestic violence shelter in the State is facing the reality of laying off six full-time jobs within their organization. This is unacceptable.
I understand that there are concerns. Senator Toomey is going to speak to them. But this legislation doesn't change how Federal tax money is spent. It provides a technical fix by directing additional nontaxpayer dollars from criminal monetary penalties into this fund. So we are sitting at a point where the longer that Congress delays this fix, the larger the cuts that victims services in my State and all around the country will face.
This has been a hard time for us, and I think we recognize it, but for those who are trying to serve victims, for those who are trying to serve the most vulnerable at an exceptionally vulnerable time in their lives, it makes it 10 times harder. Our providers are exhausted, they are burned out, and now they are faced with massive cuts. We simply cannot fail them.
I would urge us to look past the politics on this. This is what these victims' advocates are saying: Please don't use us as the political lever here. So I join not only with Senator Durbin but with the many in this body who would urge that we pass this technical fix to VOCA.
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