Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 1652

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I won't speak long, but I wanted to echo the comments of our distinguished Judiciary chairman, because I have had a similar experience.

As we were going through COVID, I was hearing from our domestic violence groups in Rhode Island that two things were happening at once. Instances were going up. People were trapped together. It was very difficult to find sanctuary houses to go to, and the experience of domestic violence was soaring. And while that was going on, the funding coming into these agencies through VOCA was declining.

Now there is a pretty simple--well, first let me thank the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sojourner House, which provides sanctuary services, and Progreso Latino, which works in this space in our Latino community, for their great work. There are a lot of organizations in this space, and I want to start by appreciating them.

The problem has nothing to do with domestic violence or domestic violence victims as to the money. The problem is that more and more of these cases are resolved by deferred prosecution and nonprosecution agreements, but the funding for VOCA comes out of criminal sentences, criminal prosecutions. So because of that change in the way these cases are treated--which is actually a good thing, generally--the money is diverted, and, as a result, the Crime Victims Fund has reached its lowest level in 10 years.

The victim assistance grants in Rhode Island fell 50 percent--5-0 percent--cut in half from fiscal year 2016 to fiscal year 2021, from $7.6 million to $3.8 million, which means that many of these local organizations that put their heart and soul into protecting these victims at the worst time in their lives have to deal with 50-percent cuts.

This is simple. It will allow monetary penalties in those deferred prosecutions and nonprosecution agreements to flow the same way they flow when traditional prosecutions take place.

This is endorsed across the board. This is as noncontroversial as you get--56 State and Territorial attorneys general, more than 1,700 local, Tribal, State, regional, and national advocacy, government, and law enforcement organizations.

Just this year, $545 million has been lost to the VOCA fund because we haven't corrected this. So I would echo my chairman's remarks and urge my friend, the Senator from Pennsylvania, to find another point of leverage, another fulcrum, for his efforts to solve unrelated problems, but let this problem be solved and let these victims be served.

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