The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Violence Against Women Act (Executive Calendar)” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S2671-S2677 on May 7, 2019.
The Department is one of the oldest in the US, focused primarily on law enforcement and the federal prison system. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, detailed wasteful expenses such as $16 muffins at conferences and board meetings.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Violence Against Women Act
Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, thank you for the recognition. It is good to see you today.
I am going to be joined by a number of my Senate colleagues to talk about reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. We have many who are very concerned that we need to move this reauthorization, so they will be joining me here today.
The first chart we are putting up here is of Hanna Harris, who is a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. Here she is with her son just months before she was brutally murdered on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Hanna was all of 21 years old, and her son was only 10 months old. We now honor Hanna and all murdered and indigenous women and girls each year on Hanna's birthday, May 5, as a national day of awareness.
It is fitting to remember and honor these women and girls, and it is critical that we understand the magnitude of violence that Native women face. Eighty-four percent of Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime. That is four out of five. In some Tribal communities, Native women are murdered at rates more than 10 times the national average--10 times. One out of three Native women has been raped.
Behind these statistics are thousands of faces, thousands of lives disrupted, shattered, and cut short--faces like that of Ashley Loring Heavy Runner. This is a photo of Ashley. Ashley was an outgoing 20-
year-old Native college student during the summer of 2017 when she went missing on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. Last December, I heard firsthand about the devastating impact of Ashley's disappearance when her sister, Kimberly Loring Heavy Runner, came before the Indian Affairs Committee to ask Congress to take action. Kimberly told us:
We are going missing, we are being murdered. I am here to stress to you . . . we are loved and we are missed. We will no longer be . . . invisible people . . . we have worth.
That is Kimberly talking.
By the end of 2017, the FBI had identified 5,600 additional cases of missing Native women and girls. This number is likely a very, very severe undercount. This crisis is devastating Native families across the country. It is unacceptable.
Just last week, the Senate passed a resolution remembering murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, and I thank Senator Daines and other Republicans for sponsoring this bipartisan resolution. Now we must make good on those words. We must walk the walk. We must take bipartisan action to end the cycle of violence, and we should start by reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act and strengthening provisions to protect Native women.
I have been a strong proponent of VAWA from the beginning, and I pushed hard for the law's passage in 1994 when I was New Mexico's attorney general. But it became clear early on that VAWA's provisions weren't reaching Tribal communities because of the Tribal jurisdictional maze put in place by a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
In Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, the Court held that Indian Tribes cannot exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians who commit crimes on reservations. This ruling undermined the sovereign right of Tribes to enforce the law on Tribal lands. It undercut public safety in Indian Country, and it let violent offenders escape prosecution.
An astounding number of violent crimes against Native women on reservations are committed by non-Indians. According to the National Institute of Justice, 97 percent of Native women who experience violence in their lifetime have been victimized by non-Indian perpetrators.
While Tribal authorities' hands were tied, Federal law enforcement authorities weren't addressing these cases either. Investigations were not pursued because the crimes took place in remote locations. Federal prosecutors declined to prosecute cases. Crimes against Native women and children were pushed to the back burner. The inability of Tribes to protect their own members was an inexcusable hole in the law.
By the time the Senate took up VAWA reauthorization in 2012 and 2013, we could no longer ignore Oliphant. We could no longer ignore that Oliphant left Native women at risk. In the Senate, I fought to restore Tribes' authority to provide for the safety of their members, and we ultimately reinstated their authority to prosecute anyone who commits domestic violence on a reservation through VAWA 2013. Since then, 18 Tribes have begun exercising jurisdiction over domestic violence crimes. There have been 143 arrests of 128 violent offenders with 74 convictions to date. This is a real step in the right direction.
With time and experience, Tribes have seen there are still gaps that must be closed to stop violence against Native women. Tribes have identified four changes Congress must make to hold violent offenders accountable.
First, Tribal jurisdiction under VAWA doesn't extend to domestic violence against children. If a Native child is caught up in the violence, as is too often the case, Tribal law enforcement can't prosecute the offender. We have to change that.
Second, VAWA applies only to domestic violence. It doesn't apply to general cases of sexual assault, sex trafficking, or stalking. Like other types of violence, Native women face higher levels of sexual violence than other women in the United States. In fact, of the Native women who have experienced violence, 56 percent have experienced sexual violence. Yet VAWA 2013 didn't cover the entire range of sexual violence directed toward Native women. Congress must fix this.
Third, VAWA 2013 wasn't clear whether Tribes have jurisdiction over attempted domestic violence. If a perpetrator swings at his spouse and misses, there is no crime until the next time, when he lands a punch. We must fix this loophole or Native women will continue to be at risk.
Finally, VAWA doesn't cover crimes committed against Tribal law enforcement officers charged with responding to domestic violence. If an officer is responding to a domestic violence case and he or she is assaulted, they aren't covered under the law, so that needs to be fixed.
Domestic violence calls, as all of us know, are some of the most dangerous law enforcement responds to. Police officers, including Tribal officers, are assaulted when responding to disturbance calls more than in any other circumstance. Yet Tribes can't protect their own officers. These gaps in VAWA undermine the very purpose of the law and put children, women, and police officers at great risk. We must remedy this.
Senators Murkowski, Smith, and I have introduced the Native Youth and Tribal Officer Protection Act to ensure Tribes can exercise jurisdiction to prosecute crimes against children and Tribal officers and attempted domestic violence. The bipartisan bill is supported by 16 former U.S. attorneys appointed under Republican and Democratic administrations and the Indian Law and Order Commission, a body of Tribal public safety experts established under the bipartisan Tribal Law and Order Act. We have also introduced the Justice for Native Survivors of Sexual Violence Act, which makes sure that Tribes have authority to prosecute sexual assault, sex trafficking, and stalking crimes.
The House of Representatives already passed these measures last month on a bipartisan basis as part of the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization of 2019. It is now our turn to take action. We cannot allow this bill to be buried in the majority leader's so-called legislative graveyard, not when women's lives are literally at stake.
Friends, we must all agree it is long past time to address violence against women in Indian Country. I urge this body to reauthorize VAWA and pass the Native Youth and Tribal Officer Protection Act and Justice for Native Survivors Act. Let the families of Hanna and Ashley and thousands of other missing and murdered Native women know that they are not invisible, that they have worth, and that they deserve justice.
I mentioned earlier that 16 U.S. attorneys, both Republican and Democratic, wrote to us about the Native Youth and Tribal Officer Protection Act. They wrote very eloquently about what the situation is that we face today. These are U.S. attorneys who prosecuted in States that have Tribes. They were trying to do everything they could to bring justice to these situations. Their letter of support for S. 2233, the Native Youth and Tribal Officer Protection Act, reads of some of the things here that I am going to quote, which, I think, make very, very poignant points about why we should take up this legislation and pass it immediately.
The Supreme Court's 1978 decision in Oliphant v. Suquamish severely limits Tribal nations' ability to prosecute crimes committed against Indians by non-Indians. Congress removed Federal limits on the inherent authority of Tribal governments to prosecute the non-Indian domestic violence offenders in the 2013 followup reauthorization.
Under current law, the Tribal justice system has arresting and prosecuting authority over a non-Indian domestic violence offender, but it has no recourse if that same offender commits a crime against the responding Tribal public safety officer.
U.S. attorneys' offices with jurisdiction often decline to prosecute a non-Indian who commits a violent crime on Tribal lands. The absence of Tribal criminal jurisdiction over some non-Indian perpetrated crimes and low Federal prosecution rates for those crimes contribute to the high rates of violence against Native people, particularly women and children who live on Tribal lands.
Due to the experiences of the letter's signatories--the 16 former U.S. attorneys, Democratic and Republican--they say public interest, safety, health, and welfare all support the concept that, if possible, crimes committed on Tribal lands should be prosecuted by the presiding Tribal government. These former U.S. attorneys support the goal of this legislation--to restore Tribal jurisdiction over crimes that have been committed against Tribal police officers and children citizens of the Tribal nations.
The need for Tribal jurisdiction over crimes against Tribal law enforcement is absolutely clear here. Under VAWA 2013 Tribal jurisdiction, Tribes cannot hold defendants accountable for violence against officers who are enforcing the law. This leaves arresting officers, court bailiffs, and corrections officers vulnerable. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is an example of the injustice here. It had one non-Indian defendant who had hit and strangled his girlfriend and, while in jail, had stricken the correctional officer who had been holding him after his arrest. He had threatened to come back and--this is his language--shoot up the reservation. The Tribe referred the assault and threat to Federal prosecutors, who ultimately dismissed the charges.
If we pass this legislation that has come over to us from the House, the Tribes in this circumstance would have the ability to step in and do something about this. They don't have any option today. If they get a declination, if there will be no action taken on the Federal side, they will not have the ability to deal with crime and violence on their reservation.
Let me talk a little bit about the need for Tribal jurisdiction over crimes against children. Fifty-eight percent of incidents reported by the implementing Tribes involve children. According to the Department of Justice, Native children suffer exposure to violence at rates that are higher than any other peer group in the United States. The Pascua Yaqui Tribe, which was one of the first five Tribes to implement the VAWA 2013 authority, identified at least 38 children involved as witnesses and victims with its VAWA 2013 cases.
Clearly, when there is a domestic violence incident, one of the things that needs to be done by law enforcement is with regard to a woman's being assaulted in the presence of a child. You should allow the prosecuting authorities to take that into consideration and make it a part of the charge. With the law we have today, that is not allowed. So children are not protected.
In another example, of the defendants and perpetrators who are known violent and criminal offenders, many defendants had run-ins with Tribal police for violence or criminal activity prior to getting arrested. For example, the Tulalip Tribe in Washington reported that the 70 defendants it prosecuted by using its VAWA 2013 authority had had a total of 171 contacts with Tribal police prior to their arrests. A Tulalip Tribal member was assaulted and raped by the father of her children--a non-Indian who had had 19 prior contacts with the Tribal police. VAWA 2013 allowed the Tribe to arrest and successfully prosecute the man.
This is a good example of how VAWA 2013 has worked, but in all of these circumstances I have talked about, we need to demand it--whether it is with a law enforcement officer who is assaulted in the course of enforcing the law or whether it is with a child who is a part of the circumstances that involve the prosecution.
I see that my good friend Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is here on the floor. She is a very active member of the Indian Affairs Committee. I know she cares passionately about these missing and murdered indigenous women and children. I would ask to have a colloquy with Senators who show up, but I will be here on the floor. So don't worry.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, let me say to my colleague, the ranking member of the Senate's Indian Affairs Committee--with whom, by the way, I know I have 2 more years--that I am so going to miss working with him. I appreciate his passion, particularly on days like today on which he is highlighting issues that affect so many of our communities across this country, particularly when it comes to our Tribal communities and Native communities.
Thank you for always being at the forefront, my friend.
This past Sunday, many Americans joined thousands of survivors and supporters in solidarity across the country to honor the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls. Organizers hosted rallies and benefit runs; communities honored loved ones lost; and supporters posted on social media with the hashtag
#NotInvisible. For many, this was a day to raise awareness about the alarming number of murdered and missing indigenous women, but for our Tribal communities, a day of awareness only scratches the surface of what is needed to address this epidemic.
Indian Country needs action. That starts right here in this Chamber, and it can start today. Right now, the Senate is considering three pieces of legislation--the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and my bipartisan bills, Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act--which will help to combat this crisis. Passing these bills is critical in protecting the lives of Native women and girls.
The numbers speak for themselves. More than 80 percent of Native women will experience physical, sexual, or psychological violence in their lifetimes, often in the form of domestic or intimate partner violence. One in three Native American women has been raped or has experienced an attempted rape, and murder is the third leading cause of death for Native women and girls. In addition, Native American women who experience sexual or domestic violence are far more likely to fall victim to sex trafficking.
Even more distressing is the fact that we likely don't know the full scope of the problem because of underreporting. In fact, nearly half of the Tribal law enforcement agencies surveyed believe human trafficking is occurring on Tribal land beyond what has been brought to their attention. Because of a lack of coordination with Federal Agencies and because of sparse resources and limited jurisdiction in which to prosecute crimes, women across Indian Country are dying and disappearing, and far too many of their cases go unreported, unsolved, or untouched by law enforcement.
This is unbelievable. We must act. Yet there is no targeted Federal plan or strategy to address this epidemic even as it becomes increasingly clear that we are failing to uphold our trust responsibility and, even more so, that we are failing Native women and their families.
As former Nevada attorney general, I have heard directly from survivors, family members, Tribal leaders, and law enforcement about the need for immediate action and Federal support to address violence in Native communities. Congress must take concrete action to help support the Tribal governments, organizations, and law enforcement members who are on the frontlines every day.
The House of Representatives has already taken an important first step this year by reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. This legislation will protect Native women from the effects of domestic violence, which is an early indicator of nearly half of all murder cases involving women nationwide. I know it will have a positive impact because, as attorney general, I saw the impact it had on our Tribal communities in the State of Nevada. The reauthorization of VAWA also gives Tribal governments additional and much needed jurisdictional power to directly address violent crime against Tribal members on reservations.
My Democratic colleagues and I are committed to fighting for the full reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and especially for the important criminal jurisdictional expansions it gives Tribal law enforcement to help get violent offenders off the streets.
We can't stop there. We need to shine a light on the staggering number of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and ensure that we understand the full scope of the problem. That is why, with my colleague Senator Lisa Murkowski, I have also introduced Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act--both bipartisan bills. They are designed to work to directly combat the crisis of missing, murdered, and trafficked Native women, and they will give our law enforcement and communities the support they need to protect our Native women and girls. These bills help in stopping cases from falling through the cracks.
Specifically, Savanna's Act works to ensure that Indian Country has access to accurate, up-to-date crime databases so State, local, and Tribal law enforcement can implement guidelines for responding to relevant criminal cases.
The Not Invisible Act ensures the Federal Government works across Agencies to best use its resources when addressing violence against Native women while recognizing the unique challenges that are faced within Tribal communities. The bill also creates an advisory committee to examine ways to reduce violent crime, sexual assault, and trafficking in Tribal communities.
These bills, along with the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, are critical to keeping Native women and girls safe.
My home State of Nevada is home to many Tribal communities. These communities are full of mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends whose lives are vibrant and full of potential. I will not let these women become statistics. It is time to take action, and I am committed to doing all I can in the Senate to fight for justice for Native American women and girls.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, I thank Senator Cortez Masto for her talk today. I can tell that she is very passionate about this issue. Both of us were State attorneys general from Western States. We have significant Native American populations, and we are very familiar with the jurisdiction issue.
I have seen Senator Cortez Masto question many times in the committee on the issue of jurisdiction. And what I am talking about there--you have Tribal jurisdiction, and then you have Federal jurisdiction, and many times there is some State jurisdiction. So when the Supreme Court in 1978 came out with a ruling in the Oliphant case, they created a big hole, and for almost 30 years, there was a zone that really wasn't being prosecuted. Senator Cortez Masto is very familiar with this. Because of that, we had kind of a situation in Indian Country where, without enforcement, I think some of this violence grew.
I am sure that ever since Senator Cortez Masto has been in law enforcement, she has seen this problem and advocated for changes to it, and we have seen dramatic changes with VAWA 2013, which allowed prosecution to take place. I don't know whether any of Senator Cortez Masto's Tribes within Nevada took cases and initiated things, but I think that across Indian Country, it is fair to say that there was very, very extensive effort. I think there have been a number of arrests--143, I think; 74 convictions--and things have really been moving along.
Has that been your experience in terms of watching what has happened both at the State level and the Federal level since 2013? Have we been making some progress here?
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, to my colleague from New Mexico, absolutely. Let me just say I was attorney general in 2013 when you reauthorized VAWA and you included the Tribal provisions in there. There are about 27 Tribal reservations and communities in the State of Nevada, and I can guarantee you they were beneficiaries of what you did to prevent and address violence in Tribal communities through VAWA.
I know that because I actually chaired the Domestic Violence Prevention Council in the State of Nevada. On my council--which, as the attorney general, came through my office--there were Tribal members. I also know that the VAWA funding that comes into the State of Nevada came through my office as the attorney general. So we made sure that all of our communities that were impacted by domestic violence in particular--any type of violence--had the benefit of this money that was coming in.
I can guarantee you, working with my Tribal communities as attorney general, it was a benefit. That is why I am fighting now for that reauthorization and that funding to continue for our Tribal communities. There is no doubt in my mind that I saw the benefits in Nevada, and we can see that now across the country. I am really kind of baffled why it is not in this provision here. This really should be a bipartisan issue that we all focus on.
So that is my fight. I have seen the benefits, and I know the impact it has on our Tribal communities.
Let me just say this: We need to address any type of violence in our Tribal communities. And I thank you for highlighting this because it is not just the domestic violence; it is the issue of missing and murdered Native women and girls. My concern there is, we do not have enough data that tells us what is going on. The data we do report at the Federal level is underreported. I know the last data that we had was in 2016. That showed about 5,700 missing Native girls and women. That is underreported. But what we don't know is why they have gone missing.
I have worked very hard to address sex trafficking prevention in the State of Nevada. This is happening across the country. There is no doubt in my mind that some of these Native women and girls are victims of sex trafficking, but we do not know it because of the challenges in capturing that data and then doing something about it at the Federal level. That is what I am fighting for. That is what my colleague from New Mexico is fighting for.
I so appreciate the opportunity to talk about this on the floor today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I, too, want to thank the Senator from New Mexico for organizing today's effort on this very important issue.
I rise today to join my colleagues in really shining a spotlight on a crisis that has brought terror and pain to Tribal communities across my home State of Washington and the Nation for far too long. It is an alarm that has been sounding, actually, for generations and one that has impacted literally countless families, robbing them of their mothers and grandmothers, their sisters, their aunts, their daughters.
``Family of missing Native woman demands answers in Wapato.''
In Yakima County:
A year after her body was found, officials are now officially calling the death of this young woman a homicide.
A year after.
In Toppenish:
16-year-old . . . disappeared after Christmas Eve in 1971. Her sister refuses to give up the search.
Those are just a few of the headlines that have appeared in news outlets in Washington State within just the last few months highlighting the scope of the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in our communities.
For far too long, our Nation has ignored or misclassified the terrible stories of violence against women and girls in Tribal communities, who have been reported missing or murdered at much higher rates than their non-Native counterparts or, worse, not reported at all.
It is a crisis that is particularly salient in Washington State, which ranks second among States with the highest number of reported cases of missing and murdered Native women. Even worse, Seattle ranks No. 1 among cities with the highest number of cases. But it isn't just Seattle; it is the Yakama Nation, Spokane, Tacoma. The epidemic of missing and murdered Native women isn't an urban problem or a rural problem. It is not an issue just for western Washington or eastern Washington. This is an alarming trend that is devastating communities every day throughout Washington State and across the country, one for which Native women and girls are paying the ultimate price.
Now, thanks to the determination of Native women who have spent years raising their voices to bring attention to this tragic pattern of injustice, we are beginning to develop the tools and resources we need to combat this epidemic.
I am very grateful for Native leaders and organizations like the Seattle Indian Health Board, which last November released a landmark new report--the first of its kind--on the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women, collecting important data and insights. It is a major step toward removing a significant barrier that has burdened efforts to end the decades-long epidemic, but there is so much more we need to do to keep Native women and girls safe and seek justice.
As important as it is to bring awareness to this devastating crisis, more than awareness, we need action. Congress has to wake up to the crisis affecting Native women and recognize the Federal Government's responsibility and role in ending it, and that includes improving and reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act--a critical law which for years has worked to help communities decrease assaults against women and girls and which Republicans let lapse earlier this year.
This law has long garnered bipartisan support. In fact, we were able to come together just 6 years ago to pass an even stronger version of the law that strengthened protections and resources for our Tribal communities. I know there are champions for this issue on both sides of the aisle, Members who have listened to Native voices in their own States and understand why we have to equip Tribal communities with the tools and resources they need to protect Tribal members and hold others accountable when they cause harm or bring violence. There is no excuse to not get this done. We have done it before; we can do it again.
Now that VAWA has passed the House, know that I am going to keep working with my colleagues to push the Senate to get it over the finish line. In the meantime, I and others will continue lifting up the stories of Native women and girls, as well as Tribal leaders and members.
As a partner to Washington State's Tribal communities here in the Senate, I am going to keep fighting to strengthen Federal support for Tribal priorities and listening to Native voices as well, as we all work together to end the tragedy of this senseless epidemic.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to take action to address the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in this country. It is a crisis that we need to address now, and we can do this in the Senate by updating the Violence Against Women Act, which expired earlier this year.
I would like to thank my colleagues who have been able to join with us today to speak on this important topic led by Senator Udall, and it is wonderful to be here today with Senator Murray as well.
Last month, I had an opportunity to lead a roundtable at the Minnesota State Capitol to discuss the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women. This is a crisis that affects Tribal nations all over my State, as well as urban indigenous communities. I was there with Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who is the highest ranking Native woman elected in an executive branch role here in the United States. It was wonderful to be there with her and all of the advocates who were present as well.
At the roundtable, I heard about survivors who have experienced trafficking and sexual violence who feel invisible. I heard from Native advocates and families of victims who feel they are not being listened to by local law enforcement, and they also understand that there is a lack of knowledge about cultural and traditional practices that is impeding the efforts to end this crisis and to get help and healing to Native women who have been victimized.
In Minnesota, I hear time and again from leaders of Tribal nations--
from Red Lake and White Earth to Bois Forte, Mille Lacs, and Prairie Island--who speak of violent crimes on their land, including the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women. I hear from some of these leaders about how they are unable to take action against the nonmember offenders who are committing these crimes.
According to the National Institute of Justice, 84 percent of Native women have experienced violence in their lifetimes--84 percent--and over half of Native women and more than one in four men have experienced sexual violence. Among those, almost all--96 percent of women and 89 percent of men--were victimized by a non-Tribal member. Few of these survivors end up seeing justice because what is happening is that the Federal Government is failing to address the scourge of violence against Native communities.
Raising awareness of this crisis is important, and that is what we are working to do today, but there are several bipartisan measures in the Senate that would take significant steps to address it. We must take action, and I am here today to talk about some of the things we can do.
In April, the House passed a Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill with many strong Tribal protections to address the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women, including my bill, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, to help Tribes seek and get justice for their members and for survivors.
Our bill, which is called the Justice for Native Survivors of Sexual Violence Act, expands upon the landmark special domestic violence jurisdiction granted to Tribes during the last rewrite of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013.
Our bill would allow Tribes to prosecute cases of sexual assault, trafficking, and stalking, among other crimes of sexual violence, against nonmember offenders. Think about what this means today. If you are a nonmember and you commit a crime of sexual violence against a Tribal member, the Tribe, which is often in the best position to follow up on, investigate, and prosecute that crime, is currently unable to do that.
The bill that I am working on with Senator Murkowski would fix that problem in the Violence Against Women Act. Without this jurisdiction, Tribes are unable to pursue charges against all offenders who commit crimes of sexual violence on Tribal land. Instead, those offenders go largely unpunished, as Federal courts fail to investigate or to prosecute these crimes. Passing our bill would go a long way toward deterring violence against Native women in Indian Country and holding offenders accountable when it happens.
I call on the Senate to take bold action to address the crisis of violence against Native communities by taking up the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and passing this legislation as soon as possible.
Any reauthorization bill must include strong Tribal protections, such as our Justice for Native Survivors bill, so that survivors can begin to heal and we can prevent violence from happening in the first place. Survivors and families of victims deserve this at the very least.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, thank you for the recognition. I just want to say to my colleague from Minnesota that we very much appreciate her efforts on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. She has been a great member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. On all of these issues that are so pressing, whether it is violence or the lack of education or budgets that aren't adequate to support so many activities out in Indian Country, she has just been a terrific advocate. I know that she has followed this issue very closely in the years she has worked in government.
One of the things that is really clear is we have given the Tribes an opportunity--and I know Senator Smith knows this very well--to undertake law enforcement in their communities as a result of VAWA 2013. Now is our chance to improve upon that, to lower the level of violence in Native American communities.
I yield to the Senator to talk about what she has seen as a State-
elected official--again, just as a citizen in Minnesota--to make sure that laws that have been passed are working well and working better, and there is a lot more we need to do.
I yield to Senator Smith from Minnesota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, first, I just want to say, as Senator Udall knows, I was born in New Mexico, so I have a strong affinity for his wonderful State, my home State--my original home State--and I learned so much about the amazing cultural assets of indigenous people and Native American people in the Southwest.
When I moved to Minnesota and I had an opportunity to get to know Minnesota's 11 sovereign Tribal Nations, that was sort of my foundation for that work. When I became aware of how Native women, who were so often the victims of sexual violence, are literally invisible in the criminal justice system, I was just really horrified.
First, notice this: As Senator Udall and I were talking about this issue with many others in the Indian Affairs Committee, I became aware that there are thousands and thousands of women who have been reported missing, yet the Justice Department has on their big list only about 100 of them. Literally, these women are invisible.
In the roundtable that I had with Lieutenant Governor Flanagan last week and in other conversations I have had, I have heard personal stories so many times of women, like Savanna Greywind, who are murdered in terrible and violent ways and don't end up ever--their family never has the opportunity to feel the sense of justice and healing that you have from knowing that the perpetrator of this terrible violence has been brought to justice.
I am just going to--I would like to tell one story about a woman whom I spoke with in Saint Paul whose daughter was murdered in January of 2018. To this day, she still awaits the release of her daughter's body because of mixups and snafus in the system. Imagine what that would be like. This is just one example of how Native women in the criminal justice system don't get the dignity and the respect they deserve.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, one of the issues that has been highlighted by the two very capable Senators who are here on the floor, Senator Cortez Masto and Senator Smith, is that all of us--and I know that the Presiding Officer from the State of Utah also has many Tribes. All of us need to work in a very conscientious and deliberative way to try to make sure that we are able to do everything we can to bring forward the effort of the Federal Government to lower the violence level in Native American communities. The thing I saw over and over again in the State of New Mexico as I dealt with Tribes and then at the national level--I worked in the U.S. Attorney's Office for several years as an assistant U.S. attorney. I saw over and over again that we were unable to prosecute some cases, but we were well aware that the Tribes, if they were given the authority, would be able to move forward because they were closer to the circumstances and would be able to do the job. That is why it is so important that 16 former U.S. attorneys who have jurisdiction across the United States--full jurisdictions of an area--
have stepped forward and said that they really feel that these pieces of legislation that Senator Cortez Masto, Senator Smith, Senator Klobuchar, and many others are sponsoring and that the House has actually sent over to us are ready to go.
I see my good friend Senator Tester is here. The vote is going to take place in a few minutes, so I am going to yield the floor so that Senator Tester can speak on these very important issues. He is a great member of the Committee, and I always enjoy hearing from him because he is always right on point.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I think that might have been a hint to make it quick. Is that right, Senator Udall?
Mr. UDALL. Take your time.
Mr. TESTER. All right, I will. Look, this is an issue that is critically important to this country. I think when people hear about it, they are astounded because this is a crisis we don't hear much about.
According to the National Institute of Justice--listen to these statistics--more than 80 percent of Native women have experienced violence, almost half within the last year. On many reservations, Native American women face murder rates up to 10 times the national average. The majority of this violence is either sexual or domestic in nature, and too much of it goes unreported and unprosecuted. That is why I have taken a three-pronged approach to address this crisis.
No. 1, we need to raise awareness; No. 2, we need to empower the Tribes around this country; and No. 3, this body needs to implement some solutions that will help those Tribes address this issue. But first we must acknowledge that there is an epidemic, an epidemic that--
if we acknowledge it--we can fix.
We have made some progress on this front in the last few years. Since 2016, we have introduced resolutions declaring May 5 the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls. We introduced this resolution in honor of Hanna Harris, a Northern Cheyenne Tribal member who was murdered in July of 2013, and thousands of other voices that have been silenced. We introduced this resolution to underscore the urgency of addressing domestic violence and sexual assault in Indian Country. We introduced this resolution to amplify the voice of the people who are on the vanguard, fighting for change--folks like Briana Lamb, a Missoula-based activist, who was my guest at this year's State of the Union Address, or Kim Loring, who testified in front of the Indian Affairs Committee back in December about the disappearance of her sister, Ashley Loring Heavy Runner, from Browning, MT.
Increasing awareness isn't where we end. We need to act, and we need to find and implement solutions. That is why, after leading a Senate hearing on the MMIW crisis in December, I drafted and introduced the Studying the Missing and Murdered Indian Crisis Act. This bill directs the GAO to conduct a full review of how Federal Agencies respond to reports of missing and murdered Native Americans and recommend solutions based on their findings.
The House has already passed this bill, along with the rest of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, more than a month ago. The Senate has yet to take up this package. So instead of waiting around for Senator McConnell to do his job and bring this bill up for a vote, I reached out to the GAO directly yesterday. A group of 10 Democrats and 7 Republicans wrote to the GAO, asking them to conduct this study, and the GAO agreed. But we can't keep waiting around for the Senate to actually do its job and legislate. We need to act, and we need to pass the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act so that we can start finding and implementing solutions--solutions to problems like Tribal jurisdiction.
Before 2013, the jurisdictional maze surrounding these crimes made it nearly impossible for Native authorities to prosecute non-Native criminals, despite the fact that almost 90 percent of the Native survivors had experienced violence at the hands of non-Native offenders. When we reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act back in 2013, we gave Tribal governments the ability to arrest and prosecute non-Native offenders for sexual and domestic crimes. Since March of 2015, 18 Tribes have used this authority to arrest approximately 150 offenders. As of today, more than half of those arrested resulted in convictions, and many are still pending trial. Fort Peck is one of the Tribes on the vanguard, arresting 18 offenders over the last 3 years--
offenders who had gotten away with their abuse for far, far too long.
This year's violence reauthorization act will build upon that 2013 bill and extend Tribal jurisdiction even further, empowering Tribes to combat this crisis head-on. That is why the Senate needs to pass this critical legislation and start taking up dozens of other bills that we have introduced to combat this crisis--bills like Savanna's Act, which will improve information sharing between the Federal, State, and Tribal law enforcement agencies and establish better response protocols for cases of missing people or the Not Invisible Act, a bipartisan bill we recently introduced that would create an advisory committee to improve on how Federal law enforcement responds to cases of missing, murdered, and trafficked persons. Sure, it is nice to hold hearings and to write letters, but nothing can really happen unless we do our job.
Take funding, for example. We worked hard to secure a 5-percent set-
aside for Indian Country in the Crime Victims Fund this year. That is
$168 million that Tribes can now use to prevent violence and support survivors across Indian Country. But this set-aside disappears next year if we don't pass the SURVIVE Act to make this funding permanent.
I hope that everybody in the Senate, including the majority, will finally get behind the Violence Against Women Act and help move these other bills forward also. Together, we can find solutions to this crisis and we can support survivors and we can bring their assailants to justice, but we can't do it if Congress doesn't act.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
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