[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 26 (Wednesday, February 12, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S939-S943]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN REAUTHORIZATION ACT ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, 1 year ago today, the Senate came together 
in the best tradition of the Chamber to pass the Leahy-Crapo Violence 
Against Women Reauthorization Act, including the Trafficking Victims 
Protection Reauthorization Act, with a strong bipartisan vote. It 
marked the culmination of years of collaboration with survivors and the 
victim services professionals who work with them every day. It also 
marked an historic step to protect all victims, regardless of their 
immigration status, their sexual orientation or their membership in an 
Indian tribe. As I have said countless times on the floor of this 
Chamber, ``a victim is a victim is a victim,'' and the bill the Senate 
passed 1 year ago today was a reflection of that truth.
  In passing this historic VAWA reauthorization, the Senate showed that 
we still can act in a bipartisan way and put crime victims above 
politics. Senators Crapo and Murkowski were steadfast partners in that 
effort and listened to the call from thousands of survivors of violence 
and law enforcement by supporting a fully-inclusive, lifesaving bill.
  In the year since its passage, the important changes we made to the 
Violence Against Women Act have made lives better. The new 
nondiscrimination provisions included in the law are ensuring that all 
victims, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, 
have access to lifesaving programs and cannot be turned away. I was 
discouraged by the opposition of some to these inclusive provisions 
last year, especially when the research so clearly underscored the need 
to update the law to protect the most vulnerable populations. I am 
proud, however, that after all was said and done, we stayed true to our 
core value of equal protection and these provisions were enacted.
  We also made vital improvements to the law to address the epidemic of 
violence against Native women. Three out of five Native women have been 
assaulted by their spouses or intimate partners. On some reservations, 
Native American women are murdered at a rate more than 10 times the 
national average. Think about those statistics for a minute. They are 
chilling. Native women are being brutalized and killed at rates that 
shock the conscience. We simply could not continue to ignore

[[Page S941]]

this ongoing and devastating violence, and I am proud that as a country 
we said ``enough.''
  A key provision in the Leahy-Crapo bill, now law, recognizes tribes' 
special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction to prosecute non-Indian 
offenders who commit acts of domestic violence against an Indian on 
tribal land. This provision also faced strong opposition by some but we 
held firm in the belief that a tribal government should be able to hold 
accountable those who commit these heinous crimes against its people on 
its land. I was so proud when voices from around the country--Indian 
and non-Indian--joined our message that this was a VAWA to protect all 
victims and refused to give in. With their unified support, we beat 
back efforts to strip out this critical provision. That is why I was 
particularly pleased to see the launch of the new pilot project last 
week in which three tribes--the Umatilla, the Pascua Yaqui, and the 
Tulalip--will begin to exercise this authority we fought so hard to 
protect. I ask unanimous consent that a recent Washington Post article 
highlighting this project be printed in the Record.
  Other key provisions of the new law include funding to help law 
enforcement and victim service providers reduce domestic violence 
homicides, including in my home State of Vermont. It is leading to more 
investigation and prosecution of rape and sexual assault crimes and a 
greater focus on these issues on college campuses. It is also helping 
eliminate backlogs of untested rape kits to help those victims receive 
justice and security promptly.
  Unfortunately, one provision that was not included in the final VAWA 
bill was a modest increase in the number of U visas available to 
immigrant victims of domestic violence and other crimes. These visas 
are an important law enforcement tool that encourages immigrant victims 
to report crime, making us all safer. I reluctantly agreed to remove 
this provision and instead ensured its inclusion in the comprehensive 
immigration reform bill the Senate passed last year. As the House 
considers ways to move on that important issue, I urge them to include 
an increase in U visas so that all victims of domestic violence will be 
protected.
  The Violence Against Women Act is an example of how the Federal 
Government, in cooperation with State and local communities, can help 
solve problems. By providing new tools and resources to communities all 
around the country, we have helped bring the crimes of rape and 
domestic violence out of the shadows. There is much we can learn from 
that effort as we consider legislation that should similarly rise above 
politics.
  After the Senate passed the bill last year, I mentioned a tragic 
incident that had just occurred. A man shot and killed two women 
waiting to pass through metal detectors at a courthouse, where he was 
stalking another victim. Two male police officers also were struck by 
bullets but were saved by their bulletproof vests. At that time, I 
urged this body to reauthorize the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant 
Program so that more of our law enforcement officials can be protected. 
Sadly, a year later, that effort remains incomplete.
  Before I came to the Senate, I spent years in local law enforcement 
and have great respect for the men and women who protect us every day. 
When I hear Senators say that we should not provide Federal assistance, 
we should not help officers get the protection they need with 
bulletproof vests, or that we should not help the families of fallen 
public safety officers, I strongly disagree.
  In our Federal system, we can help and when we can, we should help. 
That is what programs like the Violence Against Women Act are all 
about. Despite our different political perspectives, most of us came to 
the Senate with the goal of helping people. We must be able to find 
common ground to do that. I hope that this body can again come together 
to protect the American people and support law enforcement like we did 
1 year ago today when we passed the Leahy-Crapo Violence Against Women 
Reauthorization Act and the Trafficking Victims Protection 
Reauthorization Act.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2014]

       New law offers protection to abused Native American women

                           (By Sari Horwitz)

       White Earth Nation, Minn.--Linda Davidson. Lisa Brunner 
     remembers the first time she saw her stepfather beat her 
     mother. She was 4 years old, cowering under the table here on 
     the Ojibwe reservation, when her stepfather grabbed his 
     shotgun from the rack. She heard her mother scream, ``No, 
     David! No!''
       ``He starts beating my mother over the head and I could 
     hear the sickening thud of the butt of the shotgun over her 
     head,'' Brunner said. ``Then he put the gun back on the rack 
     and called her a bitch. He slammed the bedroom door and sat 
     down on the squeaky bed. And then I heard the thud-thud of 
     his cowboy boots as he laid down, squeaking again, and he 
     went to sleep.''
       There were many more beatings over the years, Brunner said. 
     Twenty years later, she said, she was brutally assaulted by 
     her own husband on this same Indian reservation, an enormous 
     swath of Minnesota prairie that has seen its share of sorrow 
     for generations.
       An estimated one in three Native American women are 
     assaulted or raped in their lifetimes, and three out of five 
     experience domestic violence. But in the cases of Brunner and 
     her mother, the assailants were white, not Native American, 
     and that would turn out to make all the difference.
       Lisa Brunner of the Ojibwe tribe in Minnesota speaks on the 
     cycle of sexual violence Native American women, including 
     herself, have faced.
       For decades, when a Native American woman has been 
     assaulted or raped by a man who is non-Indian, she has had 
     little or no recourse. Under long-standing law in Indian 
     country, reservations are sovereign nations with their own 
     police departments and courts in charge of prosecuting crimes 
     on tribal land. But Indian police have lacked the legal 
     authority to arrest non-Indian men who commit acts of 
     domestic violence against native women on reservations, and 
     tribal courts have lacked the authority to prosecute the men.
       President Obama, joined by Vice President Biden, members of 
     women's organizations, law enforcement officials, tribal 
     leaders, survivors, advocates and members of Congress, signs 
     the Violence Against Women Act in March.
       Last year, Congress approved a law--promoted by the Obama 
     administration--that for the first time will allow Indian 
     tribes to prosecute certain crimes of domestic violence 
     committed by non-Indians in Indian country. The Justice 
     Department on Thursday announced it had chosen three tribes 
     for a pilot project to assert the new authority.
       While the law has been praised by tribal leaders, native 
     women and the administration as a significant first step, it 
     still falls short of protecting all Indian women from the 
     epidemic of violence they face on tribal lands.
       The new authority, which will not go into effect for most 
     of the country's 566 federally recognized Indian tribes until 
     March 2015, covers domestic violence committed by non-Indian 
     husbands and boyfriends, but it does not cover sexual assault 
     or rape committed by non-Indians who are ``strangers'' to 
     their victims. It also does not extend to native women in 
     Alaska.
       Proponents of the law acknowledge that it was drawn 
     narrowly to win support in Congress, particularly from 
     Republican lawmakers who argued that non-native suspects 
     would not receive a fair trial in the tribal justice system.
       For their part, native women say they have long been ill-
     served by state and federal law. U.S. attorneys, who already 
     have large caseloads, are often hundreds of miles away from 
     rural reservations. It can take hours or days for them to 
     respond to allegations, if they respond at all, tribal 
     leaders say. Native women also have to navigate a complex 
     maze of legal jurisdictions.
       ``There are tribal communities where state police have no 
     jurisdiction and federal law enforcement has jurisdiction but 
     is distant and often unable to respond,'' said Thomas J. 
     Perrelli, a former associate attorney general who was one of 
     the administration's chief proponents of the amendment. 
     ``There are tribal communities where the federal government 
     has no jurisdiction but state law enforcement, which has 
     jurisdiction, does not intervene. And there are still other 
     tribal lands where there is a dispute about who, if anyone, 
     has jurisdiction. All of this has led to an inadequate 
     response to the plight of many Native American women.''
       More than 75 percent of residents on Indian reservations in 
     the United States are non-Indians. In at least 86 percent of 
     the reported cases of rape or sexual assault of American 
     Indian and Alaska native women, both on and off reservations, 
     the victims say their attackers were non-native men, 
     according to the Justice Department.


                             `Not enrolled'

       The loophole in the American Indian justice system that 
     effectively provides immunity to non-Indians is the story of 
     a patchwork of laws, treaties and Supreme Court decisions 
     over generations.
       At the root of the confusion about Indian jurisdiction is 
     the historical tension over Indian land. As American settlers 
     pushed Native Americans off their tribal lands and then 
     renegotiated treaties to guarantee tribes a homeland, large 
     areas of the reservations were opened for white families to 
     homestead.

[[Page S942]]

       That migration led to the modern-day reservation, where 
     Indians and non-Indians often live side by side, one farm or 
     ranch home belonging to a white family, the next one 
     belonging to an Indian family. It is a recipe for conflict 
     over who is in charge and who has legal jurisdiction over 
     certain crimes.
       ``The public safety issues in Indian country are so 
     complicated,'' said Deputy Associate Attorney General Sam 
     Hirsch, one of the Justice Department officials who focus on 
     tribal justice issues. ``No one would have ever designed a 
     system from scratch to look like the system that has come 
     down to us through the generations.''
       Over the past 200 years, there have been dramatic swings in 
     Indian-country jurisdiction and the extent of tribal powers.
       In 1978, in a case widely known in Indian country as 
     ``Oliphant,'' the Supreme Court held that Indian tribes had 
     no legal jurisdiction to prosecute non-Indians who committed 
     crimes on reservations. Even a violent crime committed by a 
     non-Indian husband against his Indian wife in their home on 
     the reservation--as Brunner said happened to her on the White 
     Earth Nation reservation--could not be prosecuted by the 
     tribe.
       The court said it was up to Congress to decide who had that 
     authority.
       ``We are not unaware of the prevalence of non-Indian crime 
     on today's reservations, which the tribes forcefully argue 
     requires the ability to try non-Indians,'' the court said. 
     ``But these are considerations for Congress to weigh in 
     deciding whether Indian tribes should finally be authorized 
     to try non-Indians.''
       Congress took no action for 35 years.
       As a result, native women who were assaulted were often 
     told there was nothing tribal police could do for them. If 
     the perpetrator was white and--in the lingo of the tribes--
     ``not enrolled'' in the tribal nation, there would be no 
     recourse.
       ``Over the years, what happened is that white men, non-
     native men, would go onto a Native American reservation and 
     go hunting--rape, abuse and even murder a native woman, and 
     there's absolutely nothing anyone could do to them,'' said 
     Kimberly Norris Guerrero, an actress, tribal advocate and 
     native Oklahoman who is Cherokee and Colville Indian. ``They 
     got off scot-free.''
       In 2009, shortly after taking office, Attorney General Eric 
     H. Holder Jr. was briefed by two FBI agents on the issue of 
     violence on Indian reservations.
       They told him about the soaring rates of assault and rape 
     and the fact that on some reservations, the murder rate for 
     native women is 10 times the national average.
       ``The way they phrased it was, if you are a young girl born 
     on an Indian reservation, there's a 1-in-3 chance or higher 
     that you're going to be abused during the course of your 
     life,'' Holder said in an interview. ``I actually did not 
     think the statistics were accurate. I remember asking, `check 
     on those numbers.' ''
       Officials came back to Holder and told him the statistics 
     were right: Native women experience the highest rates of 
     assault of any group in the United States.
       ``The numbers are just staggering,'' Holder said. ``It's 
     deplorable. And it was at that point I said, this is an issue 
     that we have to deal with. I am simply not going to accept 
     the fact it is acceptable for women to be abused at the rates 
     they are being abused on native lands.''


                             Measuring tape

       Diane Millich, left, joins Attorney General Eric H. Holder 
     Jr. and Deborah Parker, vice chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes 
     of Washington state, at the bill-signing ceremony in March.
       Diane Millich grew up on the Southern Ute Indian 
     reservation, nestled in the mountain meadows of southwestern 
     Colorado. When she was 26, she fell in love and married a 
     non-Indian man who lived in a town just beyond the 
     reservation.
       Not long after they were married, Millich's husband moved 
     in with her and began to push and slap her, she said. The 
     violence escalated, and the abuse, she said, became routine. 
     She called the tribal police and La Plata County authorities 
     many times but was told they had no jurisdiction in the case.
       One time after her husband beat her, Millich said, he 
     picked up the phone and called the sheriff to report the 
     incident himself to show that he couldn't be arrested, she 
     said. He knew, she said, there was nothing the sheriff could 
     do.
       ``After a year of abuse and more than 100 incidents of 
     being slapped, kicked, punched and living in terror, I left 
     for good,'' Millich said.
       The brutality, she said, increased after she filed for a 
     divorce.
       ``Typically, when you look backwards at crimes of domestic 
     violence, if less serious violence is not dealt with by the 
     law enforcement system, it leads to more serious violence, 
     which eventually can lead to homicide,'' said Hirsch, the 
     deputy associate attorney general.
       One day when Millich was at work, she saw her ex-husband 
     pull up in a red truck. He was carrying a 9mm gun.
       ``My ex-husband walked inside our office and told me, `You 
     promised until death do us part, so death it shall be,' '' 
     Millich recalled. A co-worker saved Millich's life by pushing 
     her out of the way and taking a bullet in his shoulder.
       It took hours to decide who had jurisdiction over the 
     shooting.
       Investigators at the scene had to use a measuring tape to 
     determine where the gun was fired and where Millich's 
     colleague had been struck, and a map to figure out whether 
     the state, federal government or tribe had jurisdiction.
       The case ended up going to the closest district attorney. 
     Because Millich's husband had never been arrested or charged 
     for domestic abuse on tribal land, he was treated as a first-
     time offender, Millich said, and after trying to flee across 
     state lines was offered a plea of aggravated driving under 
     revocation.
       ``It was like his attempt to shoot me and the shooting of 
     my co-worker did not happen,'' Millich said. ``The tribe 
     wanted to help me, but couldn't because of the law. In the 
     end, he was right. The law couldn't touch him.''


                              Section 904

       Last year, Millich and other American Indian women came to 
     Washington to tell their stories to congressional leaders. 
     They joined tribal leaders in lobbying for the passage of the 
     288-page reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, 
     which included language proposed by the Justice Department 
     that for the first time would allow tribal courts to 
     prosecute non-Indians who assaulted native women on tribal 
     lands. It would also allow the courts to issue and enforce 
     protective orders, whether the perpetrator is Indian or non-
     Indian.
       Opponents of the provision, known as Section 904, argued 
     that non-native defendants would not be afforded a fair trial 
     by American Indian tribes. In the case of Alaska, the Senate 
     excluded Native Alaskan women because of especially 
     complicated issues involving jurisdiction.
       At a town hall meeting, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) 
     said that ``under the laws of our land, you've got to have a 
     jury that is a reflection of society as a whole.''
       ``On an Indian reservation, it's going to be made up of 
     Indians, right?'' Grassley said. ``So the non-Indian doesn't 
     get a fair trial.''
       Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), another opponent, said the 
     Violence Against Women Act was ``being held hostage by a 
     single provision that would take away fundamental 
     constitutional rights for certain American citizens.''
       The bill passed the Senate last February but was held up by 
     House Republicans over Section 904. They argued that tribal 
     courts were not equipped to take on the new responsibilities 
     and non-Indian constituents would be deprived of their 
     constitutional rights without being able to appeal to federal 
     courts.
       ``When we talk about the constitutional rights, don't women 
     on tribal lands deserve their constitutional right of equal 
     protection and not to be raped and battered and beaten and 
     dragged back onto native lands because they know they can be 
     raped with impunity?'' Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) argued on the 
     floor.
       Underlying the opposition, some congressmen said, was a 
     fear of retribution by the tribes for the long history of 
     mistreatment by white Americans.
       With the support of Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a member of 
     the Chickasaw Nation, the House accepted the bill containing 
     Section 904 on a vote of 229 to 196. On March 7, President 
     Obama signed the bill with Millich, Holder and Native 
     American advocates at his side.
       The Justice Department has chosen three Indian tribes-- the 
     Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, the Tulalip Tribes of 
     Washington state and the Umatilla tribes of Oregon-- to be 
     the first in the nation to exercise their new criminal 
     jurisdiction over certain crimes of domestic and dating 
     violence.
       ``What we have done, I think, has been game-changing,'' 
     Holder said. ``But there are still attitudes that have to be 
     changed. There are still resources that have to be directed 
     at the problem. There's training that still needs to go on. 
     We're really only at the beginning stages of reversing what 
     is a horrible situation.''
       Lisa Brunner and her daughter, Faith Roy, fold clothes at 
     home on the White Earth Indian reservation in Minnesota.


                         Sliver of a Full Moon

       Last summer, several Native American survivors of domestic 
     violence from around the country put on a play, ``Sliver of a 
     Full Moon,'' in Albuquerque. The play documented the story of 
     the abuse and rape of Native American women by non-Indians 
     and the prolonged campaign to bring them justice.
       Using the technique of traditional Indian storytelling, 
     Mary Kathryn Nagle, a lawyer and member of the Cherokee 
     Nation in Oklahoma, wove together their emotional tales of 
     abuse with the story of their fight to get Washington to pay 
     attention.
       Millich and Brunner played themselves, and actors played 
     the roles of members of Congress, federal employees and 
     tribal police officers who kept answering desperate phone 
     calls from abused native women by saying over and over again, 
     ``We can't do nothin',?'' ``We don't have jurisdiction,'' and 
     ``He's white and he ain't enrolled.''
       Brunner portrayed herself in a play that told the story of 
     the abuse and rape of Native American women by non-Indians 
     and the campaign to bring them justice.
       By that time, Brunner's intergenerational story of violence 
     and abuse had taken a painful turn. Her youngest daughter, 
     17, had been abducted by four white men who drove onto

[[Page S943]]

     the reservation one summer night. One of them raped her, 
     Brunner said.
       It was the real-life version of author Louise Erdrich's 
     acclaimed fictional account of the rape of an Ojibwe woman by 
     a non-Indian in her 2012 book, ``The Round House.'' In both 
     the real and the unrelated fictional case, the new 
     congressional authority would not give the tribe jurisdiction 
     to arrest and prosecute the suspects, because they were not 
     previously known to the victim.
       Last week, inside her home on the frigid White Earth 
     Nation, which was dotted by vast snowy cornfields and 
     hundreds of frozen lakes, Brunner brought out a colorful 
     watercolor she had painted of three native women standing in 
     the woods under a glowing full moon. The painting was the 
     inspiration for the title of Nagle's play, she said, but it's 
     also a metaphor for the new law.
       ``We have always known that non-Indians can come onto our 
     lands and they can beat, rape and murder us and there is 
     nothing we can do about it,'' Brunner said. ``Now, our tribal 
     officers have jurisdiction for the first time to do something 
     about certain crimes.''
       ``But,'' she added, ``it is just the first sliver of the 
     full moon that we need to protect us.''

                          ____________________