[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 181 (Wednesday, November 13, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6543-S6544]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of Steven J. Menashi

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I have come here before to call out 
Senate Republicans and their unwavering support for President Trump's 
efforts to pack our courts with partisan and ideologically driven 
picks, but the nominee I am speaking against today is truly uniquely 
unfit to serve a lifetime appointment--a lifetime appointment--on a 
Federal court: Steven Menashi.
  Mr. Menashi has a deeply disturbing history of disparaging comments 
against women, communities of color, immigrants, and the LGBTQI 
community.
  He unabashedly helped to roll back protections for vulnerable 
communities. He defiantly refused to answer basic questions from U.S. 
Senators, both Democrats and Republicans, about the policies he worked 
on while advising the President. He has time and again put extremism 
and ideology ahead of the rule of law, and he has proven himself 
incapable of serving as a fair and impartial judge.
  As if his record of extremism and partisanship wasn't bad enough, we 
now know that Steven Menashi not only helped but was the key architect 
in Secretary DeVos's efforts to illegally deny relief to student 
borrows who were cheated by predatory for-profit colleges. These 
policies that Mr. Menashi provided ``legal advice'' for were 
subsequently ruled to be in violation of Federal law.
  Secretary DeVos's policy on borrower defense led to her being held in 
contempt of court. Whether Mr. Menashi did not understand Federal law 
or whether he advised the Secretary of Education to blatantly ignore it 
at the expense of students, the fact is that this latest revelation 
undoubtedly and unequivocally disqualifies him from serving a lifetime 
appointment on a Federal court--or, at least, it should.
  Tomorrow, the Senate will take a critical vote. This is a vote on 
whether the Senate once again rubberstamps President Trump's 
unprecedented effort to remake the Federal judiciary on a partisan 
ideological basis. It is a vote that shows whether Republicans are 
willing to support a judicial nominee whose actions--his own actions--
have been found to violate the law as recently as just a few weeks ago.
  I implore my Republican colleagues to consider not just Mr. Menashi's 
record of bigotry and the harm he helped cause to cheated and defrauded 
students, but also his blatant disregard of the rule of law.
  When casting their vote, I ask my colleagues not to worry about what 
the President might say on Twitter, but to worry about the rule of law 
and to worry about the idea yet another partisan nominee getting a 
lifetime on the Federal bench who doesn't. It is that simple.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.


          Survivors' Bill of Rights in the States Act of 2019

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Mr. Grassley from 
Iowa on the floor today to talk about important legislation that we are 
cosponsoring that built upon previous efforts that both of us were 
engaged in to protect survivors of sexual assault in the criminal 
justice system. The efforts to extend rights to sexual assault 
survivors across the country is critically important, and I am hopeful 
that, once our legislation is known to our colleagues, that they will 
join us in passing this important bipartisan bill.
  Amanda Nguyen of the Rise organization initially contacted our office 
in 2015. I know she also worked with Senator Grassley. When she came to 
us and detailed her harrowing story of sexual assault, she was raped, 
and then she felt like she was raped again by a criminal justice system 
that was not responsive to the challenges of survivors of sexual 
assault. Amanda described the system that further traumatized survivors 
and provided scarce protections for their rights.
  Evidence of assault was being destroyed without survivors' consent, 
and survivors were forced to periodically follow up with law 
enforcement to preserve that evidence. The broken process that 
survivors were forced to endure resulted in a system where they were 
often re-victimized. Instead of a process that helped them move forward 
with their lives as they pursued justice, survivors were confronted 
with the trauma of reliving their attack each time they sought to 
preserve evidence or gather information about their case.
  Well, because of Amanda's efforts, the Sexual Assault Survivors' 
Rights Act was created. It was legislation that provided for the first 
legally recognized set of rights for survivors that could be enforced 
in a court of law. Senator Grassley took that legislation, he included 
it in the Adam Walsh Reauthorization Act, and it was signed into law. 
It has provided survivors with greater protections in Federal cases 
because of focus on notice, on access to evidence, and on the 
preservation of sexual assault evidence collection kits.
  By creating this set of court enforceable rights at the Federal 
level, Congress established a model for the States to adopt similar 
legislation to protect the rights of survivors. So far, 21 States, 
including my home State of New Hampshire, have adopted that legislation 
to guarantee survivors certain basic rights in the criminal justice 
system.
  Now, unfortunately, we are trying to figure out how to encourage 
other States to follow the lead of Congress, States that have not yet 
adopted legislation protecting survivors. That is why the bill that 
Senator Grassley and I are here to discuss today is so critically 
important. The Survivors' Bill of Rights in the States Act, the 
legislation we are cosponsoring, would establish a grant program 
accessible to States that have in place a law which guarantees the 
rights contained in the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act.
  The grand amount would be a percentage of the funding that the State 
receives under the Stop Violence Against Women Formula Grant Program. 
States could then use the funds to implement survivor rights, preserve 
sexual assault evidence collection kits, reduce the backlog of kits, 
and provide support for victim services.
  Congress has previously passed legislation using the Stop Formula 
Grants to incentivize States to adopt legislation, and this is the 
perfect example of why that kind of an approach would be successful. No 
survivor should be compelled to bear the indignity of petitioning law 
enforcement merely to ensure that they are given a fair shake in the 
criminal justice process. It is my hope that this legislation will lead 
to an increase in States passing bills to protect survivors' rights.
  I think it is important that Congress again show survivors that we 
are behind them, that we will stand up with them for their rights. The 
Survivors' Bill of Rights in the States Act would do just that.
  I am so pleased to be joining Senator Grassley in this effort. I 
think, with this bipartisan support, we can get support from all of our 
colleagues to enact this follow-on legislation into law and provide the 
additional support that survivors need.

[[Page S6544]]

  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield to my colleague, Senator Grassley.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, first of all, it is a pleasure to work 
with Senator Shaheen on this bill. I am very happy to work together. We 
have the same goals in mind. For the cynical people outside of 
Washington, DC, that say there is never any Republican or Democratic 
cooperation, there is kind of a rule around here that Senator Shaheen 
and I are examples of, but it applies to all 100 Senators.
  If you really want to get something done, you have to seek 
bipartisanship in this body. I can quantify that in this way. There are 
53 Republicans. There are 47 Democrats. But if there were 53 Democrats 
and 47 Republicans, the same rule would apply.
  About 99 percent of the legislation that gets done around here has to 
have 60 votes to stop debate before you can even vote on the bill. So 
obviously, even if all 53 Republicans were voting together--and that 
doesn't happen very often--you still wouldn't get the 60 votes to pass 
a piece of legislation. So that is why almost every major piece of 
legislation that gets through here--and this example of Shaheen-
Grassley is just another example--it is because you seek 
bipartisanship, and it is just nice that it has to be that way.
  So addressing this issue, I can say I associate myself with the 
remarks of Senator Shaheen and sit down, but there is kind of a rule 
around the Senate. Everything that has been said on this bill has been 
said, but I haven't said it yet, and I am going to say it.
  I recently introduced S. 2770, known as the Survivors' Bill of Rights 
in the States Act of 2019, with Senator Shaheen and Senator Tillis. 
This measure is a companion to what Congresswoman Speier developed and 
introduced in the other Chamber. It builds on legislation entitled the 
Survivors' Bill of Rights Act that we adopted in 2016.
  As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the last Congress, I 
worked closely with a young woman, Amanda Nguyen, on the development of 
that 2016 measure prior to its introduction. Amanda, a survivor of 
sexual assault, found and leads the nonprofit organization known as 
Rise, R-I-S-E.
  She also worked with Senator Shaheen on the same legislation, 
introducing the final version in this Chamber. We incorporated that 
2016 package of rights into an amendment that I offered to another 
measure before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In May 2016, that 
legislation passed this Chamber 89 to 0. In October 2016, the House 
version, which was introduced later, was signed by the President.
  The bills that we introduced this month on the 2016 Survivors' Bill 
of Rights, it makes each State eligible to receive a Federal grant to 
implement a similar package of rights for victims of sex crimes at the 
State level. Such rights include, for example, the right to know the 
results of your forensic exam, the right to have evidence preserved for 
a certain period, and the right to notice before your forensic kit is 
destroyed.
  A State also may use its Justice Department grants to preserve sexual 
assault evidence kits, reduce the number of kits awaiting testing, and 
extend additional assistance to crime victims under our legislation. 
Finally, the measure we introduced authorizes 20 million annually for 
each of the fiscal years 2021 through 2024 to support the 
implementation of the new grant program established by this bill. I 
urge my colleagues to join us in cosponsoring the Survivors' Bill of 
Rights in the States Act of 2019.
  I thank Senator Shaheen for joining in this effort and leading this 
bill and, most importantly, to compliment her over a long period of 
time in the Senate--and probably even before she came to the Senate--
her commitment to working with me and with people generally on the 
issue of increased protection for victims of sexual assault.
  Again, I thank Congresswoman Speier and her staff for initiating this 
measure in the House and for working so hard to develop a bicameral, 
bipartisan measure, and I thank Senator Shaheen once again.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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