[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 120 (Thursday, July 13, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H3491-H3492]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              MIKE REYNOLDS LEAVES BEHIND INDELIBLE LEGACY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize and pay a heartfelt 
tribute to Mike Reynolds of Fresno, California, who recently passed 
away. He has left behind an indelible legacy on our State and, indeed, 
for people who love safe streets and feel that it is proper to make 
those criminals pay the price for their activity.
  Mike was a remarkable individual who exemplified resilience and 
dedication in the face of adversity which he and his family faced 
throughout his life.
  He, indeed, was the driving force behind the three strikes law in 
California that many other States since picked up afterwards. This was 
after the tragic murder of his daughter, Kimber, by violent serial 
offenders during a robbery. She is pictured here. No parent should have 
to see the loss of their child, especially time and time and time again 
around our country with repeat offenders. We know better. We know 
better as a society how to treat crime, how to deal with it, yet this 
happens.
  Mike was a champion for passing an initiative in California called 
the three strikes and you are out law to make sure that repeat 
offenders would do proper prison time and not be out on the streets 
subjecting our neighbors, friends, and families to these violent 
criminals, time and time again.

  We hear conversations here about something called gun violence. Well, 
a gun is an inanimate object. It is people that do the violence. It is 
people who have to be held accountable.
  Mike Reynolds was the driving force in California that helped change 
how crime is fought, and it is up to us to uphold his legacy for 
preserving what safety we have on our streets, which we don't have a 
lot of, especially in our urban areas.
  What Mike created as an homage to his daughter, Kimber, and a way to 
make sure that other families wouldn't have to suffer as they had to 
has become a lightning rod for citizen groups. Indeed, over 20 States 
have enacted laws with the same purpose as the original three strikes 
in California that Mike drove.
  I want Mike's family to know that we appreciate him as a good man who 
showed strength of character and turned an unimaginable tragedy into a 
force, indeed, for good.
  We will miss Mike and grieve for him. I have had a chance to meet 
with him, and I enjoyed being able to work with him when I was a State 
legislator to ensure that we didn't lose ground on what we had gained.
  At this time we grieve for him, we grieve for his family. We honor 
his memory and celebrate the, indeed, profound impact he had not only 
on the State of California but on the country.
  Mr. Speaker, we talk about how do we keep our streets safe or how do 
we make them safer than they are. In our blue cities all around the 
country, they have some of the most aggressive anti-gun laws, and yet, 
the crime is the highest in those areas.

[[Page H3492]]

  What do we have instead? The work that has been done through the 
three strikes and you are out, in order to keep violent prisoners in 
prison, pay the price, has been undone by defund the police and by 
watering down sentencing laws. It is absurd.
  We have all the anti-gunners here saying we have gun violence, yet 
they take away the sentence enhancements for ``use a gun, go to jail.'' 
When using a gun in a crime, there used to be special enhancements in 
my home State. They have basically eviscerated those.
  How does that make an ounce of sense, when you are anti-gun on one 
hand, yet you don't want to have the enhancements because you don't 
want people sitting in prison? Indeed, there is more and more 
legislation all the time to figure out how to let prisoners out sooner; 
some very violent offenders, to release them, those on death row who 
have been downgraded because they got rid of some of the death penalty 
requirements for certain people on death row. Governor Newsom in 
California has completely done away with the death penalty during his 
time in office by executive action. It is still on the books; he is 
just not enforcing it.
  How is this going to deter criminals? When you see the crimes that 
are happening right under the noses of clerks in retail stores, jewelry 
stores, and they are told by their corporate officers, don't dare say 
anything, don't even take pictures of them. Someone lost their job 
because they took a picture and video of a crime happening inside their 
store because we have these lily-livers at the CEO level who don't want 
them to help enforce their own goods, therefore, driving the cost of 
everything through the roof because we don't enforce against crime.

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