[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3535-3536]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     HUMAN TRAFFICKING LEGISLATION

  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, today we will again resume consideration 
of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. This is an important 
bill to me. I have been working on it for many years. Without a doubt, 
this legislation is incredibly important.
  Right now in this country there are thousands of human beings--mainly 
young people--living as slaves. Women and children are stolen from 
their homes, stripped of their God-given rights, and robbed of their 
human dignity. These individuals live among us. They live in our 
neighborhoods and in our suburbs, our biggest cities and our smallest 
towns. They live in a world of silence, fear, hopelessness, and 
unspeakable suffering.
  The State Department estimates that up to 17,500 individuals are 
trafficked to the United States every year. The majority of these are 
women and children. Some of them are forced into a life of unpaid 
servitude, many others into sex work. Worldwide, the International 
Labor Organization estimates that 4.5 million people are currently 
enslaved through sex trafficking. These numbers are staggering, but 
they only illustrate the scope of the problem. The suffering of each 
individual victim should not be lost in a sea of statistics. For 
victims of human trafficking, the surreal horror of their lives bears 
testimony to the gravity of the crime.
  A number of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have worked 
tirelessly to update our legal framework for fighting this scourge. I 
wish to commend them for their efforts, especially the senior Senator 
from Texas, the senior Senator from Minnesota, and the chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee. Their efforts represent exactly the sort of work 
that should be the mission of this body: working across the aisle to 
produce workable solutions to the most pressing problems facing our 
Nation.
  The majority leader also merits praise for his decision to take up 
this bill and his unwavering support for it. Far too often, his 
predecessor focused the Senate's time and efforts on taking partisan 
messaging votes and abusing the rules to score political points. By 
prioritizing the consideration of important bipartisan legislation such 
as this--and by restoring this body's traditions of fulsome debate, an 
open amendment process, and regular order through the committee 
system--our new majority is putting the Senate back to work for the 
American people. While the sailing has not always been totally smooth--
it rarely is--the progress we have seen in restoring this institution 
to its proper role as a productive legislative body is both real and 
meaningful.
  Given the progress we have made thus far, the logjam that is 
currently impeding our progress on this important legislation is 
extremely disappointing. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
have claimed that we somehow supposedly snuck a controversial abortion 
provision into an otherwise uncontroversial bill.
  This claim is unequivocally ridiculous. First, the language in 
question was by no means snuck into the bill. It was in the bill when 
it was introduced at the beginning of this Congress. It was in the bill 
when those of us on the Judiciary Committee took part in an extensive 
markup of the bill. It was in the bill when it passed unanimously out 
of committee. It was in the bill when we undertook its consideration 
here on the floor. In fact, there were Democratic cosponsors of this 
bill.
  Moreover, not only was this language in the bill from the beginning, 
but it has also been the law of the land for nearly four decades. 
Democrats in this body have supported countless other bills with 
similar language, including even ObamaCare.
  Abortion is obviously a divisive and sensitive issue. While I am 
strongly pro-life, I recognize that many of my friends passionately 
disagree with me on this issue. As Members of this institution, it is 
incumbent upon us to respect the sincere beliefs of our colleagues with 
whom we disagree and to work toward responsible governing arrangements.
  The Hyde amendment represents such a sensible and appropriate 
arrangement. It is predicated on the commonsense notion that while we 
may vigorously disagree on whether life should be protected before 
birth, we can broadly agree that taxpayer money should not be used--
should not be used--to fund a procedure that many Americans--in fact a 
majority, according to a number of polls--consider to be murder.
  The responsible way for each of us to approach this bill, regardless 
of our view on abortion, is to embrace this long-standing, commonsense 
compromise on abortion funding and focus on passing the underlying 
measure--a bill that is so critical to our efforts to fight human 
trafficking and help alleviate the suffering of victims.
  To hold up the passage of this bill to pick a fight over the Hyde 
amendment represents an unambiguous dereliction of Senators' individual 
duties to responsibly legislate.
  Unfortunately, that is exactly what my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle have done. They are now threatening a filibuster unless we 
agree to

[[Page 3536]]

their extreme pro-abortion position on this issue. There ought to be 
six of them who will stand up and vote with us and get this bill 
passed.
  In response, the majority leader offered an eminently reasonable 
compromise--an up-or-down vote on an amendment to strip out the 
language to which they are suddenly objecting. But the minority leader 
objected, demanding a guarantee that the provision be removed. By doing 
so, the minority leader is once again resorting to outrageous ``my way 
or the highway'' tactics that are the antithesis of how the Senate 
should work. It is a move out of the same playbook that he used to give 
us a calendar full of messaging votes last year meant to produce 
political theater rather than meaningful legislation.
  This ploy plainly demonstrates the desire of the minority leadership 
to muck up the majority's efforts to exercise reliable leadership, no 
matter the cost to the victims of human trafficking. By resorting to 
this sort of obstruction, they have demonstrated how desperately they 
want to derail our efforts to legislate responsibly and instead resort 
to their tired and discredited war-on-women rhetoric to win cheap 
political points.
  Let me repeat a point I have repeatedly made about this impasse--
words that the minority leader has tried to manipulate to support his 
shameful gambit. For all of my colleagues who are tempted by this 
irresponsible strategy: It would be pathetic to hold up this bill. This 
bill is absolutely critical to our families and our children.
  I cannot believe the Senate has become so political that my 
colleagues would raise this issue--this tangential, long-settled issue 
at this time--after the same transparently clear language passed 
unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee.
  For my colleagues to hold up this bill in an effort to impose their 
extreme policy, to overturn the law of the land that has long enjoyed 
bipartisan support, to pick a false fight over abortion, or to try to 
embarrass the majority is itself embarrassing.
  I urge my colleagues in the minority in the strongest possible terms 
to reconsider their position and allow the Senate, once again, to do 
the people's business.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COATS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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