[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5235-5237]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS OF TRAFFICKING ACT OF 2015

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of S. 178, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 178) to provide justice for the victims of 
     trafficking.

  Pending:

       McConnell (for Cornyn) amendment No. 1120, to strengthen 
     the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act by incorporating 
     additional bipartisan amendments.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.


                            Lynch Nomination

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I realize the devil is always in the 
details. I see the distinguished senior Senator from Texas on the floor 
and I hope we are getting somewhere on trafficking.
  I appreciate the fact that this body, when we were doing the Violence 
Against Women Act, voted for the anti-sex trafficking amendment I 
proposed. And the majority of the Senators at the time voted for the 
final version of the Violence Against Women Act, which included anti-
sex trafficking language, and that bill has been signed into law. We 
should continue on with this bill, which adds to what we did a couple 
of years ago. But I am concerned, as I have said many times, that we 
have held up Loretta Lynch because of this. I cannot see what the 
corollary is.
  My friends on the other side of the aisle told me, when they had to 
wait for 3 or 4 days for a Republican nominee on the floor to get 
confirmed, that it was too long. They would warn us of national 
security concerns. Well, Loretta Lynch has waited on the floor for a 
vote for 54 days. I want to put this in some context. Attorney General 
Holder waited 5 days. Attorney General Mukasey waited 2 days. Attorney 
General Gonzales waited 8 days. Attorney General Ashcroft waited 2 
days. Attorney General Reno waited 1 day. Attorney General Barr waited 
5 days. Attorney General Thornburgh waited 1 day. If we take those 
seven most recent Attorneys General and take all the time that they 
waited on the floor and add it all together, it comes to 24 days. 
Loretta Lynch has waited 54 days on the floor--more than twice as long 
as the seven most recent Attorneys General combined.
  Then we still have the Deputy Attorney General nominee, whose 
background is virtually the same as Loretta Lynch's. Both are highly 
respected prosecutors. Both have prosecuted matters involving the 
issues we are trying to stop here on the floor--terrorists, 
traffickers, and white-collar criminals. Once we are done with Loretta 
Lynch, we have to get her deputy confirmed. I hope both of these highly 
qualified women are confirmed soon. It has already taken too long.
  These delays create a morale problem in the Department of Justice--
one of our first lines against terrorists and organized crime. We have 
some superb men and women who work at the Department of Justice. Some 
came during Republican administrations, and some came during Democratic 
administrations. I have met many of these men and women, from both 
Republican and Democratic administrations, and I am so impressed by 
them and their dedication. Most of them could leave, go to a law firm, 
and make a lot more money, but they are dedicated to this country. It 
is demoralizing to them when we hold the position of Attorney General 
in limbo. We should stop. The Department of Justice is something we 
should, whenever possible, keep politics out of.
  Remember, too, it is not the ``Secretary of Justice,'' like we have 
the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Agriculture and so on--a 
member, as some might suggest, of the President's staff. This is the 
Attorney General of the United States. They represent you. They 
represent me. They represent everybody.
  I have often told a story about when I was a young law student at 
Georgetown. The then-Attorney General invited four or five students 
from different law schools to meet. He reviewed our grades, invited us 
in to actually spend an hour with him and encouraged us to come work 
with the Department of Justice.
  I remember one of the questions I asked that Attorney General. I 
said: If you are Attorney General of the United States and you are 
asked to prosecute somebody who is close to the President, what do you 
do?
  He said: Well, if they should be prosecuted, they would be treated 
the same as anybody else, and we would prosecute them as such.
  I declined the offer to go work at the Department of Justice. I was 
homesick and wanted to get back to Vermont. Both my wife and I wanted 
to get back. I wanted to practice law there, which I did, and I 
actually became a prosecutor. But I often thought of what the Attorney 
General said to me about his role. Subsequently a man in Illinois who 
was critical to the election of the next President ran afoul of the law 
and the same Attorney General signed off on his prosecution. When asked 
by some of his staff, ``Well, are you sure you are OK with this?'' he 
said, ``He

[[Page 5236]]

committed a crime. He should be prosecuted. Even though I probably 
won't go to many family reunions for some time after doing this.'' This 
was, of course, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and the man he 
prosecuted was critical to the election of his brother John Kennedy as 
President. I always admired that he was willing to do that--that he put 
his duties as a prosecutor first ahead of any political duties. I 
believe Loretta Lynch will do the same.
  Sometimes young law students can be very impressionable, but I have 
never forgotten that time sitting there with Attorney General Kennedy. 
I have never forgotten how I had to wrestle with the decision to turn 
down his offer, but it was a family decision and one I have never 
regretted. I went back to Vermont, and things turned out all right. I 
have had the privilege of representing Vermont for over 40 years in 
this body. But that conversation is something I will always remember. 
It is one of the reasons I went on to the Judiciary Committee. It is 
one of the reasons I took, when it was offered to me, the chairmanship 
of the Committee and it is one of the reasons why I am now ranking 
member.
  Incidentally, the men and women who work there, on both sides of the 
aisle, are brilliant lawyers, hard-working people. Kristine Lucius is 
my chief counsel, and I don't know a better lawyer anywhere than she is 
or anybody who works harder than she does.
  We have a lot of issues before the Judiciary Committee. Senator 
Grassley is my friend. We have been friends for over 30 years. I won't 
speak for him, but I suspect he would say we have things to get going 
to. So I hope we are able to get this trafficking matter taken care of 
and get the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General confirmed.
  In the last 2 years of President Bush's second term, Democrats had 
come back into the majority. I wanted to show that we would try to keep 
partisanship out, and as chairman, I had moved 15 of President Bush's 
judges through to confirmation by this time in his second term. We 
moved them far more rapidly than Republicans had toward the end of 
President Clinton's term.
  I am glad we have been able to confirm two judges this Congress. They 
were both judges from Texas whom I supported. I complimented the two 
Senators from Texas because of their work in picking candidates who 
would be judges first and foremost without reference to whatever 
political background they may have. I hope we can now start doing what 
we did with President Bush and confirm more.
  Let's stop making judges political. I am afraid that there could be 
good men and women who will decline the cut in pay and everything else 
to become a Federal judge if they think they are going to have to put 
their life on hold for 6 months or a year to get there--even more so 
for key positions such as Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, 
and others in the Department of Justice. We can fight over political 
issues but this should be outside of that.
  The distinguished senior Senator from Texas was a judge and has a 
prosecutorial background. He and I have worked closely together on a 
number of issues--the Freedom of Information Act being one of them. And 
I suspect we will work together on a number of issues to come. Let's 
get past this roadblock and onto other things.
  I see him on the floor.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I came to the floor to talk about the work 
in the Senate and particularly the Justice for Victims of Trafficking 
Act. But I would say to my colleague and friend, with whom I have 
worked on so many important issues, that I also look forward--once we 
get past today's business--to working together with him on patent 
reform, criminal justice reform, and also to continue our very 
productive partnership on open government and transparency, 
particularly the Freedom of Information Act legislation.


                            San Jacinto Day

  Mr. President, before I talk about the Justice for Victims of 
Trafficking Act, I have to note this: It is my responsibility, my duty, 
my honor to note that today is a very important day in Texas. This is 
San Jacinto Day. For those who do not know what that is, this is the 
official State holiday that honors Texas independence, where 910 
soldiers, led by General Sam Houston, won the decisive battle of the 
Texas Revolution.
  So it is not the Battle of the Alamo that gave Texas its 
independence. That is the one that people perhaps remember the most. 
Maybe it is because of the movies and books that have been written 
about that. Actually, the Battle of the Alamo did not turn out too 
well. Virtually, everybody was killed. But it gave rise to the 
opportunity for these 910 men, led by General Sam Houston, on San 
Jacinto Day, to win the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Now, 
almost 180 years later, I think it is only appropriate and fitting that 
we recognize their bravery and their sacrifices in pursuit of our dream 
of freedom.
  Mr. President, on the subject of the Justice for Victims of 
Trafficking Act, this has been a strange experience, starting as we did 
on something that passed unanimously in the Judiciary Committee, with 
30 cosponsors on a bipartisan basis, and all of a sudden to have this 
legislation stuck here in the Senate. I will not relitigate the reasons 
for that because, frankly, I think we have now found a way forward for 
this legislation, as the majority leader, Senator McConnell, and the 
Democratic leader, Senator Reid, announced this morning.
  It is going to take a little bit more work by the Senate. There are 
perhaps a handful of amendments that we will have an opportunity to 
vote on. I know there is a desire by everyone for us to finish this 
trafficking bill as soon as we can, and then we can address the 
concerns that the ranking member from Vermont, Senator Leahy, has about 
the Attorney General nomination.
  Senator McConnell has made very clear that once we get trafficking 
resolved, which it appears we are on a path to doing, then we can turn 
to the Lynch nomination. I have actually been somewhat surprised and 
more optimistic than I have been in a long time about how the Senate is 
beginning to work again, from passing a budget to dealing with the 
broken doc fix that had been the law of the land since 1997, which had 
required us to come back and patch--every 6 months to a year--and the 
reforms that actually were negotiated by Speaker Boehner and Leader 
Pelosi in the House, which we passed by an overwhelming margin here in 
the Senate.
  Then, consider what happened in the Foreign Relations Committee on 
the Iran sanctions issue with a unanimous vote and the Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, with Senator Alexander and 
Senator Murray announcing an agreement to move forward on the 
reauthorization of early childhood education.
  We have some very good progress that is being made on trade, for 
example. I just came from the Senate Finance Committee. I think there 
is a path forward on trade promotion authority and consideration of the 
Trans-Pacific Partnership.
  The truth is that the United States has roughly 20 percent of the 
world's purchasing power, which means 80 percent of the purchasing 
power in the world lies beyond our borders. We have 5 percent of the 
world's population, meaning 95 percent of the world's population lies 
beyond our borders.
  The opportunities we have to grow our economy and to help small and 
medium-sized businesses and the people--the middle-class families who 
work at those businesses--are very exciting. So the point is that after 
a long period of dysfunction in the Senate, we are starting to see the 
Senate work again the way it should work, the way it has historically 
worked--through the committees, to build consensus on legislation that 
can then come to the floor, and then to have Senators, whether they be 
in the majority or minority, to offer constructive suggestions about 
how to solve our Nation's biggest challenges, and then to work together 
to

[[Page 5237]]

send these to the President and get his signature.
  So there are a lot of positive things happening in the Senate. I hope 
for even more positive things to occur in the near future.
  I have been focused like a laser for some time now on justice for the 
victims of human trafficking. When I think for a minute about the fact 
that the typical victim of human trafficking is a 12- to 13-year-old 
girl, who has been sold essentially into sex slavery and who has lost 
control over her life and perhaps, to her mind, to her future. I cannot 
think of a more compelling need for the Senate than to try to offer a 
lifeline to these victims of human trafficking. That is what this 
legislation that hopefully we will act on today--perhaps no later than 
tomorrow--is designed to do. It creates a fund that could be as high as 
$30 million--not from taxes but from fines and penalties paid by people 
who commit sexual offenses and basically represents the demand side of 
the human trafficking equation.
  We have found a way now, on a bipartisan basis, to move this 
legislation forward so we can offer a hand to rescue these victims of 
human trafficking, so we can give them an opportunity to heal and we 
can provide them some hope for a better future.
  I know all of us, by virtue of the privilege of the office that we 
serve in, have had stories from constituents about human trafficking. I 
remember quite clearly Brooke Axtell of Austin, TX, who now works with 
a number of nonprofits, and has basically turned her tragic story into 
serving others who have likewise become victims of human trafficking. 
Brooke's story is really almost beyond belief. She says that at age 7 
she was sexually abused. She was literally held captive in a basement 
and sold to men who would pay money to have sex with her, a 7-year old 
child.
  Brooke has brought to light her pain and has begun to heal as a 
result of having been rescued and been given a helping hand. But she 
has now turned her tragic story into hope by honorably helping others 
find a way out of a life that she herself experienced. She founded a 
group called Survivor Healing and Empowerment, which is a healing 
community of survivors of rape, abuse, and sex trafficking.
  There is another horrific story that I have heard--I am sure just as 
all the Members of the Senate have heard coming from their States, 
because this is not something isolated in one State. This is a 
national--indeed, it is an international--phenomenon. Another woman I 
have had the privilege of meeting with and who has shared her story 
with me is Melissa Woodward from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Melissa 
was 12 years old when she was sold into the sex trade by a family 
member--unbelievable. Eventually, she was pulled out of school to be 
trafficked full time when she was in the sixth grade. Her life, as she 
describes it, became a prison. She was literally chained to a bed in a 
warehouse, she says, and endured regular beatings and obviously, sexual 
assaults.
  There was even once an attempt to set her on fire by one of her 
abusers. All the while, she says, she was forced to serve between 5 and 
30 men every day. She said she wished she was dead.
  As heartbreaking as Melissa's story is, just as sad is the way she 
was treated after she escaped her captors. In one of the big changes in 
the way we have approached victims of human trafficking--at one point 
we claimed they were the criminal because they had engaged in 
prostitution. But the idea of a child prostitute is an oxymoron. A 
child cannot consent to a life of prostitution.
  What we find, in looking at the victims of human trafficking, is that 
many of them are manipulated, coerced, and forced to engage in this sex 
activity for the economic benefit of their johns or their pimps or 
their traffickers. This is all about money. This is about the face of 
evil that treats human beings as objects or as things, without the 
basic dignity and respect which all human beings are entitled to. But 
as I said, one of the problems with the way we used to treat victims of 
human trafficking is that we treated them like criminals. That was all 
too common an outcome for trafficking victims who were labeled as 
prostitutes and left with very few options but to ultimately return to 
a nightmare that, sadly, exists in our country.
  That is beginning to change. It needs to change even more, which is 
another reason why we need to pass this bill. This is the kind of 
legislation that I think in many ways is unique, because it is a 
nonpartisan piece of legislation. All this legislation is designed to 
do is to help the victims of human trafficking get rescued and then 
begin to heal and to get on with their lives. It is designed to provide 
much-needed resources for victims of human trafficking--plain and 
simple. It may be nothing more than a safe place to sleep, protected 
from the people who would continue to abuse them.
  It is designed to help people such as Brooke, Melissa, and so many 
others--the tens of thousands of victims of human trafficking. This 
legislation would not only provide help for those victims, but it would 
ensure that children such as Melissa are treated as victims and not 
criminals.
  It would also add law enforcement tools to help authorities rescue 
victims and to take down human traffickers and the organized criminal 
networks who support them. That is an important point because human 
trafficking is not a mom-and-pop business. This is run by organized 
crime and criminal networks, some of them international or 
transnational.
  I want to thank my colleagues for caring--for caring about people 
such as Melissa and Brooke and the many examples of human trafficking 
that we have all been introduced to.
  I want to particularly express my gratitude for all of our colleagues 
for working on this and not giving up until we found a pathway toward 
success. This body's consideration of this bill has proven that 
compromise and bipartisanship need not be relics of the past in today's 
Washington. They are very much alive and well, particularly when the 
need is so very great, as it is in this area. So now for the sake of 
these victims, let's get this important legislation passed and provide 
crucial help for the children trapped in modern day slavery.
  I want to just conclude by saying a few thank-you's. I know it is a 
little premature. But we would not have gotten this far if it were not 
for the help of organizations such as Rights4Girls, Shared Hope 
International, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, the End Child 
Prostitution and Trafficking organization, the National Association to 
Protect Children, and members of our staff in the Senate who have 
worked so hard to get us where we are today.
  I want to express my gratitude to Senator Klobuchar, Senator Murray, 
and Senator Reid, on the other side of the aisle, who have worked so 
closely with us, and of course to the chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee, Senator Grassley, and particularly I want to single out the 
majority leader, Senator McConnell. He said we would not move to the 
nomination for Attorney General of the United States until we get this 
done. And, indeed, today, I hope and believe that we will get this 
done, and then we can turn to that nomination.
  But there are others, perhaps too many to name: Senator Warner, 
Senator Heitkamp, and others on the Democratic side. There are those on 
the Republican side. Senator Collins comes to mind, and there are 
others who have worked so hard and so relentlessly and with such 
determination to get us where we are today. We need to get this over 
the finish line so we can move on to other business.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Flake). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________