[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

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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.

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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

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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.''

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