Remarks as prepared for delivery: 

Mr. President, I rise today to add my voice in support of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, of which I am proud to say I am a cosponsor.

In Virginia, this Act has doubled the resources available for prevention and intervention of sexual violence in communities and on campus. The funding provides crisis services in nearly every locality in Virginia.

Funds have helped develop state databases like the protective order registry in the Virginia Criminal Information Network (VCIN) and the I-CAN system housed with the Virginia Supreme Court. These databases have helped improve responses across the Commonwealth to sexual and domestic violence.

I would like to share some startling Virginia domestic and sexual violence incidence statistics, which highlight just how critical this legislation is to anyone in my state and across the country who may find themselves in need of help.

Virginia has seen a 12% increase over the past two years in the number of men, women and children staying in domestic violence emergency shelters on an average night.

Nearly 1 million women and more than 600,000 men in Virginia have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner and a third of Virginia’s homicides involve family and intimate partner violence.

According to the State’s medical examiner, 1 in 3 homicides in Virginia are due to family or intimate partner violence.

As these statistics show, the services authorized through VAWA continue to be a necessity. It is important that we continue to support access to these vital services that will provide significant benefits to those most in need of assistance.

For the Violence Against Women Act to truly work as intended, we must have effective accountability. Particularly in times of tight budgets, it is important to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely.

It is critically important that we continue to advance effective, comprehensive policies that will provide appropriate preventive and supportive services that many in my state, as well as across the country, will benefit from.

The accountability measures included in this bill are patterned after proposals offered by my Republican colleagues for other grant programs, and these accountability measures have been tailored to VAWA to make sure that funds are efficiently spent and effectively monitored.

The bill authorizes the Department of Justice’s Inspector General to audit grantees to prevent waste, fraud and abuse. It gives grantees a reasonable amount of time to correct any problems that were not solved during the audit process, but imposes severe penalties on grantees that refuse to address the problems identified by the Inspector General.

Rather than Congress mandating a set number of audits, the Office of Inspector General will have the ability to set the appropriate number. This will give the experts in the Inspector General’s office the ability to more effectively perform important oversight.

The Department of Justice has taken significant steps to improve monitoring of VAWA grant awards by updating grant monitoring policies and incorporating accounting training for all grantees.

The bill has also taken the important step of holding the Department of Justice accountable when using Federal funds to host or support conferences.

These new accountability provisions are an integral piece in this process and a meaningful additional check to ensure the appropriate use of taxpayer dollars for these important programs.

I encourage you to join me in support of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.