Ted Poe

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, Angie described Amherst College as her dream school. A vibrant American teenager, she couldn't wait to start her new life at the perfect college. Like all universities, Amherst painted itself in a positive light. It had a good reputation. But Angie had no way of knowing the dark reality hiding behind that facade. Her initial memories of her freshman year play along a familiar and happy college narrative. Her life was full of new friends, new experiences, and new challenges. But on May 25, everything changed. That happy narrative came to a screeching halt. An acquaintance of hers invited her over to watch a movie in his campus dorm room. Tired from a long day of classes, Angie finally drifted off to sleep. The next thing she knew, she woke up to find this individual on top of her sexually assaulting her. The morning after the attack, Angie felt that she was in a daze, and she acted like she was in a daze. The illusion of college life filled with smiling faces and good times had been shattered. Mr. Speaker, according to the Department of Justice, one in five women are sexually assaulted during college in the United States--one in five. Of those, less than 25 percent report the sexual assault. So Angie, fearing that she would be ignored, doubted, and dismissed, carried on in hopeless silence. In the 4 months following her rape, she fell deeper and deeper into depression. Finally, when the burden became too heavy to bear, she summoned all her remaining strength and courage and went to the campus counselor. But she was shocked at the counselor's response. The counseling center didn't believe she was sexually assaulted. The counseling center said that she should forgive the rapist. They told her there is nothing they could do or would do. There was no point in pressing charges; her rapist was close to graduating anyway. But she could not forget what had happened to her. She couldn't deal with the sexual assault. Mr. Speaker, a rape victim cannot just forget what has happened to them. Mr. Speaker, I was a judge for 22 years and a prosecutor for 8 in Texas. I saw a lot of sexual assault victims, a lot of them. They deal with what happened to them every day, and they feel like the rapist tried to steal the soul of the victim. A rape victim once told me: ``Judge, rape is a fate worse than death.'' And to a lot of victims, that is exactly the way they feel. It is worse than being murdered. These sexual assault victims need support, understanding, and care to become survivors. They first need somebody who will listen to them. Amherst utterly failed Angie, and that failure pushed her deeper and deeper into despair. When she voiced that she had been having suicidal thoughts, university police forcibly escorted her to the emergency room and left her there. The doctor who examined her had no training on how to deal with traumatized rape victims. Utterly lacking in any kind of compassion for what had happened to her, the doctor told her that she was being irrational and that her story just didn't make any sense to the doctor. He didn't believe a school like Amherst would allow her to be raped, and he thought she just must be crazy. He ordered that she be admitted into a psychiatric ward and washed his hands of the entire situation. For 5 days, Mr. Speaker, Angie sat shaking in a sterile room behind locked doors. She becomes the prisoner for the sexual assault that happened to her. A victim's pain and suffering should never be increased because the hospital doesn't have staff trained to provide victim services for sexual assault victims. So to ensure this doesn't happen to more victims like Angie, I have introduced legislation, along with the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney), my good friend, that would require a hospital to provide access to a staffer who is properly trained to provide care sensitive to the trauma victim and is concerned about what they have experienced, or have a plan in place to get the victim to a nearby hospital that does. This is called a SAFE. The law should be changed to require a hospital to have a SAFE or a SANE--that is a sexual assault forensic examiner or a sexual assault nurse examiner--on staff or have one at a nearby hospital. This bill is named for Megan Rondini. Megan Rondini is another victim of sexual assault on campus. She was from Texas and went to the University of Alabama, and she was denied proper post-sexual assault treatment at a hospital. This will ensure victims get the care that they need. Megan couldn't deal with what happened to her, and she finally committed suicide. Mr. Speaker, we need to, as a body, be concerned about sexual assault victims and provide this basic legislation so universities are trained or have somebody on staff nearby who can deal with sexual assault victims. That is the least we can do for people like Angie and Megan Rondini. And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, for years, Lynda could not bring herself to speak about her past turmoil and nightmares. Lynda is finally telling about her tortured life. When she was 16, two neighborhood boys drugged and sexually assaulted her. Highly drugged, the boys convinced her to have sex for money just once. But it wasn't for just one time, Mr. Speaker. They set up online advertisements to sell her and other girls. When one of the other girls tried to escape, they tied her to a chair and beat her up mercilessly. They mixed drugs into the food to maintain control over the girls. It was years before Lynda finally escaped her turmoil. Today, the rape and torture still haunts Lynda, but she works every day to become a survivor. I recently introduced the Abolish Human Trafficking Act that provides grants to ensure that victims like Lynda get help and services, such as mental health counseling, legal aid, job training, things that they deserve from us. This will help trafficking victims put their broken lives back together. Trafficking is a scourge, and we need to send a message to everyone that our kids are not for sale. And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, graduating from high school and going to college is an important goal for many, many American teenagers. College offers the promise of an education, new friends, and new experiences. When parents drop their children off at their new dorms, they are entrusting those universities with the well-being of their kids. The dark reality is that, in many cases, this trust is woefully misplaced. Mr. Speaker, approximately one in five women are sexually assaulted in college. That is one out of every five of our daughters, sisters, and friends. This shocking statistic would lead most people to assume that colleges have extensive protections to support those people on campus who may be sexually assaulted. This is just not the case. Last year one of these victims published an anonymous op-ed at Harvard about her attack. The title of her article was, ``It's Me, One of Your Statistics.'' She described the night of her attack. A friend invited her to his dorm room to study for an upcoming science midterm test. She thought nothing of it, but when she started to become uncomfortable, she decided it was important for her to leave. But he did not let her leave. He sexually assaulted her. After the attack, she ran to a friend's room for help. She refused to shower, knowing that she had to immediately get a rape kit done. Assuming the university would be able to help her, she called their health services department, but the news she received from them shocked her. Harvard University Health Services didn't provide rape kits. They didn't provide any post-rape care whatsoever. There was nothing they would or could do for her. The university essentially threw up their hands and just turned her away. She was forced to call an Uber and paid someone to drive her to the hospital across town. But once she arrived, there was no staff at the hospital trained to deal with sexual assault victims or trained to collect forensic evidence. Sexual assault forensic examiners, or SAFEs as they are called, are specifically trained to properly collect forensic evidence from victims and provide the victim with care and support that is sensitive to the trauma that they have experienced. She had to wait over 3 hours for somebody to arrive. This is unacceptable, and it is sad. It is estimated that less than 25 percent of victims of rape report their crimes. They fear this exact scenario, that they will be turned away, dismissed, ignored, or not believed. To address this problem I have introduced legislation that would require a hospital to provide access to a sexual assault forensic examiner or have a plan in place to quickly get a victim to a nearby hospital that can provide forensic services. This bill is named for Megan Rondini. It is called the Megan Rondini Act, in honor of a 21-year-old sexual assault victim who was denied proper post-rape treatment at a hospital in Alabama. This bill will ensure victims can access the care that they need. Megan's hospital didn't have a sexual assault nurse examiner on staff either, so when she reported the rape to the authorities, the authorities did not believe her. Anguished, Megan returned to Texas, despondent, and tragically took her own life. The only thing she knew for certain in her case was that she was failed by the university, the hospital, and the law enforcement agencies. Universities should have a sexual assault victim advocate on staff-- all universities. A SAFE should be available for victims at a nearby hospital, and law enforcement must quickly analyze sexual assault kits because there are hundreds sitting on the shelves all over the country that have never been tested. Mr. Speaker, sexual assault victims are people. They are mainly young people at universities. As the Harvard student said, they are not just statistics on a hospital spreadsheet. Society can no longer ignore the silent, painful cries for help of victims of rape on our college campuses anymore. These days need to end. And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, as the band played the latest country western song, gunfire erupted from the 32nd floor window across the street. Twenty minutes later, when the shots stopped and the smoke cleared, 59 people were murdered and over 520 were wounded. The SWAT team quickly found the hiding place of the evil villain, and as they approached, the outlaw shot himself. Thus, he avoided a date with the hangman. Justice occurred. The casualties would have been much worse but for quick action by members of the crowd. People, including former military and off-duty police officers, helped hide and cover others while endangering their own lives. The first responders, police, doctors, emergency medical technicians quickly tended to the wounded. These unnamed quick responders, both civilian and law enforcement, and medical, without regard to their own life, saved others. The band had stopped playing music, but the cries of the wounded and the tears of the mourning continue, Mr. Speaker. We must have prayers for Las Vegas, and God bless them one and all. And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, in the inky darkness of night, during the hammering rain of Harvey, reservoirs released even more water with little notice to people downstream. Meanwhile, hundreds of first responders battled the incessant rain, rising floodwaters, and raging currents to rescue people from homes. Inside the dimly lit call center, 911 dispatchers answered call after call after call, racing to keep up as tense thousands dialed in. Dispatchers like 26-year-old Erika Wells worked 20-hour stretches, then trying to grab a nap or two. With phones constantly ringing, the dispatchers sent rescue teams to homes packed with people in need of escape, a woman in labor, and families trapped on their roofs. As the 50-inch rain kept pounding and floodwaters rose, the dispatchers answered, calmed, and helped those in need. As the morning Sun finally broke through the Texas sky, the dispatchers emerged from their stations and finally checked on their own families, many of whom had their own homes flooded. These dispatchers are some of the Texas Proud that helped save others in the floods of summer. And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, since Hurricane Harvey hit our area last month, stories of Harvey Heroes continue to bring our community together and make us grateful for the incredible people that we call neighbors. There are many uplifting stories of those who grabbed their personal boats and set out in the waters to rescue individuals, many of whom they did not know. Our first responders answered the call time and time again. And so did so many people whose names we may never know. For all of them, we thank them from the bottom of our hearts. So many people have opened their homes, their hearts, and their wallets to help Houston recover. One such community was the Indian- American community right in the greater Houston area. They have already raised over $1.6 million dollars. 700 Indian-American volunteers have dedicated more than 24,000 hours to their city, and together, they have distributed over 28,000 meals to our neighbors in need. One specific story I would like to highlight is that of a group of Indian-Americans, led by Houstonian, Jiten Agrawal, made their way through the unparalleled flooding after the Hurricane to reach a student apartment complex near my alma mater, the University of Houston, that had been flooded and was without power. The president of the Indian graduate students' organization, Ravi Shankar, reached out to the community to help, and help is what they gave. These volunteer rescuers brought food and water to over 180 students and helped transport them back to their families or a safe location. We are grateful to these volunteers, some of the many Harvey Heroes, for helping Houstonians get through a very difficult time. They are just one of the reasons why we are Houston Strong. And that's just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate it, Congressman Weber, for allowing us to talk a little bit about Hurricane Harvey and what folks did down in the Texas area. While it was still raining hard, I get a phone call, and I looked at the area code on my cell phone and I said: I think that is Massachusetts. And sure enough, it was Representative Kennedy from Boston, Massachusetts, calling me saying he would do whatever he could to get Bostonian's first responders down to Texas to help out. And that is what happened, as has already been mentioned by all of my colleagues tonight: both sides of Members of Congress working on this issue to help in Harvey. Beto O'Rourke is from El Paso. You are from Beaumont. People may not realize that there is a sign in Beaumont. I used to represent Beaumont, as you know. As you are driving in from Louisiana, there is a sign that says: El Paso, Texas, 876 miles away. That is how far it is from Beaumont to El Paso, and yet Beto O'Rourke made his way all the way to the Houston-Galveston area to help out as well. The whole State helped with what was taking place. The magnitude of the devastation--not just the weather, but the devastation--if you take the State of New Jersey and turn it on its side and set it down on the Gulf Coast, that is how much devastation there was in the State of Texas. That was the area that was hit where disaster occurred. They got rain as far as Dallas and San Antonio, and, of course, we know that it went all the way up to Kentucky a thousand miles away. Still, they were getting rain days later. I want to talk about one of the people involved in the rescue. Dr. Babin talked about a lot of folks who helped out. Here is another guy who helped out. You have probably never heard of him: Steven Perez, Houston police officer, 34-year veteran of the Houston Police Department, married, two kids. The rains are coming down. It is in the middle of the night. It is his time to go on shift at the Houston Police Department. His wife is saying: Don't go; it is too bad. And he said: I am going to work. It is my duty. And he did. He left home. He couldn't get to the downtown Houston Police Department, so he is headed in a different direction, my understanding is, up to Kingwood, where I represent--that is about 25 miles away from downtown Houston--where he was going to do what he could to help folks out there. He took a bad turn, got under an underpass, and his patrol car was submerged and he drowned. He was out doing what he wanted to do: to protect and serve. He is a symbol of all the first responders, of all the badges that they wear from all over the country who came down there to do their duty, to help people in need. We regret his loss. We are with his family and our prayers are with his family, his wife and his two kids, for their future. At his funeral, of course, in Houston that I had the opportunity to attend, there were a lot of police officers from all over the country showing their respects to another first responder. With this hurricane that came through the Houston area, I have kind of an unusual district, so I got hit several places. People got flooded. Michael McCall showed, earlier, a map of the Houston area, that there are two reservoirs that are supposed to protect the city from flooding. Water filled up those reservoirs, and people whom I represent are on the downstream of that reservoir. They got flooded when water came over it. But I also represent people upstream, and they got flooded because the reservoir overflowed up in the northwestern direction. People also got flooded in the middle of the night after they thought the storm was over with because Conroe--and, Mr. Speaker, I know you don't know where that is, but it is just northwest of Houston. They have a lake up in Conroe. They started letting water out of Lake Conroe because it was too full. Water came rushing down the San Jacinto River into Humble, Texas, and Kingwood, Cypress Creek. All that overflowed, and people got flooded in all of that area as well--thousands of people. Their homes are devastated. In fact, two of those people who have lost their home, they are still staying with us, friends of ours. We do take care of each other. One thing that I want to mention is we need to get a regional plan to prevent these disasters in the future. It would be a whole lot cheaper, in fact, to prevent these floods than try to continue to pay for the damage of these floods. No question about it, we have to do recovery now for those people who have lost everything they have, do what we can here in Congress, and we are going to do that in a bipartisan way. But we need to have a plan for the future as well. I have introduced legislation for the Corps of Engineers to come up with, in 90 days of our legislation being signed by the President, to evaluate all the conditions in the flood plain area that was flooded and come up with a long-term plan, whether it is building one more reservoir, two more reservoirs, making the ones that we have bigger, desilting the channel to Buffalo Bayou, San Jacinto River, whatever it is. We need to come as a united area from Mr. Weber's district all the way up to Mr. McCaul's district and everybody in between on what we are going to do to solve the long-term flooding problem. Because, you see, September comes around every September. Mr. McCaul talked about the flood of 1900. That happened in September, almost to the same day. Here this flood happened at the end of August, near the beginning of September. I hope we can do that. I think that we can, and I do want to reiterate what has been said about people who just helped each other. They didn't know each other. It wasn't just neighbors helping neighbors. It was people who didn't know each other. Some of them who were flooded out themselves were doing everything they could to help other people. There were a lot of bass boats. They weren't all from Louisiana. There were a lot from Louisiana, but I think it is every young boy's dream in Texas to own two things: a pickup truck and a bass boat. You saw all of those pickup trucks and bass boats on the road and in the water--because a lot of them are pretty high--rescuing people. People they did not know, Mr. Speaker. They were just looking to help other individuals. It is remarkable. I have been through a lot of hurricanes. I grew up in the Houston area. I remember Hurricane Carla in 1961, before most of you all were even around. We have had a lot of hurricanes since then. Nothing like Harvey. It was the granddaddy of all of them. It hammered the Houston area, but we are using this as an opportunity to fix things because this Hurricane is not going to defeat the spirit of Texans. It is not. We will resolve to overcome whatever the difficulties are now and to fix things in the future so that we can have a response when the rains of September come. The rains have stopped, the flood waters have gone down, the rainbow is out, the kids are playing in the parks again, but we are still at work solving the problem of what took place and moving on because, as I said, Harvey will not defeat the Texas spirit. And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, as Hurricane Harvey's hammering floodwaters crept closer and closer to their home, Annie and her husband, Gary, became nervously anxious because, you see, Annie was pregnant and needed to get to the hospital. But the 2-mile drive to the hospital was no longer possible due to high rising water. So they called 911, but the lines were busy. Both doctors in training, the Smiths started preparing for a home delivery. Finally, a call to Annie's school brought a rescue team to their door. But the waters were still high and moving fast. Risking their own lives, numerous neighbors and firefighters formed a human life chain, passing Annie along in the raging floodwaters to a high-water truck. A few hours later, Annie brought new life--Adrielle Smith--into the world. That is the thing about Texas, Mr. Speaker, we help each other. That is what makes us Texas strong. Congratulations to the Smiths on the birth of their hurricane daughter, Adrielle. And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, undaunted by the massive 50 inches of hammering rains and devastation of Hurricane Harvey, Texans quickly volunteered to help other water-soaked neighbors. Bay City High School Secretary Linda Leissner was manning the city's emergency operations call center when she realized the city needed school buses and drivers to help in the rescue because of Harvey's quickly rising floodwaters, so she called the coaches. The coaches quickly manned the high school's buses, and in the torrential rain they began rescuing and evacuating residents of the town, including some of their very own students. One of the coaches, Nathan Janak, put it best: ``It was just people helping people. It was one of the greatest displays of human kindness I have ever seen.'' Madam Speaker, stories like this make us Texas Proud and give us the determination to recover from one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. Harvey will not defeat us. As we say, ``Don't mess with Texas.'' And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, Arctic Circle in Eureka, California, used to be a place where you could get a great burger and a cold milkshake. But not anymore thanks to a lawsuit. A serial plaintiff alleged that their counters were too high and their doors were not quite wide enough. So without a chance to fix the alleged infractions, the drive-by lawsuit shuttered the doors of Arctic Circle. The Americans with Disabilities Act has made tremendous progress in increasing accessibility. But small businesses across America are being targeted by serial plaintiffs who troll for minor, correctable ADA infractions. If the business had notice, they could cure the problem rather than pay the shakedown by the lawyers. My bill, the ADA Reform Act, requires businesses to be notified of an alleged violation and be given time to fix the issue before a lawsuit can commence. If businesses fail to correct the infractions, the plaintiff can and should sue. It is time to stop attorneys from lining their pocketbooks off the backs of disabled Americans and small businesses in our country. And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the country is recovering from natural disasters that are taking place all over our land: on the West Coast and the Northwest, we have the wildfires; over the weekend, we had Hurricane Irma going through Florida, now through the Southeastern States causing havoc; and then, of course, we are still reeling from the hammering that we received in Houston and other areas because of Hurricane Harvey, where thousands have lost their homes, over a million cars are destroyed. Natural disasters are taking place. In the midst of all of this, yesterday was a day we should also remember, not because we had natural disasters, but because we had an attack on the United States 16 years ago. Yes, September 11, 2001. All of us who are old enough remember exactly what we were doing, as we should always remember what we were doing that day--a defining moment in our personal lives. I was a judge in Texas at that time. I was driving my Jeep--an old, red, beat up Renegade Jeep--to the courthouse, and I was listening to KILT Radio, Hudson & Harrigan in the Morning, a country-western station. Robert B. McIntyre, the newscaster, came on and said that a plane had hit one of the towers in New York City. Like most folks, I didn't know what to make of that. I thought maybe it was an accident. But a few minutes later, he was back on the air talking about a second plane crashing into the other tower in New York City. I pulled over to the side of the road, as other people were doing, and listened to what was taking place in America as we were attacked. We all know the rest of the story about some wonderful people who were hijacked on a plane in Pennsylvania who took that plane down that apparently was headed for Washington, D.C., probably this building. They saved the lives of Members of Congress and people who worked in Washington. The fourth plane crashed into the Pentagon. I would just like to talk about that fourth plane. That plane, American Airlines Flight No. 77, takes off from Dulles, takes to the air, in less than 50 minutes turns around, and is headed back to the Pentagon. As you know, Mr. Speaker, the Pentagon is right next to Arlington Cemetery. At the top of the crest of Arlington Cemetery is the Tomb of the Unknown. I call it the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is the Tomb of the Unknown. The Tomb of the Unknown is guarded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all of the time, by the United States Army 3rd Infantry Division. The oldest infantry division in the United States has the honor, the duty, and the privilege to guard the tomb of America's unknown who died for us. So what happened on September 11 when the two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the other plane is headed toward the Pentagon? Yes, the soldiers are on guard. And did they leave their post? Absolutely not. In fact, they not only did not leave their post, Mr. Speaker, they called for reinforcements, and they had 30 other soldiers create a perimeter around the tomb to guard it from whatever may occur from that terror that hit in the skies. They were there on duty. I assume, and I don't know this, but I assume those guards that day knew about the first two planes that hit the World Trade Center. The sergeant major on duty did not want those soldiers to leave the post. He called for reinforcements to protect the tomb from that terror in the skies. Remarkable stories that took place that day, Mr. Speaker, stories about Americans helping other Americans, just like Americans are helping Americans today with the wildfires and the hurricanes. There are many other stories that we will never know about. We know that on that day, as the smoke was burning in New York and in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon, our first responders, when that terror came to America, they didn't run. They ran toward that terror in the skies. Those men and women in our law enforcement agencies, our fire departments, emergency medical technicians, and thousands of others ran to help other people, strangers, when those planes, those terrorists, attacked America. We know that right down the street here at the Tomb of the Unknown where Arlington Cemetery is, where we bury our war dead, we know, of course, that that tomb stayed guarded, protected from that terror in the skies. Remarkable people, these Americans. And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Good, Mr. Speaker. I will look at the clock and make sure I don't go overboard here. In Houston, a woman went into labor as Hurricane Harvey flood waters began to rise. She was helped, likewise, by a rescue truck of neighbors and firefighters who, once again, formed that human chain. Two Beaumont police officers and fire rescue divers spotted a woman and her infant child floating in a canal in Beaumont, Texas. The canal is rushing to the Gulf of Mexico. The canal is full. The crew were able to pull the woman and her daughter from the canal and save their life. Another mother saved her own child's life. This is what mothers do anywhere in the world. She was 41 years of age. They were in the water for a long time. When they were finally found, the baby was found clutching the chest of her mother. The mother did the best she could to keep the child above the water, water that she could not apparently touch the bottom of wherever she was, and the two Beaumont police officers and fire and rescue divers pulled them out of the water. The mother later died, but the baby is okay. That is what mothers do, Mr. Speaker. They take care of their kids. We have a furniture business in Houston. It is owned by kind of a famous guy there. His name is Mattress Mack McIngvale. He is always on TV advertising his store and telling people to come there and he will save them money if they buy stuff at his story. It is called Gallery Furniture. Here is what happened. At his store, volunteers gathered his delivery trucks on Sunday, used those delivery trucks all over the Houston area--trucks that deliver furniture--and they started rescuing people who were stranded. They rescued 400 children and adults. He didn't take them to a shelter. He took them to his furniture store, and they stayed in his store for several days. I don't know, they may still be there. But he let them live there and form a little cubicle, so to speak, where they could be safe, and he let them stay on their furniture that he had. He even allowed the families to have pets in his store as a rescue place for people who were in need. It was irrelevant that all that furniture was new. He just let them stay there. That is just the way he is and the way other people are. About 1,500 miles away from Texas, two young boys raised money for hurricane victims in Texas. In western New York, two cousins, Dominic and Evan, started a lemonade stand to raise money for hurricane victims. They sold lemonade for 25 cents and donated all the money to the food bank of Houston. I have 12 grandkids, Mr. Speaker, and two of them live in Austin, Barrett and Brooklyn. I have had them both here on the House floor before. They and their schools started making packages that they donated for the recovery effort, and those packages were brought to Houston that they donated and made at their schools. They had all kinds of stuff that folks needed and created several of those. Mr. Speaker, I understand that you have just received a signing of the legislation, the Hurricane legislation as I call it. I missed the signing down the hallway in the Speaker's Office, but now that is sent to the White House I understand.

Mr. POE of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green). He and I are very close friends, Mr. Speaker. We both became lawyers the same year in 1973. We worked at the courthouse. I was a prosecutor, and he was a defense lawyer in Houston. We did battle together there. We both resigned our positions, ran, and became judges the same year, spent on the bench 22 years a piece, resigned the same day, ran for Congress, and we both won. He is a good friend of mine. He and I probably don't agree on a whole lot, but we do agree on some things. Civility is what we need here on the House floor and in Washington, D.C., to discuss things in a civil manner. So I thank the gentleman for coming by. I appreciate his help. His district is south of mine and got hammered as well during the floods. We are all working together, the Texas delegation and other delegations, to make sure we help folks who have tragedy reach their lives. So I thank the gentleman for his work. We have been working together on this very important issue.

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time. I want to talk about what has been occurring in southeast Texas for the last several weeks. I represent part of the Houston area, north Houston and into other areas of Harris County. Houston is one of many cities in Harris County, Texas. Of course I am going to talk about Hurricane Harvey. On August 26, Texans across the State braced themselves for Hurricane Harvey. It was a quick hurricane in that it developed very quickly in the Gulf of Mexico, and it hit southeast Texas near Corpus Christi and Rockport, and it did considerable damage in Rockport. I understand from Congressman Farenthold, who represents the area, that the entire small town was just obliterated by Hurricane Harvey. That is right on the coast of Texas. Hurricane Harvey made its way up the coast toward Houston, riding the coast and the Gulf of Mexico. When it got to Houston, Texas, it slowed down to some extent, and for 5 days it rained. It rained all day and all night, and the floodwaters rose in the Houston, Harris County area. All told, we got about 50 inches of rain in those 5 days. Seventy percent of Harris County had floodwaters at the highest time that the flood occurred--70 percent of the Houston, Harris County area. Mr. Speaker, I grew up in Houston, I remember the hurricanes that came through Houston when I was a kid. Hurricane Carla in 1961--or 1962--we thought that was the biggest thing that ever happened to Houston. But there were others since then. More recently, we had Tropical Storms Allison and Alicia; and then the Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Humberto, Gustav, Ike. And then we had three holiday floodings in the Houston area on Memorial Day, Labor Day, and tax day--IRS day; and now Hurricane Harvey more recently. Hurricane Harvey, all of the experts say this is the worst natural disaster that has ever hit the Houston area; some say in North America. But the bayous in Texas, the way the drainage--if I can use that phrase--in the Houston area works: Houston is about 50 miles from the Gulf Coast. It is flat. Some areas are just right at sea level. And we have a system of bayous and creeks that all move through the Houston area down the Gulf of Mexico. So if the water is in Houston, it has got to go southeast to the Gulf of Mexico. And, of course, when the rains came and the floods came up, there was no place for the water to go because there was so much water. After Hurricane Harvey hammered Houston, it worked its way back out to of the Gulf of Mexico just a little bit to gain some strength, gain more power, and then came back ashore further on down the coast in Jefferson and Liberty Counties, Beaumont, Port Arthur. You probably never heard of those towns, but it went through that area, into parts of Louisiana, and then worked its way on up through Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky. I think it finally dissipated and it has gone away. Let me be a little more specific about what happened in two counties further to the east, two counties that I used to represent as a Member of Congress. Jefferson County is the home to the largest selection or collection of refineries in the United States. About 22 percent of the Nation's refineries are along the channel. Port Arthur and Beaumont are where the refineries are. Port Arthur, Texas, right on the coast, was completely flooded during Hurricane Harvey, and the refineries were shut down. I know that because the gasoline prices have spiked overnight because that fuel is not being produced. Most of those refineries will be back on line very soon, if they are not already on line. So the flooding was massive. If you take the State of New Jersey and you turn it on its side and set it on the Texas coast from Louisiana down to Corpus, that is the size of the floods and the rains in Hurricane Harvey. It is a massive area that affected a lot of people throughout Texas. The Second Congressional District that I represent was flooded like most of the congressional districts in the area. And during the rains and the floods that were coming down for those several days, people got into action. They didn't wait for the rains to stop or the floods to stop coming up. Ordinary folks started helping each other. With the first responders and the volunteers, 72,000 people were rescued. That is a massive number: 72,000. Here is one of those rescues right here. We have got the National Guard, the Texas National Guard came in--all of them came into southeast Texas--rescuing a lady and her child. That is just one photograph of many photographs of rescues that took place. The amount of water that came down was 50 inches. If you take the Astrodome and fill it with water 86,000 times, that is how much water hit the Houston area. That is an unbelievable amount of water that came into the Houston area. I would like to talk about a few folks that helped out in the rescue. One of those individuals was Houston Police Sergeant Steve Perez. I talked about him the other day on the House floor. I would like to mention him again because he is a perfect example of our first responders and what they are willing to do in times of need. Sergeant Perez was a 60-year-old veteran of the Houston Police Department. He was at the Houston Police Department 34 years. He grew up in San Antonio, Texas, went to ROTC in San Antonio, commissioned as a second lieutenant, and he became a major in the Army Reserve. After that, he moved to Houston, Texas, and joined the Houston Police Department. Here is a photograph of Sergeant Steve Perez. He lived in Houston, of course. Rain is coming down. He is going to report for duty. His wife suggested and really encouraged him and begged him not to go because of the floods around where they lived. He is headed to the Houston Police Department headquarters. He could not get there. So he calls on the radio and he was told he couldn't get there. He found out that the rains were hitting all of the Houston area, especially in a place called Kingwood. Kingwood is about 25 to 30 miles from downtown Houston, up in the northeast area. He is in his car. He turns and started heading up to Kingwood. He goes under an underpass-- it is raining real hard--he couldn't see very well, and his car went in, flooded, and he drowned. Sergeant Steve Perez was married and a father of two. He was looking for a path to Kingwood for over 2 hours, trying to get there to let folks know they needed to evacuate the area. Next Wednesday, Sergeant Perez will be buried in Houston. His funeral is at 9 o'clock at a downtown church. There will be hundreds of police officers from all over the State of Texas and other States there to honor him, along with a thousand or more civilians. Sergeant Steve Perez gave his life in the line of duty, the thin blue line. He was protecting us from the tragedy. Remember, he could have made a choice just not to report for duty that day because he couldn't get to work. He made the choice to take care of other Houstonians. One other officer I want to mention is Officer Bert Ramon. He has stage IV colon cancer. That is serious stuff, and he reported for duty. He wasn't going to sit out this crisis. He couldn't get downtown, so he teamed up with Houston's Lake Patrol. We have boats in Houston for flooding, but we have Lake Houston and some other big waters where they use boats for different reasons. But he teamed up with the Houston Lake Patrol division. While he was working with them for 3 days, he rescued 1,500 people, including seniors, children, and handicapped folks; he and the folks he was working with on the Lake Patrol rescued 1,500 people. I just admire him and all of our first responders who got out in all of this really tough weather to do what they needed to do, but wanted to do. Officer Ramon receives biweekly chemo treatments in Houston for his cancer, but he went ahead and did what he wanted to do to serve and protect the rest of us. He rescued many of them that were seniors, as I mentioned. He jokes a lot. He told those seniors that they were on the San Antonio River Walk cruise. There is a river that runs through San Antonio through downtown, the River Walk, and he told them they were on the River Walk cruise. He was trying to be lighthearted and put the people that he was rescuing at ease. Other first responders, firefighters, EMS, of course, the police were working day and night, sleeping at the stations. Many of them had their own homes flooded, yet they are going to do good work for other people. But they weren't the only ones. Volunteers came to Houston, Dallas, Arlington, San Antonio, Texas; and many from across State lines. I had the opportunity to meet police officers from Ohio; California; Arlington, Texas; and other places, who were there to help. And they came from, like I said, all over the country to help folks. We had 12,000 National Guard in Texas helping people. That is all the National Guard we had, and they came as well. I do want to mention the fact that it wasn't just first responders. We had volunteers coming from Boston, Massachusetts. It took them a while to find Texas. I mean, it is a long way away. California and New York sent officers as well to help. To all of those folks whose names we may never know, we are grateful. Those of us in Houston, Texas, and the affected areas are grateful for those first responders and the volunteers that came from all over the States. I am not sure you can see this photograph, Mr. Speaker, but this is a long line of pickup trucks and bass boats. I don't know if you own a bass boat or not. It is the dream of every Texas boy growing up to own two things: a pickup truck and a bass boat. I mean, life is good if they can get those two things. There are some other things, but I am not going to mention those at this time. But here are a bunch of pickup trucks from this end of the poster, all the way to the other end, and these are coming from Louisiana. Louisiana is the next State over from Texas. We love the folks in Louisiana. We claim them; they claim us. Some say we vote in their elections, and they vote in our elections. I don't think that is true, but we are all kindred spirits. But they call this the Cajun Navy. And what the Cajun Navy did was bring not only bass boats and pickup trucks, but they filled these boats up full of Cajun food and supplies, and they came to Texas to do everything they could to help rescue individuals. We appreciate them. The Cajun Navy weren't the only ones doing this. There were people from other parts of the State. I don't know that you could find Brownwood, Texas, on a map, but it is northwest, sort of in the panhandle area. And there were two young guys. I think they are in their twenties or so. They were watching all of this on television. So they get in their pickup trucks and they drive from Brownwood, Texas, and they stopped in Austin--which is still 200 miles away from Houston--at a Cabela's sport center. They went in there and each one of them bought a bass boat, a motor, and a trailer; hooked it up to their pickup trucks, filled it up with all kinds of stuff that was needed, and they headed to Houston. For 4 days they helped rescue individuals. This is just a few examples of neighbors helping neighbors. The folks in the Houston area, Mr. Speaker, they didn't wait for governments--I am not just talking about the Federal Government, but any government--to start helping individuals that needed help during the rescue operations that were for about 4 days. A lot of my constituents, frankly, don't like government. They do things on their own, and that is what people were doing in the Houston area. You may have seen many of these examples on television. It was heartwarming to see so many people, strangers helping strangers, neighbors helping neighbors. Race or politics had nothing to do with any of this. It was higher than politics. It is all about people. And people jumped in to help. Many people whose own homes were flooded out, yet they had a boat and they are helping other people, helping their neighbors rescue individuals. There was an elderly man who was trapped inside his SUV, Mr. Speaker, and the neighbors see that he is trapped in his SUV. Floodwaters are coming up. Neighbors and strangers watched, and they didn't know what to do. Water is coming up. They don't have a rope. They can't get to him. So these people who did not know each other form a human chain from dry land to where he was in his SUV as water is coming up and pulled him out, and got him, and rescued him to make sure that he was safe. The waters in the current were too strong for anybody to swim, so they formed a human chain, and they rescued him, saved him. Every morning, Mr. Speaker, there is a couple, maybe an elderly couple--they probably don't want to be called that--but a couple in the Houston area who goes to Chick-fil-A in the mornings for breakfast. J.C. and Karen Spencer are their names. They call in and order the same order every day at the same time at the local Chick-fil-A. The Chick-fil-A manager, Jeffrey Urban, knew them. He would see on the phone the caller ID. He knew the phone number, and before he even answered the phone, he started preparing what they were going to order because they order the same thing every day. But on the morning of August 28, as Hurricane Harvey is there in Houston hammering down and unleashing trillions of gallons of water, Jeffrey that morning was closing the restaurant to protect the restaurant from flooding the best he could. He was going to head for home, but the phone is ringing, and he knew who it was. It was J.C. and Karen Spencer who call in every morning. He thought they were calling for their usual breakfast, a Texas burrito is what they are getting ready to have. So he picked up the phone. But they weren't calling for breakfast. They were calling for help. Their house was completely flooded. The waters were rising fast. They had tried all the emergency numbers. They couldn't get ahold of anybody. They are in their home, they can't get out, and they don't know what to do. They panic, to some extent, so they call Jeffrey at the Chick-fil-A as they do every morning. So what Jeffrey did was, he didn't just go home. He, along with the restaurant owner, headed to the Spencer's house with their jet ski in tow. As you can see, here is Jeffrey, and here is Karen. He takes the jet ski, he goes into the house, picks her up, takes her to dry land, and also helps her husband safely leave. It is just a good example of folks just taking care of other people in the area. They were able to get out, and their home was later destroyed. It is just an example of the spirit of people and the attitude of people in the Houston area when this hurricane happened. I could spend a lot of time telling about other folks, and I am going to tell as many stories as I can. Speaking of time, Mr. Speaker, can you tell me how much time I have remaining.

Mr. POE of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank Judge Green, once again, as I like to refer to the gentleman for all his work here in Congress helping out folks in Texas, and I will continue to work with the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I have talked quite a bit about the floods. I want to mention a couple of other things about the flooding in the Houston area. We have two reservoirs--they call them dams in other places--but they are earthen reservoirs that collect water, and the water is stored in those reservoirs. Both the reservoirs flooded. Water then was let out of the reservoirs and went downstream, as we call it, and flooded houses, as well as the rain. Here is a photograph of homes that were flooded by the storm but also flooded because Addicks Reservoir water was being released out of Addicks Reservoir and flooded these homes. But it is just a good example of the area that was flooded in Houston covered 70 percent of the Harris County area at its highest peak. But after the floods, after the rain came and the floodwaters started going down, people started helping in the recovery business, the same folks. People were volunteering to help each other. After the waters started going down, they were in the recovery business. Churches got involved, of course, government agencies got involved, and first responders got involved. I live up in the Kingwood area in a town called Humble, Texas, and that town got a lot of water and a lot of flooding in it. Near both of those areas, Kingwood and Humble, a lot of churches were working. The Second Baptist Church and St. Martha's Church turned their facilities into a makeshift shelter for those who had need. I went to Second Baptist while they had a lot of folks there, now they have rescue crews--I say rescue crews--they have crews who are going out to different neighborhoods and helping with the removal of walls, sheetrock and anything else that was flooded. It is not just one or two crews. These are 10-person crews. They have about 70 of these crews--that is 700 people they have going out every day to help people recover some of their property but also get that drywall torn down and ripped off, because in the Houston area, in the summer heat and humidity, water can do a lot of damage if it is not dealt with immediately. But to all those people, from Second Baptist and St. Martha's and many other faith-based groups, we appreciate the fact that they are out there doing what they can to help other individuals as well. I mentioned the Cajun Navy. The Cajun Navy--there were other people in boats who helped as well--a lot of boats. You probably saw a lot of them on TV--rubber boats, bass boats, and some people had other kind of boats that they were driving up and down the streets that were flooded. The residents who weren't able to recover, rebuild, take down the sheetrock, for example, in these homes, they got lots of help from other volunteers. I mentioned Second Baptist Church. There were about 1,600 volunteers who helped at Second Baptist, and they are still helping people. They have received, as have all of the agencies, the nonprofits, and the government agencies, a lot of supplies, a lot of stuff that is needed for people who have lost everything. It is remarkable. No matter where you go, they are storing all of this. They have a lot of it. Some areas don't have enough room. Some churches don't have enough room to store all of the goods that people can use--clothes, food, and other goods--and they are going to other places. I say that because these are people who just get it. They are people in the Houston area and people out of State sending what they can. There are 18-wheelers full of stuff from many parts of the country to help people get their lives back together, all donated by corporations, donated by individuals, donated by schoolchildren. They are all headed to Houston. That is being distributed, as well, for people to recover. Mr. Speaker, Hurricane Harvey, as I mentioned, is certainly the worst that I have ever seen, growing up in the Houston area. Harvey cannot defeat the people in Texas. They are resilient about: We will not be defeated. We will not be victims. We will be survivors and victors over this hurricane. That is the attitude. You have seen that attitude on national television. You just turn on any TV station and you see that happening. That is the attitude of the people who are there. I think it is an encouraging attitude. It is the Texas spirit, as we like to say. I know it is in other parts of the country, but it is in Texas, as well. We use the statement: We are Texas strong, we are Houston strong. We are. The folks in the Houston area refuse to let Harvey defeat them. People who don't know each other, people who do know each other, neighbors, strangers, all races, all ages are just out there helping each other. They don't really want a lot of recognition for that. It is just the thing they do. We are a very diverse community. I think we are the second most diverse, behind New York. We have about an equal number of Whites, Blacks, and Browns. We have a strong Asian population. We speak about 115 languages in the Houston area. Very diverse. But it doesn't make any difference what you look like or how old you are, people were helping each other. And they are still helping each other. It is people above politics. That is what is taking place. We are not talking politics. Nobody is talking politics. Everybody is talking about people and helping each other. We do have some minor problems when these tragedies happen nationwide; natural disasters. We have folks in the Houston area--they were out-of-towners--coming to town to do criminal stuff. They wanted to loot. The sheriff and the chief of police made it real clear early on that looters would be caught and prosecuted. That has happened. There were signs out among the area of Houston about looters and what would happen to them if they were caught. I won't go into those signs, Mr. Speaker, but there were a lot of signs warning looters to not loot this particular property or there would be some unpleasant consequences. We didn't have a big problem with that. There was some price gouging by some businesses and some individuals. In Texas, if you are a price gouger, there is going to be a day of reckoning. It is against the law. It is a $20,000 fine per occurrence. Those people will be prosecuted, the few who were there. But that is not the emphasis of what I am trying to say today. I am trying to say and want to say thanks to the people of the Houston area and the people who came to Houston to help in the rescue, who are helping now in the recovery, because they need that recognition. I also want to thank the House. The first bill we took up this week was for Hurricane Harvey recovery. It quickly passed the House and went down the hallway. The Senate passed it, added something to it, it came back to here, and we just recently sent that bill to the President of the United States to sign it. It is about $15 billion in aid for victims of Harvey. Most Members of the House supported, especially, the House bill. It shows that we can come together in times of tragedy. We are mindful of the fact that, as we speak here and are recovering in Texas, folks in Florida are watching Hurricane Irma come their way. So we will send those boats that came to Texas and those pickup trucks East and help the people in Florida. This is really an American issue, it is not a Texas issue. We all have to work together on this important time. Lastly, I would just like to conclude, Mr. Speaker, by saying the attitude of the people who were affected, to me, is inspirational. The rains came down and the floods came up, like we sang in Bible class about Noah. The floods came up and flooded, but those floods have disappeared. The sun has come out. There is a rainbow over the area and people are putting their lives back together. There is nothing that can defeat the human spirit. We appreciate Congress quickly sending the $15 billion in relief money to the area. This is a disaster that some have estimated will cost the Houston economy over $100 billion. I don't know how much it is. We will do what we can here in Congress to make sure that we can get aid to people in Texas and those who are going to be affected by the hurricane in Florida. We appreciate our first responders, our civilian volunteers, the military, the National Guard, the Coast Guard, all of our military resources--the Navy even put two ships off the Texas coast to bring in supplies and help--all the volunteers, the first responders, the firefighters, EMS, police, and other agencies that came together to work together to deal with Harvey and not accept defeat, but only accept victory. And that is just the way it is. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green), my friend.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, as Hurricane Harvey rampaged across Texas, the heavens opened up and 50 inches of rain hammered down on the Houston area. After 2 days of hard rain, on August 27, 60-year-old Houston Police Officer Sergeant Steve Perez got up, as he does every morning, put on the badge, the shield over his heart, and began to drive to work to help rescue flood victims. It was dangerous. The floodwaters were high and constantly rising. People's homes and businesses were flooding. Perez's wife even asked him not to go that day. But, Mr. Speaker, Sergeant Perez knew the people of Houston were counting on him. He made a wrong turn when he was headed to work, fighting the flooded streets. Because of that, the 34-year veteran of the force, Sergeant Perez, died in the floodwaters. He gave his life for the thin blue line, the line that protects and serves the rest of us. Officers like Sergeant Perez are just a cut above the rest of us. They willingly put themselves into harm's way for their communities, and their motto is to protect and to serve. Houston will remember Texas lawman Sergeant Perez as one of their own, putting his life on the line during one of the worst natural disasters in Texas history. Next week, as hundreds of officers from all over the State of Texas and other States stand in silence, taps will be played for the end of watch for Sergeant Perez. Sergeant Perez is one of the rare breed--the Texas breed of law officers that sacrifice for the rest of us. While we mourn the loss of Sergeant Perez, we thank the good Lord that such men ever lived. And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, my Houston area has suffered a historic hurricane, one that really changed the lives of all the people who were affected. My district was hammered by this flood. To put it in perspective, 27 trillion gallons of rain fell over Texas and parts of Louisiana in the 6 days of the flood. That is enough water to file the Houston Astrodome 85,000 times. At the height of the flood, 70 percent of Harris County, which is the Houston area, was flooded, 70 percent was underwater. The devastation in Texas equalled, Mr. Speaker, the size of New Jersey. You place New Jersey in southeast Texas, that is how much of the area was affected by this flood and the rain. People had anywhere between 36 and 52 inches of rain. The Weather Service had to create a new color, purple, on their maps to show how much rain had fallen. Nothing like this has ever happened in North America. 72,000 people were rescued by first responders and volunteers from high water. This is the largest civilian water evacuation since Dunkirk. Thousands of civilian volunteers worked along with city and county first responders to save countless lives. The heroes came from all walks of life, from all parts of the country. The attitude of the people of Texas was one of inspiration. Flooded victims who didn't know each other, their homes were flooded, but they were helping other flooded victims get to safety and get what property they could recover. This heroism reminded me what it means to be a Texan and an American. Mr. Speaker, Harvey will not defeat the human spirit. There were two men in Brownwood. Now, you know where Brownwood, Texas, is. Probably nobody else ever heard of it. That is in way west Texas. They decided they wanted to help. They got in their pickup trucks. They drove to Austin, Texas, which is still 200 miles away from Houston. They went to a sports place there and bought a bass boat, a trailer, a motor, and filled it up with all kinds of stuff, drove to Houston, Texas, and kept working for others. That is one of many stories. So this supplemental is important to southeast Texas. Let this vote show that we will vote not for politics, but for people. And that is just the way it is.

Mr. POE of Texas

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk today about a person, a person that I never got to meet, but this is her story, and this is her story from her point of view and the information that I have received from people who knew her, including her parents, her aunt, and some of her friends. And, like I said, I don't know the real facts of this case. I am just giving you my opinion, and I am here today to tell Megan Rondini's story, because she can't tell her case, Mr. Speaker. I am co-chair of the Victims' Rights Caucus, along with the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa), my friend. I was a former prosecutor in Houston, Texas, for 8 years. I tried felony cases. And then I was a criminal court judge for 22 years, seeing all kinds of violations of the law. I mention that because that is the background from which I speak. Over that time, I knew a lot of victims of crime. Too many victims of crime worked their way through the courthouse. I am going to talk about another one today: Megan Rondini. She was 19 or 20 when she was a student at the University of Alabama, and on July 1, 2015, Megan and some of her friends, sorority friends, went to a nearby bar, as we would term it in the old days, where a lot of students in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, went for meeting other folks and hanging out. She came in contact with an individual whose name was Terry Jackson Bunn, Jr. His nickname was Sweet T. Sweet T--being from the South, you can understand somebody being called that, Mr. Speaker. He was a patron of this establishment. He was older. He was in his early thirties. Megan was approximately 20. He invited her to go over to his house, to look at his house, because he and his family live in a big mansion in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She agreed to go. He went with another individual that he knew, and they went over to his house. They go upstairs, and here is where the problem and the crime apparently started. He takes her into his bedroom. She says: This is not a good idea. She may have been intoxicated, but apparently later during that evening, she is drugged or under the influence of drugs and really was not coherent during this time, according to her, later. He sexually assaulted her. She did not consent. She did not consent. And she, from that day on, told everybody who talked to her about this case she did not consent. He had sexual intercourse with her. He falls asleep on the bed. She gets up. She tries to get out of this upstairs room. There is a dead bolt on the door, apparently. She couldn't get out. She couldn't figure out how to get out, so she climbs out the second-story window in the middle of the night and jumps from the second-story window to a trash can on the ground. She doesn't have her keys. She didn't know where they are. So his car is parked there, a Mercedes, sleek Mercedes, which he picked her up in earlier. She gets in the car, looks for her keys. She doesn't have any money, so she takes money out of the vehicle to call a cab, to pay for the cab so she could get away, and the cab later shows up. During this time, she is texting her friends, asking for them to come get her. The text messages maybe didn't make a whole lot of sense because of the condition that she is in. She eventually gets to the hospital, the place where sexual assault victims usually go first to get medical attention. She goes to the hospital there in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and while there, she told her story, even though she was somewhat still under the influence of drugs, probably. And while there, a Women and Gender Resource Center advocate shows up at the hospital. The hospital people take what we call in the vernacular in law enforcement, as you used to be, a rape kit. It is called a sexual assault kit now. They take that sexual assault kit and they perform that examination, but they didn't take any blood and they didn't take any urine and they didn't test Megan for whether she was under the influence of drugs. They did the sexual assault kit. Along the route, the sexual assault kit gets to the sheriff's department, and we don't know what happened to it after that. It was never tested. As far as I know, it hasn't been tested yet. They don't know where it is. Maybe the sheriff's department has it, maybe they don't, but that sexual assault kit, like I said, was never tested. So after she is there, or while she is there, the police, the sheriff's department show up and they question her briefly. It appears that these two homicide detectives heard her story, and they didn't take any notes about it. They just listened to her story. What transpired there maybe was not a lot of information given to the police, except she told her story. She told the police she didn't consent, that she may be under the influence of drugs, drug-induced rape, and they left. The next morning, Megan, staying up all this time, the police, either at the first or the second interview, wanted to know why she didn't physically resist, why she didn't fight back this older man. And she was under the influence of drugs. Under most laws in most States, she couldn't physically fight back, and that is the lack of consent. She didn't give consent. And it is still sexual assault, but apparently not so to the sheriff's department in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She didn't fight back. Now, I am older than you are, Mr. Speaker, but I remember the days of these old, archaic rape laws where, in many States, the victim had to fight almost until death. The statutory limitation on sexual assault or rape was 1 year. That is when the victim only had a year to have that case indicted. And there are some other things about the old law that we both know, but I will get to that, hopefully, later. But it was obvious to her, either at the first interview and at least the second interview, the sheriff's department did not believe her. When she told them who the alleged perpetrator was, Sweet T Bunn, they seemed to back off the prosecution. Sweet T Bunn comes from a family in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, well-known, prominent citizens. The Bunn folks run a construction company, probably built every road in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Everybody knew who they were. And they backed off, according to her, of the investigation, still not taking, apparently, any real notes. On the second interview later that morning with the police, the police started accusing her of committing a crime. So the victim no longer is the victim, but becomes the accused, the defendant, about the money that she took from Bunn's car so she could get a cab to flee the perpetrator. The police interviewed TJ Bunn. He first denied she was ever at his mansion, and then later he changed his story, as accused individuals tend to do, and then said it was consent, that she consented to everything and that this is not a criminal case. And the police further backed off and then later said to Megan: We think we are going to prosecute you for theft of that money to get home and get away from the offender unless you drop the charges, the accusations against Sweet T. Mr. Speaker, we need, as a community, to understand and put ourselves in the place of this girl who is alone. And I believe, all through that night, she made the best decisions she could to get help, and everywhere she turned, people turned her down. Now, I don't know what most victims would do in this case, but she didn't know what to do. She called her mom in Austin, Texas. Mom quickly gets in her car and starts driving to Alabama, as mothers do, wanting to know how she should handle this particular situation: she is becoming the accused. And that is the trump card that the police put on her: You back off the prosecution, and we won't prosecute you for theft and maybe other crimes that you committed. So Megan left, not knowing what to do. So the sheriff's department doesn't believe her, doesn't want to believe her, and takes the alleged perpetrator and makes him the victim and makes her the accused individual. So the sheriff's department has the rape kit--never tested. The sheriff's department is accusing the victim of committing a crime. So she seeks relief from the University of Alabama. She goes there and she talks to a lady who was a counselor for students at the University of Alabama, a female, and tells her the whole story again: No consent; I was sexually assaulted. After the story is told to the counselor, the counselor apparently says: I can't help you. I know the Bunn family. I have a relative that works for Bunn Construction. I cannot help you, and I am backing off and recusing myself of this case--the counselor. What does Megan do? Well, the university gives her another counselor, who I wouldn't say is a real counselor. It is a graduate assistant. And the graduate assistant talks to Megan and says: ``I can't talk to you until you take medication for your anxiety.'' Well, no kidding she has anxiety because of what has happened to her over these several hours. And that was the last we heard of the University of Alabama physical therapist. She backs off because she has anxiety. The district attorney, eventually, about 3 weeks later, said: We are not prosecuting this case. No case, no sexual assault, believes the sheriff's department, believes it is consent, and they are not prosecuting the case. Later, it turns out, Mr. Speaker, and I don't know if this influenced these people's decisions or not, but we learn that the defendant's family, the construction company, gave financial contributions to the sheriff's department, to the district attorney's office campaign, and to the University of Alabama, where they apparently are big contributors. I don't know if that influenced all of this or not, but you can take it for what you want. But anyway, they backed off the case. Megan, because it is the summer break, leaves and goes back home to Texas. She wants to get away from the University of Alabama because she had seen the defendant on campus. He is not a student there. She had told the people on the campus: I am very worried about me because of this person being on campus. She leaves the university, asking the title IX folks to help her transfer her university education from the University of Alabama to SMU, and she leaves. Apparently, she did not get cooperation, according to her, for a couple of months from the title IX folks, which is another issue that I am not going to go into, and enrolls in the university at SMU, needing a letter from Alabama to get into another university, as all kids need to have nowadays. She is at SMU. She seeks medical help in Texas. The doctor told her that the findings were apparently post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, all from this criminal case that happened against her, always telling folks she didn't consent. She never changed her rendition of the case. She wasn't doing very well. She saw a counselor at SMU and wanted help with depression when she is filling out her medical history form that goes to the university at SMU in Dallas, Texas. She said she had mental issues. She said that she had bad thoughts about living. And then later, on February 26, 2016, with that form laying next to her, Megan committed suicide. She took her life. Why? My opinion, because she never got any help. She couldn't get help from the hospital because of the urine test; no drug test, no blood test; the rape kit never analyzed by the police department, sheriff's department; the sheriff's department didn't believe her? Like I said, in my opinion, they didn't want to believe her. The university didn't help her. They gave her a graduate assistant to try to help her with her mental case, told her to get on medication. Mr. Speaker, Megan did everything that she should have done under those situations. It is easy for society, in cases like this, to always say to victims of crime, especially rape cases: You should have done this; you shouldn't have done that. And there is a lot of second-guessing going on in this case by a lot of people. But, as a prosecutor, former judge, I think she did the best she could to get help, and she got no help. When people are desperate, when they feel like nobody cares, that nobody is going to help them, in a sexual assault case, where--to me, that is one of the worst crimes that can be committed against a person--they are desperate, and she didn't think life was worth living because of this case. Over the years, I have learned a lot from sexual assault victims, and one thing that they all want is validation. They want validation from us--community, society, government--that that act they said happened to them did happen. That is what they want. Sometimes they want that more than prosecution or apprehension of the offender, is validation that we believe them. She didn't get that validation, except for her family, and so she took her own life. What a tragedy. So that is why I am here today. Megan can't talk about what happened to her, but we can. We, as Members of Congress, are really in the people business, and that is why I am in Congress. I know that is why you are in Congress. So what are we going to do about this? What has happened in the interim? Well, at the hospital, because of the failures--no drug testing, no urine testing, the loss of the sexual assault kit, rape kit, or not being analyzed--myself, Carolyn Maloney, Democrat from New York, and also, Terri Sewell, who represents this area in Alabama, have filed the Megan Rondini Act on her behalf. Now, what does that do? So this legislation will require hospitals in our country, wherever they are, to have a SAFE at that hospital. What is a SAFE? It is a Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner. Some hospitals do, some don't; but this law will require you have one at your hospital 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, or be able to take a sexual assault victim to one place close by that has this type of examiner. It is a special recognition for people in the sexual assault business, whether they are a nurse or whether they are a doctor, and we filed that legislation. Maybe that would have helped in this case where the sexual assault examiner would have finished the examination, made sure that the testing was done, or had some examiner near this hospital. So we filed this. It is called the Megan Rondini Act. That is one of the pieces of legislation we filed. I want to talk about the law enforcement agency. Now, you know as much about law enforcement as anybody in Congress, but let me tell you the way I see this. They never tested the sexual assault kit, the rape kit, the urine sample. They questioned her because why didn't she resist? Why didn't she fight back? When a person is drug-induced in a sexual assault, they can't fight back. They certainly can't consent, but that is what they were asking her, even though that didn't apply in this case. She couldn't fight back. She didn't fight back because of what happened to her when she was drugged or under the influence of something. And then they accused her of being a criminal. Rather than examining her case and finishing her case, they went on to take the defendant's position, say they believed him, even though he gave contradictory stories later in this investigation. We have a piece of legislation that has already been filed to deal with sexual assault kits, and I have introduced legislation today to reauthorize SAFER. SAFER is a piece of legislation Congress needs to reauthorize to have rape kits throughout the country examined. There are thousands of sexual assault cases sitting on the shelves, sitting in warehouses; some have been destroyed they are so old, where law enforcement, government, has not analyzed those sexual assault rape kits. There are a lot of excuses made--there is not money, all of those things. They need to be examined in all criminal cases. SAFER provides funding to do that so that the backlogged evidence gets tested and so that it convicts the guilty and clears the innocent. That is the second piece of legislation that we have filed. The district attorney's office, after Megan committed suicide, after they had refused to do anything about the case, almost a year later, they took the case to a grand jury, and it was not indicted. It was no- billed. Now, I have presented cases to the grand jury. I am sure you have testified before grand juries. Unfortunately, some district attorneys, I am not saying all, or even most--the grand jury does the will of the district attorney. If the district attorney encourages an indictment, that person is indicted. If they encourage and recommend a no-bill, not indicted, grand juries will do that. Some prosecutors don't offer advice. They let the grand jury make that decision because that is their decision. I don't know if that happened in this case or not. But they did decide to present the case to a grand jury, and it was not indicted. She was not indicted, or the defendant was not indicted. Of course, nothing could happen to her. She has already taken her own life. The university made some mistakes, in my opinion. The school victim advocate abandoned her at the hospital where she was. On campus, the counselor, even though hearing the case, full story, at the end--this is interesting--at the end, decided to recuse herself because she knew the Bunn family. She knew the Bunn family when this interview started. Why didn't she recuse herself before the victim tells the story again to another person, to another stranger? Interesting turn of events. Graduate assistant, in my opinion, didn't have any qualifications to order that she get medical treatment before she comes back to talk to the folks at the hospital. We have filed a resolution, it is a sense of Congress resolution, Mr. Speaker, calling on all universities to employ a full-time victim advocate on campus who deals with sexual assault victims, have that expertise. And it is an expertise. A victim advocate needs to be specified to be a sexual assault victim advocate, because, you can talk about a victim advocate, that could be somebody talking about a theft case or something, but you need a sexual assault victim advocate on campus, no matter what university this happens to be. It is a sense of Congress. It is a resolution that has been filed today. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have left?

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, let me--this is Megan Rondini. This is the way she looked when she was a student. We have heard a lot about her, as we should. But now I want to talk about the family of the alleged perpetrator, Sweet T, and the Bunn family. Well-known business in the community. Good for them. Business is doing well. They give money to the university. As I mentioned, apparently they give money to the campaigns of the sheriff and the district attorney, and they make other contributions throughout the Tuscaloosa region. Apparently, everybody knows them. They are so concerned about this case that this is a full-page ad taken out of one of the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, newspapers this week defending their honor, as we would say in the South. And it goes into quite a bit of detail. What it does is attack the victim of this crime. It almost justifies the defendant's, the accused's, position. All through this ad, they talk about a lot of things. I want to read you just part of it. Here's just one paragraph talking about their three generations of civic involvement in Tuscaloosa, Alabama: We support education. We support law enforcement. We support our hospital and civic. We are generous, and now we are condemned as if it is a conspiracy. The Bunn family, for more than 70 years, have given their time, energy, and resources to make our community a better place to live. Now, according to some journalists, every act of charity and good citizenship was nothing more than a large standing conspiracy. If no deed goes unpunished then why should anyone invest in our community to take the risk of being a good citizen? They are defending their honor. They are defending Sweet T. And all through this ad, taken out this week, they never mention sympathy or compassion or sadness for the death of the victim in this crime. That seems very strange to me. Regardless of guilt or innocence, we know that a person took their life because of what happened. I find that very strange. They seem to protest too much--full-page ad in a local newspaper. The parents of Megan, Mike and Cindy Rondini, they are just folks who live in Austin, Texas. Robin, the aunt, she is a constituent of mine in Houston. And just listening to them talk, there sure is a different side of the story about compassion than what we hear from the Bunn folks. Mr. Speaker, I will try to sum this up. I appreciate your patience. I mentioned I have known a lot of sexual assault victims. Years ago, before you were born, I was prosecuting in Houston, Texas. I am going to change the name of the victim in this case because of concerns about privacy for her family. Lisa was a student at the University of Houston, working a second job. She leaves school one evening at about 9 o'clock p.m. or so. She is driving north on one of our interstates--or freeways, as we call them. She has car trouble. She pulls off the freeway, goes to a service station she thought was open. It was not open. An individual comes up to her, has a pistol--Luke, we will call him-- kidnaps her, sexually assaults her, and abandons her. She is later found in a very traumatic emotional state somewhere in the area. The police are called. They figure out who the perpetrator was, they go out and arrest him, investigate the case. One thing I want to mention that happens in most cases that didn't happen in Megan's case, the police didn't talk to any witnesses. They didn't talk to the witnesses at the bar. They didn't talk to any of Megan's friends. They didn't talk to anybody. They just talked to the alleged perpetrator and to Megan. No investigation. Anyway, the investigation is done, Luke is captured. It turns out he is an ex-con for sexual assault--rape, as we called it in those days. Lisa convinced herself that she would testify. She comes to the courthouse. I prosecuted the case. She went through every detail. And you remember, Mr. Speaker, years ago, before the law started having justice in it, sexual assault victims had to tell their whole sexual life before strangers. Of course the defendant, you never could go into the sexual life of the defendant, but the defense could always go into it on a victim. She goes through the trial. Twelve right-thinking folks on a jury convicted the offender. That same jury gave him 99 years in the penitentiary of Texas, what he earned, what he deserved. We would hope that life would go on, that justice is done, and that everybody is satisfied that justice is done. But that doesn't always work. Lisa lost her job, dropped out of school, started abusing alcohol, drugs, a lot of stuff. She married, had two kids. Her husband, being the kind of guy he was, apparently decided to leave her and took the two kids and went somewhere else. It wasn't long after that I got a call from Lisa's mom telling me that she had taken her own life and left a note saying: ``I am tired of running from Luke in my nightmares.'' Another victim years ago, and I give her example only because we need to understand that this is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. One other case. I prosecuted a case where a guy was charged with sexually assaulting an elderly woman. She came to the courthouse to testify. Sadie. I will use her first name. She was dressed in a dark gray suit, long skirt, double-breasted coat. She had on a dark gray hat and a little veil over her face. She took the witness stand. I asked her: What happened when this perpetrator that you have identified came into your house? She said: He committed an act worse than death. I asked: What do you mean? What did he do? Did he assault you? What did he do? She said: He committed an act worse than death. Finally, she testified to the legal requirement of penetration. To some sexual assault victims, rape is a fate worse than death. To Megan, she got the death penalty for being a sexual assault victim. She couldn't quite handle it. Why? Because no one was there to make sure that she did handle it. Mr. Speaker, sexual assault predators--and that is what they are. You can call it rape, you can call it sexual assault, you can call it a fate worse than death--sometimes steal the soul of the victim. That is the way the victims feel. Everything that was important to them is gone because of the perpetrator. I think the best evidence, unfortunately, that Megan, in my opinion, was telling the truth throughout all of this was that she took her life. That is what makes this case so sad. Sexual assault or rape, Mr. Speaker, is never the fault of the victim. Never. Never. And some folks want to look at this and say: Megan, you should have done this, you should have done that, you shouldn't have gone with him, you shouldn't have been drunk, you shouldn't have allowed him to get you intoxicated on drugs, whatever. I think most of them do the best they can in trying to get justice. She went to the hospital and was denied help. The sheriff's department, in her opinion, denied help. In fact, they accused her of being the perpetrator. They didn't investigate, they didn't talk to witnesses. She goes to a university that gets Federal funds trying to get help and was denied. Denied. Denied. Denied. She leaves, she goes back to Texas, tries to enroll in another university, and before all that is completed, she takes her life. I hope we can understand not just this case and not just Megan, but we can understand the plight and the awful things that happen to some of our young women in our country. The same Constitution that protects defendants of crime, protects victims of crime. They are entitled to equal protection under the law. I am talking about victims of crime. If we understand that principle, we will understand justice. We will understand what we are all about; that we are in the people business. In this House of Representatives on this late Friday afternoon, we need to understand that. Justice means different things to different folks. But justice must be balanced between the rights of the accused and the rights of the victim so that we do the right thing for the right reason in every case. Mr. Speaker, you know this in doing investigations in your capacity before, and I want to reiterate this. Sometimes victims just never get over it. They just never do. We should be there with them. I am talking about the community should be there with them and at least hear them out and make a rational and just decision, regardless of who the offender is: poor, rich, famous, somebody in the community, big contributor, whatever; and no matter who the victim is, same background: poor, rich, famous. That should go away in determining justice. Otherwise, we don't have justice for all. We only have justice for a few. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time, I appreciate the patience of the House of Representatives when I wanted to talk today about Megan Rondini. This case bothers me as a father of four kids, three of them girls; twelve grandchildren, eight of them girls. It bothers me as a Member of the House of Representatives and as a former person who worked at the courthouse for over 30 years. I hope it bothers the House of Representatives so we move forward with trying to get help for folks like this, that we pass legislation that requires a safe officer at hospitals, that we pass legislation as a House resolution that it is a sense of Congress that all universities have on campus a sexual assault victim's advocate or coordinator, as the law says. I thank Carolyn Maloney from New York and Terri Sewell from Alabama, who represents this area, for cosponsoring this bill. I ask the leadership to move this legislation forward. But let's not forget about Megan's family and Megan's case and the thing that happened to her that just can't happen anymore. Justice can be served, it shall be served, because justice is what we do, Mr. Speaker. And that is just the way it is. Mr. Speaker, I would ask how much time is left.