It's been over a year since we posted ND senators introduce two bills to address epidemic of missing & murdered Native women. On December 7, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved Savanna's Act, but now faces unanticipated opposition from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia.
Goodlatte is retiring from the U.S. House of Representatives, while Heitkamp was defeated in November's election.
Forum Communications' Barry Amundson reports in Heitkamp: House member playing 'petty' politics blocks Savanna's Act:
U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., is fuming over a U.S. House member's efforts to block Savanna's Act, legislation aimed at addressing the epidemic of Native American women and girls who experience violence in their lives, especially on rural reservations across the nation.
The bill named for Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, a pregnant Fargo woman who was abducted and killed last year in a baby-snatching case, was passed by the U.S. Senate as a unanimous consent bill on Dec. 7.
The bill, introduced by Heitkamp, would improve collection of data on tribal victims, improve tribal access to federal law enforcement databases and create guidelines for responding when someone is reported missing.
But word surfaced Friday, Dec. 14, that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia who is retiring, is blocking the measure.
Heitkamp said Goodlatte is simply playing "petty partisan games."
“If Savanna’s Act doesn’t pass in the next few days, it would have to be reintroduced in the next Congress, and the process would start from square one," Heitkamp said in a statement on Friday. "We are so close to passing this critical bill to help address the crisis of missing and murdered Native American women, and getting it signed into law.
"The actions of one Congressman shouldn’t stop us from improving tribal access to law enforcement databases and preventing the cycle of exploitation, abuse, and violence in Indian Country," she said.
The House also has a consent calendar similar to the Senate where the bill could sail through. But according to Heitkamp's office, a powerful committee chairman can exert influence over the House leadership, still under Republican control for another week, to prevent a vote. That apparently is what chairman Goodlatte has done.
"I’d like to see Congressman Goodlatte actually visit a reservation in North Dakota and explain to the families of victims why he is blocking this bill," Heitkamp said. "Unlike Congressman Goodlatte, I am serious about saving lives and making sure Native American women are invisible no longer — and I’m determined to not let Savanna’s Act go down without a fight." ...
Heitkamp said residents should contact Goodlatte's office at 202-225-5431 and that she hoped members of Congress would also put pressure on Goodlatte to stop his actions and pass the bill in the coming days.
We share Heitkamp's anger. When the bill was introduced on the floor of the Senate, Heitkamp told the story--among others--of Lakota Rae Renville, a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribe of North and South Dakota, who was forced into sex trafficking and murdered. She is the cousin of our romantic partner; the extended family has had no justice.
Give Congressman Goodlatte a call.
Photo: Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, Spirit Lake Dakota and Turtle Mountain Chippewa, who was eight months pregnant when she was brutally murdered and her child cut from her womb. Indigenous journalist Sarah Sunshine Manning captures the grieving in native communities following Greywind's horrific death in an August 2017 column.
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