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Fighting crime has been Chuck's mission throughout his career.
His major initiatives include:
- Keeping Guns Away from Criminals: Chuck has long been
a strong supporter of reasonable gun control legislation. He believes
in strict enforcement of current gun laws and tough penalties
to those who violate them. He was one of the Senate's leading
advocates of closing the gun show loophole that allows criminals
to evade existing rules and purchase deadly weapons, and he's
fought the Justice Department's attempts to impede the FBI's ability
to conduct effective background checks. Chuck strongly supports
the reauthorization of and Assault Weapons Ban that President
Bush allowed to expire, and challenged retailers such as Wal-Mart
not to resume the sale of guns when the ban expired in September
2004.
- Stopping Sex Offenders: Chuck cosponsored the Sex Offender
Registration and Notification Act, which establishes a national
sex offender registry and ensures punishment for convicted sex
offenders who fail to register, or those who fail to change their
registration information when they move or change jobs. This bill
passed in the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 20, 2005
- Human Trafficking and Smuggling: Chuck was one of two
senators to cosponsor the Trafficking Victims Reauthorization
Act. This important piece of legislation was the first of its
kind to recognize the global problem of human trafficking and
award amnesty to victims trafficked into the U.S. through the
“T-Visa” program. Chuck also cosponsored the PROTECT
Act of 2003, which imposed tough penalties for those who prey
on our children, in addition to authorizing a budget increase
for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
- Violence Against Women Act (VAWA): Ever since authoring
the original House version of the Violence Against Women Act,
Chuck has been an advocate of VAWA and the programs its grants
have supported. In July of 2005, he helped to ensure the passage
of the VAWA reauthorization in the Senate by unanimous consent.
In September of 2005, Chuck helped St Lawrence University (Canton,
NY) obtain a Department of Justice grant to help fight domestic
violence on its campus.
- Preventing a Nation-Wide Meth Epidemic and Cracking Down
on Meth Labs: In May 2004, Chuck introduced a bill to make
the penalties for selling methamphetamine the same as for selling
crack cocaine. The bill makes the threshold amounts of meth which
trigger tough federal penalties the same as those for crack cocaine,
regardless of the purity of the drug. He also is a cosponsor of
the Combat Meth Act of 2005, which regulates the sale of pseudoephedrine,
an over-the-counter cold medication that is one of the chief ingredients
of meth. Chuck also serves as a member of the bipartisan Senate
Anti-Meth Caucus. For his work on this important issue, Chuck
was awarded the prestigious Guardian Award from the Partnership
for a Drug-Free America.
- The Second Chance Act of 2005: Chuck believes that
there are many effective ways to fight crime, and that one of
them is to target young people who have taken small steps down
the wrong track and give them a chance to head in the right direction.
For that reason, he is a cosponsor of the Second Chance Act of
2005, a bill that would authorize grants to civic, community,
and faith-based programs that help recently-released ex-convicts
find housing, jobs and ensure that they stay drug-free. Chuck
believes that such programs are crucial to reducing recidivism
rates, and in early 2005 he pressed the Department of Justice
to keep in place its program targeting young, non-violent convicts.
For a complete index of crime related press releases, please click
here.
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