we must act to reauthorize vawa to provide survivors with the assistance they need to recover. it sends important messages to crimes of sexual assault, dating violence are not tolerated in this country and we will continue to support survivors. thank you, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i want to join my colleagues here on the importance of the vawa reauthorization, and in particular i want to thank senator ernst for her months, months of hard work that she has put into this bill that we are introducing today. i'm a proud cosponsor of that bill. but you saw in her remarks earlier, her passion, her energy, her focus on rural america, which is very important to me and my great state of alaska. and i am hopeful, as all of my colleagues here, including our friend from california, senator feinstein, that we, the senate, are going to get to a place where we can have a bipartisan bill that is going to reauthorize vawa. this is hugely important for america and it's hugely important for alaska. you know, mr. president,

earlier this year our democratic colleagues allowed vawa to get caught in the crosshairs of a funding debate when they insisted we should not fund this vital program because it's overdue for updates. this is a rash move to be sure that lines up with my, my way or the highway legislative strategy sometimes deployed by our friends on the other side. but that hasn't stopped my republican colleagues led by senator joni ernst from iowa from pursuing a compromise. for many months now senator ernst has been working with senator dianne feinstein, the senator from california, to find ways to make improvements that both sides can agree on. that's the way things get done around here. you try to build consensus, and maybe you don't get everything you want. but if you can get 80% of what you want, you ought to take it and run. but last week unfortunately democrats walked away from the negotiating table when it came to the violence against women act. rather than continuing the discussions with the opposing people -- people of opposing views, they took the easy way out and simply walked away and int

democrats are putting politics ahead of people and have decided to move forward on the house-passed vawa bill. the house bill is a nonstarter and is chock full of partisan political talking points that take us further away from rather than closer to a bill we can get over the finish line. mr. president, i'm all too aware of how this town works. election-year politics are in full swing. and the grim reality is democrats cannot afford to be seen giving republicans a win. the far-left agenda of the house has hijacked the process. it sounds petty and it sounds unbelievable, but, folks, that's the reality. you would think that supporting survivors and preventing abuse would be placed ahead of petty politics. i want to be clear. i remain hopeful that we can continue to work in a bipartisan way and get this law reauthorized. soon i plan to respond with a good-faith proposal of my own. this bill will support survivors and hold abusers accountability. it's also a bill that i believe can pass the senate and get the president's signature. i invite my colleagues across the aisle to join me in this v