WASHINGTON, DC - Frustrated by the refusal of the House Majority Leadership to hold a full floor vote on Schiff’s legislation (H.Res 193) to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, U.S. Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) sent a letter today to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) requesting an immediate floor vote on the resolution. Citing the unanimous passage of the resolution in the House Judiciary Committee and the strong bipartisan support behind it (110 cosponsors), Schiff and Pallone requested that House Leadership allow a vote on the legislation to commemorate November 4th as the 15th anniversary of the enactment of the Genocide Convention Implementation Act.
Reps. Schiff and Pallone wrote:
Dear Speaker Hastert:
On May 21, 2003, the House Judiciary Committee unanimously reported H.Res.193, a bipartisan resolution reaffirming support of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in anticipation of the 15th anniversary of the enactment of the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987. We are writing to request that you allow the full House to consider this important resolution, as this month of November marks this important milestone.
In 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust, the international community responded to Nazi Germany's methodically orchestrated acts of genocide by approving the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Convention confirms that genocide is a crime under international law and defines genocide as actions committed with intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
The United States, under President Harry Truman, was the first nation to sign the Convention, and it was ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1986. Following the Senate ratification of the Convention, Congress passed the Proxmire Act to implement the Convention and criminalize genocide under U.S. law. This month marks the 15th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan signing the Proxmire Act and putting the United States on record as being strongly opposed to the heinous crime of genocide.
In order to commemorate the anniversary of the U.S. becoming a full party to this landmark international human rights legislation, we must reaffirm our national resolve to ensure that the horrors of genocide are never again unleashed upon any group or nation.
This bipartisan piece of legislation, cosponsored by 110 Members, accomplishes this weighty goal and pays homage to the memory of the millions of innocent victims of the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide and the genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, among others, and honors the courage of the survivors.
We greatly appreciate your attention to this request, and we hope that you will grant us the opportunity for the House to consider this important piece of legislation.
Sincerely,
ADAM B. SCHIFF
MEMBER OF CONGRESS
FRANK PALLONE, JR.
MEMBER OF CONGRESs