Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Walorski Introduces Legislation to Seek Justice for Illicit Fentanyl Victims
“Someone must pay for this devastation.”
WASHINGTON – U.S. Representative Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), as first reported by WNDU, today introduced the Civil Justice for Victims of International Fentanyl Trafficking Act. This legislation would allow fentanyl victims or their families to pursue civil action against a foreign state to seek accountability for those who have refused to deter drug traffickers and cartels. China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances, which often are trafficked across our porous border by criminal drug networks from Mexico.
“Illicit fentanyl is killing young Hoosiers faster than ever. With this deadly drug flooding across the southern border and into our communities, every town in Michiana is a border town. All too often, illicit fentanyl is made in China, sent to Mexico, and then trafficked across the border and into our neighborhoods. Someone must pay for this devastation,” said Congresswoman Walorski. “My legislation will empower victims and their loved ones to seek justice and accountability from nations that refuse to apprehend those responsible for illicit drug trafficking, such as China and Mexico. Since President Biden refuses to stop the wicked cartels and criminals that prey on Americans, I will keep fighting to secure the border and save Hoosiers’ lives.”
This morning:
U.S. lawmaker Walorski, two staffers die in Indiana car crash
WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Walorski and two members of her staff died on Wednesday when the vehicle they were traveling in collided head-on with a car that veered into their lane, police in Indiana and her office said.
Walorski, 58, a Republican who represented Indiana's 2nd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, was mourned by President Joe Biden and her colleagues in Congress as an honorable public servant who strived to work across party lines to deliver for her constituents. The White House said it would fly flags at half-staff in her memory.
The congresswoman had been traveling down an Indiana road on Wednesday afternoon with her communications chief, Emma Thomson, 28, and one of her district directors, Zachery Potts, 27, the Elkhart County Sheriff's Office said.
"A northbound passenger car traveled left of center and collided head on" with Walorski's vehicle, killing all three occupants, the sheriff's office said. The driver of the other car, 56-year-old Edith Schmucker, was pronounced dead at the scene, near the northern Indiana town of Nappanee, it added.
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Walorski was a lifelong resident of Indiana, according to her official biography. She served on the House Ways and Means Committee and was the top Republican on the subcommittee on worker and family support.
Prior to her election in 2012 to the House, Walorski served three terms in the Indiana legislature, spent four years as a missionary in Romania along with her husband and worked as a television news reporter in South Bend, according to a biography posted on her congressional website.