Senators Try to Include Background Checks In Human Trafficking Bill

If the anti-human-trafficking legislation moving through the U.S. Senate eventually gets a vote, it will likely include provisions to beef up background checks for school employees.

 

But those provisions probably won't come from an amendment offered by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who has been pushing the issue and his bill, the Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act, for years.

 

Education groups, including the two national teachers' unions and AASA, the School Superintendents Association, and a slew of civil rights groups, have been lobbying senators all week to oppose Toomey's proposal and instead support a background check amendment from Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

 

"While the Toomey amendment is well-intentioned, it fails to take steps to truly protect students or implement best practices to strengthen the background check system as a whole," wrote the National Education Association in a letter sent to senators Tuesday. "In contrast ... the Alexander amendment [as well as another from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.] methodically address issues and effect improvements in the background check process—everything from preventing backlogs and ensuring the accuracy of FBI criminal records to providing a robust appeals process and protecting confidentiality."

 

What's more, Alexander took to the Senate floor Wednesday evening to urge his colleagues to support his amendment over Toomey's, which he said would only bolster the U.S. Department of Education's role as "a National School Board," one of the Tennessee Republican's favorite phrases.