Montana’s Democratic Senator Jon Tester spoke on the U.S. Senate floor Tuesday urging his colleagues to pass a handful of federal bills aimed at addressing what’s been called a crisis of missing and murdered Native American women and girls.
“Now this bill directs the GAO [Government Accountability Office] to conduct a full review of how federal agencies respond to reports of missing and murdered Native Americans and recommends solutions based on their findings,” Tester said.
Tester introduced the Studying the Missing and Murdered Indian Epidemic Act of 2019 in February. Montana’s Republican Senator Steve Daines is a co-sponsor. Now they’re part of a bipartisan, bicameral group asking the Government Accountability Office to move forward with the review as the authorizing bill makes its way through Congress.