03/18/2024

Rep. Robert Pittenger

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WASHINGTON – In December 2013, a young Texas girl witnessed her mother being murdered by the mother’s estranged husband.  As she had been taught to do, the girl picked up the phone and dialed 911 for help.  Tragically, her call never reached 911 because the girl didn’t know she first needed to dial “9” to reach an outside line.

This week, Congressman Robert Pittenger (NC-09) joined Congressman Louie Gohmert (TX-01) to introduce the Kari’s Law Act of 2017 (H.R. 582), which would ensure that anyone who dials 911 immediately reach emergency personnel, even if that phone would typically require dialing “9” to reach an outside line.  Named after that little girl’s mother, Kari’s Law simply requires anyone who manufactures or installs multi-line phone systems pre-configure the system to directly dial 911.

“We teach our children from an early age to dial 911 in an emergency.  But even adults don’t always remember to dial that extra ‘9’ when calling 911 from work.  This simple, common sense legislation will help save lives by making it easier to reach 911,” said Congressman Pittenger.

The Kari’s Law Act of 2017 (H.R. 582), which was introduced with strong bipartisan support, passed the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously on Monday and has now been referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

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