NNEDV Laments Failure to Pass Violence Against Women Act
Urges Lawmakers to Prioritize VAWA Early in 113th Congress
NNEDV
JANUARY 03, 2013
NNEDV is deeply disappointed over the failure of the 112th Congress to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Along with our nationwide network of service providers, advocates and national allies, we have worked diligently with Members of Congress to negotiate a strong, bipartisan VAWA that safely and effectively protects all victims.
"Victims were depending on Congress to pass VAWA," said Kim Gandy, President of NNEDV. "After two years, it is heartbreaking to tell them that Congress failed to pass a bill before its term ended."
While the Senate passed a strong, bipartisan bill that would provide avenues to safety for all victims, the House of Representatives was unable to pass a bill with comparable provisions. In the last few weeks, Members of both parties and in both chambers have been actively engaged in substantive negotiations. Unfortunately, the earnest discussions came too late.
"The 11th hour negotiations were too little, too late. We urge the new Congress to prioritize reauthorization of this vital legislation in the first weeks of 2013," said Gandy.
VAWA is the cornerstone of our nation's response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking, and because of VAWA, millions of victims have received lifesaving services and support. Despite VAWA's proven ability to substantially improve lives, it has not reached all victims. VAWA reauthorization provides an opportunity to build upon the successes of the current law by including key improvements. Among these necessary improvements are expanded protections, safety and access to justice for Native American, immigrant and LGBT victims, as well as victims on college campuses and in communities of color. Additionally, a reauthorized VAWA must include strengthened housing protections that provide emergency housing transfer options for survivors, as well as implementation of transparent and effective accountability measures that support and strengthen, rather than eliminate, those programs that assist victims.
NNEDV, its member coalitions and programs, its national partners, and all those dedicated to ensuring lifesaving and effective services for all victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking will return in the 113th Congress energized and ready to advocate for VAWA's reauthorization. "We stand firm in our commitment to see the passage of a strong, bipartisan bill that safely and effectively meets the needs of all victims, and we will not stop until all victims have access to the services they so desperately need and deserve," concluded Gandy.
Leahy Sets Guns, Immigration and Domestic Violence as Judiciary Committee Priorities
Roll Call
January 16, 2013
Gun control, immigration and a push to update domestic-violence laws will headline an aggressive Senate Judiciary agenda this year, the panel’s chairman said Wednesday.
In two weeks, the committee will “begin examining possible remedies to tragedies like last month’s shootings in Newtown,” Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., told an audience at Georgetown University Law Center.
As chairman, Leahy is poised to play a crucial role in any legislative response to the shooting spree that claimed 26 victims at an elementary school in the Connecticut town. The Jan. 30 hearing will be the first of several, Leahy said.
“I hope it’s going to be an open forum for a constructive discussion,” Leahy said. “Again, spare me symbolic arguments. Let’s have a constructive discussion about how better to protect our communities from mass shootings, while respecting fundamental rights guaranteed by our Supreme Court.”
Leahy, himself a gun owner, sought to dispel speculation that he might impede efforts to enact sweeping changes in gun laws.
“I’m going to hold the first hearings, and I think that should be an example that I’m committed to seeing something done,” Leahy told reporters before leaving to attend President Barack Obama’s announcement of the administration’s gun control proposals.
“I’m looking forward to reviewing the proposals the president is announcing today,” and “of course the Judiciary Committee will consider those proposals as we begin what will be the first of several hearings on this topic,” Leahy said.
During a nearly hour-long speech, Leahy said he supports an inclusive debate that would feature such issues as mental health, violence in popular media, gun safety and gun trafficking as well as limits on high-capacity magazines and assault weapons, background checks, and closing the so-called gun show loophole.
“As President Obama’s made clear, no single step can end this kind of violence,” Leahy said. But he cautioned that not every remedy proposed is likely to become a reality.
“The fact that we cannot do everything that could help should not paralyze us from doing anything that can help,” he said. “There are some who say nothing will pass. I disagree with that. What I’m interested in is what we can get.”
Also Wednesday, Leahy said he expects the Judiciary panel to “devote most of our time this spring [to] working to pass comprehensive immigration reform.” Public hearings on that issue will begin next month.
“Everybody who’s got views, I’m going to make sure they’re heard,” Leahy said. “I’ve talked with President Obama about this. I know he’s strongly committed to real immigration reform.”
“I’d like to see the DREAM Act get passed, I’d like to see a number of other things, and we’ll work on it,” Leahy said, adding that any truly comprehensive overhaul “should include a path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants.
Leahy also announced plans to renew his bid to update the landmark domestic-violence law known as the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA. A bipartisan Senate-passed bill fell victim last year to opposition from House lawmakers over provisions to expand services for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, illegal immigrants and Native Americans.
To “those who say that we should not pass it because we included [those groups of victims] … I have never seen a police officer at a crime scene say ‘Well, before we can do anything about this person who has been beaten, perhaps to death, we must make sure the person is straight, or the person is an American, or the person is not a Native American,’” said Leahy, a former prosecutor.
Leahy later told reporters he will offer the same Senate bill “except, I think, we can cure the blue-slip problem,” referring to a provision to expand a visa program for illegal immigrants who help law enforcement. The revenue-related language prompted constitutional objections from the House because it did not originate there.
Leahy also pledged to bring back an email privacy proposal that fell short last year, saying a November committee vote on the legislation was intended to “lay down the marker as a way of telling everybody it’s coming back up again.”
On judicial nominations, Leahy called out his opponents. Those who block confirmation votes are essentially voting “maybe,” he said. “What an irresponsible, lazy thing to do.”
Leahy also said he would like the Judiciary panel to examine the legal issues surrounding the use of government drones, both abroad and domestically.
He vowed to push for better standards and more oversight for forensic labs to spur “improvements that far more effectively identify and convict people guilty of crimes but avoid the all-too-common tragedy of convicting the innocent.”
And he pledged to examine mandatory minimum sentences, arguing the government’s reliance on them to punish criminals “has been a great mistake.”
“I’m not convinced it has lowered crime,” he said. “Get rid of these mandatory minimum sentences. Let judges act as judges and make up their own minds.”
Sloan: Secret Holds Are Filibuster’s Silent Partner in Stalling
Roll Call
January 23, 2013
As the Senate continues to wrangle over the details of the rules package it will soon take up, all of the attention appears to have centered on one obstructionist tactic: the filibuster. While my organization, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, strongly supports filibuster changes, another invisible tactic is also used to impede Senate business: the secret hold.
In 2007, Congress passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, hailed at the time as landmark ethics and transparency legislation. Notably, Section 512 of the law requires senators to reveal when they are “intending to object to a proceeding” — a parliamentary maneuver more commonly known as a “hold.” This move is frequently used to stall pieces of legislation and nominations, block votes or extract concessions. Notably, the 2007 law marked the first time the Senate had agreed to alter the “secret” aspect of the holds process, but it failed to include any kind of enforcement mechanism.
Two years later, after CREW’s research revealed that senators routinely violated the ban, we sent a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee asking it to investigate and discipline senators for continuing to place secret holds. We also suggested the committee offer guidance regarding the application of the prohibition.
The committee’s response? Violations of Senate parliamentary procedure are “outside the limited jurisdiction of the Committee.” In other words, the ban was meaningless. In 2011, thanks to the concerted efforts of Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, the Senate passed a resolution again attempting to tighten the rules, this time requiring senators to submit holds to their party leader and in writing to both the Congressional Record and the Senate legislative clerk within two days.
As CREW’s latest research shows, however, senators continue to employ secret holds to anonymously stall, and at times kill, crucial nominations and legislation. Over the past three years, there have been only 20 instances of a “notice of intent to object” placed in the Senate Calendar of Business — more than half by Grassley and Wyden — but secret holds appear to have been placed on numerous other bills and nominations contrary to the agreed-upon rule.
Secret holds have delayed the confirmation of nominees for jobs at critical agencies including the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department and the Office on Violence Against Women. Notably, a secret hold was responsible for holding up the confirmation of Robert Ford, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be ambassador to Syria, for more than a year. Legislatively, secret holds have delayed bills ranging from aid for earthquake-stricken Haiti to the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, from a cost-of-living adjustment for veterans’ compensation to funds reimbursing local police departments for buying bulletproof vests.
While senators certainly are entitled to hold nominees and legislation and to have their concerns addressed, they should not be able to do so in secret, forcing voters to guess who is responsible and why. In a democracy, the public must be able to hold elected leaders accountable for their actions. The anonymity offered by secret holds allows senators to avoid potential consequences for their conduct.
As the Senate considers rule changes for the 113th Congress, CREW proposes that Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., explicitly authorize the Ethics Committee to investigate and discipline senators who employ secret holds in violation of Senate rules.
Absent such an enforcement mechanism, senators will continue to shamelessly violate the ban. In fact, if filibuster changes are adopted, we might even see an increase in the use of secret holds as senators attempt to thwart consideration of bills and nominations they oppose.
Americans yearn for a government that faces our nation’s many challenges head-on. Given the Capitol’s abject dysfunction, is it any wonder Congress is less popular than lice? Curbing the use of procedural maneuvers such as secret holds and the filibuster that do little more than impede consideration of the people’s business is one step the Senate can take on the long road back to restoring public confidence in Congress.
Leahy Says VAWA Has Support From 60 Senators
Roll Call
January 31, 2013
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., announced Thursday that he has built a 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority to advance the Violence Against Women Act — an 18-year-old measure protecting domestically abused Americans that lapsed at the end of last Congress when lawmakers failed to approve its reauthorization.
The pending legislation would be a five-year extension of the act and would expand protections for gay and lesbian victims as well as American Indians.
“JUST TOPPED ‘magic number’ of 60 bipartisan cosponsors of my #VAWA legisl.; We’re moving briskly toward Senate vote on the Leahy-Crapo Bill,” the 72-year-old senator’s office wrote on Twitter.
According to the Judiciary Committee, which Leahy leads, the seven Republicans who will join Democrats to support the measure are Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Michael D. Crapo of Idaho, Susan Collins of Maine, Dean Heller of Nevada, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Mark S. Kirk of Illinois and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Democrats made tweaks to the bill from last Congress, eliminating a provision that would have expanded an emergency visa program for immigrant victims of abuse. The measure was included in the bill passed last Congress by the Senate; however, because it contained a revenue-generating provision, it was technically unconstitutional. House Republicans would not agree to helping Senate Democrats keep the measure, as it was one of several provisions they did not support. Democrats believe they can expand the program when the Senate takes up immigration revisions, which the Judiciary Committee will also oversee, though passage of a comprehensive immigration bill is less likely than the VAWA reauthorization.
Other areas of conflict between the House and Senate centered on a provision in the Senate bill that would allow tribal courts to prosecute citizen abusers when the victims are American Indians. The new bill still includes this measure, and it’s unclear how House Republicans will proceed. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., had engaged in some last-minute negotiating with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at the end of last year, but those talks proved unfruitful.
Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Tom Cole, R-Okla., had introduced compromise language in 2012 on the tribal issue, but it did not enjoy full GOP Conference support.
The timing of a full Senate vote on the streamlined bill is not immediately clear. Leahy said in a hearing Wednesday that he expects a vote in the next few weeks, but the chairman is also very busy with other issues. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has called for a formal committee process on an immigration overhaul and gun control, both of which fall under Judiciary’s purview.
As Economy Tanks, Senate to Vote on Violence Against Women Act
Breitbart
February 01, 2013
With the economy on the rocks, unemployment up to 7.9 percent again, 8.5 million more Americans outside the labor force now than there were in January 2009, and gas prices set to jump, the US Senate is placing its laser-like focus on … the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. S. 47 is up for a roll call vote on Monday.
The Violence Against Women Act is a well-intentioned, poorly drafted bill. While violence against women is criminal across the country under state law, the Violence Against Women Act makes it federal – and in the process, broadens it to include services for men and prisoners, spends money on areas that are already fully funded, and empowers tribal courts.
Leaving aside the merits of the bill, the Senate continues to focus on issues that are not high on the list of Americans’ priorities, rather than the economy. That is no surprise.
Cantor Pledges Domestic Violence Law Is an Early House Priority
Roll Call
February 06, 2013
With the Senate poised to pass a renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Wednesday vowed that the bill is a priority in his chamber, as well.
Efforts to reconcile the two chambers’ versions of the legislation authorizing domestic violence programs broke down at the end of the previous Congress. But Democratic proponents have been hopeful that because women voters overwhelmingly favored Democrats in November’s elections, Republicans would come around on some of the points of contention in VAWA early this year.
During a House floor colloquy Wednesday, Cantor, R-Va., said that he has been meeting with Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., and has also been in contact with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. about trying to get the parties to bridge their differences on the legislation.
“I have had daily meetings to try and get to a point where we can bring this forward,” Cantor said. “I . . . care very deeply about women and the abuse situation. We need to get them the relief that this bill offers. That’s what we want to do. That’s our priority. We must move and act on this bill.”
Despite attacks from Democrats, including a video released this week by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that blames Cantor for holding up the reauthorization bill, the majority leader said Wednesday that he is committed to finding a path forward.
“In working with [Hoyer’s] office as well as the vice president’s, I hope to be able to deal with this, bring it up in an expeditious manner,” Cantor said.
Hoyer, who was on the House floor at the time, thanked Cantor for his work on the issue, adding, “This is a critically important issue, and I am hopeful that we can come to an agreement which will provide for the passage of that piece of legislation and send it to the president.”
The final sticking point on the measure involves domestic abuse that occurs on Indian tribal lands. The Senate bill (S 47), which appears on track for passage on Thursday, allows tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians accused of domestic violence offenses against Indian victims. Many Republicans have protested, however, questioning whether non-Indians’ constitutional rights would be respected in tribal courts.
“We want to protect the women who are subject to abuse on tribal lands,” Cantor explained. “Unfortunately there are issues that don’t directly bear on that that have come up, that have complicated it.”
Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Tom Cole, R-Okla., floated a compromise late last year that would have allowed non-tribal defendants to be tried by tribal courts but would have also allowed such cases to be moved to federal courts if Americans’ rights were seen as being infringed. Issa said Wednesday that a new compromise based on that proposal is close to being finalized.
“We’re doing very well,” Issa said in an interview. “We think we have language that makes sense, that maintains a completely constitutional solution, and that allows battered women on tribal lands to have an opportunity to have that adjudicated on tribal lands. The language we did last Congress will be substantially similar in this Congress.”
The 1994 domestic violence law (PL 103-322) was reauthorized with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2000 and 2005. Besides the tribal lands issue, other controversies erupted during the 112th Congress over the inclusion of new protections for domestic violence victims who are gay and lesbian and immigrants.
Those new protections are included in the current Senate bill, reintroduced by Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Michael D. Crapo, R-Idaho.
Another problem arose last year because the Senate legislation included a revenue increase that was part of a Democratic effort to make more visas available to immigrant victims of domestic abuse. House Republican leaders charged that the provision was unconstitutional, because the Constitution requires all revenue legislation to originate in the House.
This year’s Senate bill scraps that visa revenue provision in an effort to expedite the legislation. By an overwhelming 85-8 vote, the Senate on Monday agreed to proceed to debate on the five-year reauthorization, and Leahy claims wide support.
“Our bill has more than 60 bipartisan Senate cosponsors, and together we can finally finish what we started last year,” Leahy said in a floor statement.
But Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, called the tribal language a “key stumbling block.” He warned that without a compromise, he would offer a substitute measure more appealing to the House.
In a Statement of Administration Policy on the Senate bill, the White House emphasized that it “strongly supports” the tribal lands provision. According to the Justice Department, American Indians are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault crimes compared to all other races, and one in three American Indian women reports having been raped during her lifetime.
Senate Queues Up Passage of Domestic Violence Law Renewal
Roll Call
February 07, 2013
Senators are poised to pass a domestic violence law rewrite next week without a clear endgame on tribal court provisions, the central sticking point in negotiations with the House.
On Thursday, the Senate rejected a GOP alternative to the bipartisan bill (S 47) that would renew and update the 1994 law known as the Violence Against Women Act. Senators will vote early next week on a half-dozen amendments and final passage of the five-year renewal of the law (PL 103-322), which combats domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.
The amendments include a proposal from Vermont Democrat Patrick J. Leahy to authorize funds for combating human trafficking and other changes related to child victims of sex trafficking, rape cases, notifications of exposure to sexually transmitted disease and tribal provisions.
The GOP alternative defeated Thursday would have stripped language to give American Indian tribal courts more authority over non-tribal perpetrators of domestic violence on tribal land. Offered by Charles E. Grassley, of Iowa, the substitute amendment instead proposed a $25 million authorization for federal judges and prosecutors in tribal areas to handle domestic violence cases and be available for civil protection orders. The amendment was rejected by a 34-65 vote.
The underlying bill seeks to counter high rates of violence against American Indian women and to mitigate the challenges that come with the reliance of tribes on often distant and limited federal resources to deal with non-American Indian perpetrators.
“Too often, these crimes go unprosecuted and unpunished,” said Tom Udall, D-N.M. “Not only is violence inflicted, but justice is denied.”
Udall said the bill would allow tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians only “in a narrow set of cases,” explaining that the defendant would have to have ties to the tribe, and the prosecuting tribe would have to offer the defendant certain rights.
“Native women should not be abandoned to a jurisdictional loophole,” he said.
But critics of the measure question whether it can pass constitutional muster. Grassley called the bill “very cruel . . . to provide tribal women the illusion of a solution that courts may well strike down on constitutional grounds in the future.”
Leahy, the bill’s sponsor, retorted that Grassley offered a “poor substitute” for his proposal.
Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar echoed him, saying, “This is a false alternative that does almost nothing to solve the epidemic of violence against native women.”
Other Proposed Changes
The Grassley substitute also sought to revise a mechanism that allows immigrant victims of abuse to pursue legal status without the need for sponsorship by their U.S. citizen or permanent-resident spouses. The amendment language would have let immigration officials interview the accused abusers in determining whether to grant legal status to the victims.
Grassley argued the provision would prevent fraudulent claims of abuse, in which “foreign nationals prey on U.S. citizens simply to get a green card.”
The Republican alternative also proposed a range of new requirements for “U visas,” which are given to immigrant crime victims who are willing to help law enforcement agencies in the investigation or prosecution of the criminal activity. The amendment would have required, for example, that the crime be under active investigation or prosecution.
The House and Senate passed competing reauthorization measures last year after the domestic violence law lapsed in 2011. But a bicameral compromise never materialized because lawmakers were unable to overcome House objections to language that would have paid for an increase in U visas. Senators agreed to drop that contentious provision this time.
Grassley’s amendment also would have allowed repeat drunk drivers to be deported and created a range of mandatory minimum sentences for such crimes as forcible rape and aggravated sexual assault. In addition, it would have added grant-auditing requirements, restricted grantees’ lobbying activities and limited the use of funds under the law for administrative fees and salaries.
Senate Passes Expanded Violence Against Women Act
TPM - Talking Points Memo
February 12, 2013
The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday afternoon to pass legislation reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act with expanded protections for gays, undocumented immigrants and Native American women who suffer from domestic abuse.
The final vote was 78-22. All Democrats and 23 Republicans voted for final passage. The bill now heads to the House, where GOP leaders are resisting some of its provisions.
“Today the Senate passed a strong bipartisan bill to reauthorize and strengthen the Violence Against Women Act,” President Obama said in a statement. “The bill passed by the Senate will help reduce homicides that occur from domestic violence, improve the criminal justice response to rape and sexual assault, address the high rates of dating violence experienced by young women, and provide justice to the most vulnerable among us. I want to thank Senator Leahy and his colleagues from both sides of the aisle for the leadership they have shown on behalf of victims of abuse. It’s now time for the House to follow suit and send this bill to my desk so that I can sign it into law.”
The 22 Republicans who voted against it were Sens. John Barrasso (WY), Roy Blunt (MO), John Boozman (AR), Tom Coburn (OK), John Cornyn (TX), Ted Cruz (TX), Mike Enzi (WY), Lindsey Graham (SC), Chuck Grassley (IA), Orrin Hatch (UT), James Inhofe (OK), Mike Johanns (NE), Ron Johnson (WI), Mike Lee (UT), Mitch McConnell (KY), Rand Paul (KY), Jim Risch (ID), Pat Roberts (KS), Marco Rubio (FL), Tim Scott (SC), Jeff Sessions (AL) and John Thune (SD).
The Senate rejected Republican-sponsored amendments to replace the bill with a scaled-back reauthorization and to eliminate a provision permitting Native American courts to try non-Native Americans accused of domestic abuse on tribal lands, which many Republicans say is unconstitutional because it would limit recourse for the accused in U.S. courts.
“Unfortunately, I could not support the final, entire legislation that contains new provisions that could have potentially adverse consequences,” Rubio said in a statement, voicing concerns with the makeup of funding for some of the VAWA programs. “Additionally, I have concerns regarding the conferring of criminal jurisdiction to some Indian tribal governments over all persons in Indian country, including non-Indians.”
The legislation also adopted an amendment by VAWA’s chief sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), providing law enforcement more tools to combat human trafficking (by a 93-5 vote), and another by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) to make sure child victims of sex trafficking are eligible to receive grant assistance (by a 100-0 vote).
VAWA expired in 2011 but has continued to receive funding through the appropriations process. Last authorized in 2005, law enforcement believes it needs to be streamlined. Last year the reauthorization fell prey to House Republican resistance to the expanded provisions. The broad, bipartisan passage of the reauthorization through the Senate now increases the pressure on House GOP leaders to act.
Republican leaders are again facing pressure from within their ranks to act. A letter sent Monday night and signed by 17 House GOP lawmakers nudges Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) in the Senate’s direction, twice calling for a bipartisan bill. The House GOP’s version last year passed on a party-line vote.
“Now is the time to seek bipartisan compromise on the reauthorization of these programs. … We believe a bipartisan plan to reauthorize VAWA is more important than ever,” wrote Republican Reps. Rodney Davis (IL), Charlie Dent (PA), Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ), Mike Fitzpatrick (PA), Jim Gerlach (PA), Chris Gibson (NY), Michael Grimm (NY), Richard Hanna (NY), David Joyce (OH), Leonard Lance (NJ), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Patrick Meehan (PA), Shelly Moore-Capito (WV), Tom Reed (NY), Dave Reichert (WA), Jon Runyan (NJ) and Lee Terry (NE).
After the vote, Leahy and other key Democratic senators called on House Republicans to move speedily on the legislation. They said they’re proud to have held their ground on LGBT, immigrant and tribal provisions, saying all victims should be treated equally.
Although House Republicans dislike provisions covering LGBT and illegal-immigrant victims, their primary area of discomfort with the Senate bill is the tribal lands provision. Senior House GOP aides declined to comment, but top Republicans, led by Cantor, are leaning toward a middle path that provides legal recourse for those charged with domestic abuse in Native American courts by allowing them to appeal to U.S. courts.
Leahy declined to speculate on whether that compromise would be acceptable, saying the House should pass its legislation and the two chambers can then resolve their differences.
“[J]ust like last Congress, we all know it will take leadership from Speaker Boehner and Leader Cantor to move this bill forward,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) told TPM. “The fate of VAWA still lies squarely on their shoulders and too many women have been left vulnerable while they have played politics.”
A Vote for VAWA is a Vote for Victim Safety
NNEDV Urges All Senators to Support a Clean Senate Bill, Without Amendments
NNEDV
FEBRUARY 04, 2013
This week, the Senate is scheduled to vote on S. 47, a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The bill, authored by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) and co-sponsored by 60 Democrats and Republicans, was reintroduced at the beginning of the 113th Congress. It closely mirrors the bipartisan Leahy-Crapo bill that passed the Senate in the previous Congress by a significant (68-31) margin.
"Sixty senators have made a strong statement that they stand with all victims of violence." said Kim Gandy, President and CEO of NNEDV. "A vote for VAWA is a vote for victim safety."
Advocates are urging Senators to pass the bill without any amendments.
"VAWA must be about victims and the protections that meet their needs and nothing else," said Gandy. "S. 47 must be passed without any amendments and then immediately sent to the House for action. Any other course threatens urgently needed final passage and implementation," concluded Gandy.
About VAWA
VAWA is the cornerstone of our nation's response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking, and because of VAWA, millions of victims have received lifesaving services and support. Despite VAWA's proven ability to substantially improve lives, it has not reached all victims. VAWA's reauthorization provides an opportunity to build upon the successes of the current law by including key improvements to protect and provide safety and access to justice for Native American, immigrant, and LGBT victims, as well as victims on college campuses and in communities of color. Additionally, a reauthorized VAWA must include strengthened housing protections that provide emergency housing transfer options for survivors, as well as implementation of transparent and effective accountability measures that support and strengthen, rather than endanger, the programs that assist victims.
NNEDV Celebrates Senate Passage of VAWA
Calls for Swift House Passage
NNEDV
FEBRUARY 12, 2013
Today, the U.S. Senate resoundingly passed S. 47, a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) by 78-22. The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) applauds the Senators who voted for VAWA's passage.
"It's about time," said Kim Gandy, President and CEO of NNEDV. "After two years of partisan wrangling, we are again close to renewing the nation's commitment to protecting victims of domestic violence. We commend the Senators who voted for the bill, including every female Senator of both parties, and urge their House colleagues to quickly follow suit."
The bipartisan Senate bill, authored by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) and co-sponsored by 62 Democrats and Republicans, was reintroduced at the beginning of the 113th Congress. This reauthorization bill will address critical gaps in safety and services, and provide desperately needed resources and support to service providers and to victims.
"Senators Leahy and Crapo have never stopped fighting for the victims, even when the path to passage was difficult," said Gandy. "We are especially grateful for their efforts to ensure that victims of domestic violence have access to the services they need and deserve."
While VAWA's passage demonstrates broad, bipartisan support for this legislation and the services it provides, women of both parties have been disheartened that some Senators voted against this bill, choosing partisan politics over the needs of those suffering abuse.
Now, the House must move quickly towards passage, so that VAWA can be sent to the president for signature. Advocates and supporters of VAWA are in ongoing conversations with House leaders on both sides of the aisle, and are optimistic about passing an effective final bill. "It is the House's turn to stand with the millions who experience domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking, and pass a VAWA that safely and effectively meets the needs of all victims," concluded Gandy.
About VAWA
VAWA is the cornerstone of our nation's response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking, and because of VAWA, millions of victims have received lifesaving services and support. Despite VAWA's proven ability to substantially improve lives, it has not reached all victims. VAWA's reauthorization provides an opportunity to build upon the successes of the current law by including key improvements to protect and provide safety and access to justice for Native American, immigrant, and LGBT victims, as well as victims on college campuses and in communities of color. Additionally, a reauthorized VAWA must include strengthened housing protections that provide emergency housing transfer options for survivors, as well as implementation of transparent and effective accountability measures that support and strengthen, rather than endanger, the programs that assist victims.
VAWA Vote Deals Another Blow to Heritage Action
Roll Call
February 12, 2013
When 23 Republicans voted with Democrats to approve the Violence Against Women Act on Tuesday, they also voted against the recommendation of the conservative Heritage Action, the advocacy sister group of The Heritage Foundation.
Heritage Action, founded in 2010, has been issuing “key vote” alerts for both House and Senate Republicans to include in its member scorecards, designed to serve as a conservative litmus test for GOP lawmakers. But so far in 2013, for every vote Heritage has dubbed “key,” enough Republicans have defected to pass that bill into law.
“The Key Votes that appear on Heritage Action’s Legislative Scorecard empower Americans to hold their Members of Congress accountable to conservative principles,” Heritage Action’s website reads, regarding the purpose of its program. “Our votes are sometimes tough and we don’t apologize for it. We’re conservatives, not tenured professors, and we don’t grade on a curve.
Before Tuesday’s VAWA vote, Heritage Action flagged votes on the fiscal-cliff deal, Senate filibuster changes and Sandy disaster relief as “key” and urged Republicans to vote “no.”
Forty-one Senate Republicans voted for the fiscal-cliff deal, which levied $650 billion in new revenue; 29 Senate Republicans voted for modest Senate procedural changes; and seven Senate GOP Members, many from Gulf states, voted to approve disaster relief aid. In the House, 85 Republicans voted to approve the year-end tax deal and 49 Republicans voted for the final Sandy aid package.
In the 112th Congress, Senate Republicans voted with the Heritage Action’s recommendations 73 percent of the time, while House Republicans did so 66 percent of the time, according to Heritage Action’s website.
But the political dynamics have shifted since last Congress, both for lawmakers and for Heritage. Republicans, after a wave election in 2010, failed to retake the White House or Senate majority in 2012. And Heritage, the almost 30-year-old GOP think tank, has tacked to the right and tapped a new leader at the end of 2012 — former Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. A tea party favorite, DeMint had Heritage Action’s most conservative scorecard last Congress, voting with the group’s recommendations 99 percent of the time.
The electoral results, change of leadership and even relative disregard for the “key vote” alerts in 2013 to date, however, are not going to force a change in Heritage Action’s thinking anytime soon. And even on VAWA, the group’s recommendations still could hold sway with the House GOP caucus, which did not act on the reauthorization in 2012 and still holds reservations about approving the current Senate bill.
“Expanding a constitutionally dubious law to include new groups would require more funding and resources in order to carry out the new provisions,” the group’s VAWA key-vote alert read. “This bill’s catchy name does not conceal the harmful, ineffective, and dubiously grounded policy inherent in it.”
When asked whether Heritage Action had concern about the number of defectors in 2013 or whether it might need to change its litmus tests, Heritage Action Communications Director Dan Holler defended the group’s take on policy and place in GOP politics.
“If you look at what happened, especially in the 112th congress, one of the times when the Republican Party was soaring in popularity was [in the] runup to the debt ceiling when we were promoting the idea that we have a spending problem and that we should cut spending,” Holler said, calling the anti-spending message “winning.”
“We think Republicans are in their best political positions when they’re promoting the conservative position,” Holler continued. He added that Heritage sees itself as the group that can provide the GOP a “road map out of being the party of big business.”
He emphasized that not every member is going to vote with the group on every issue, pointing to some members whose constituents might expect them to vote for disaster relief, for example.
“What we say all the time — and this is to members and to their constituents — we put together scorecards so they can have perspective for votes,” Holler said.
Pressure on Boehner to ensure the Violence Against Women Act becomes law
MSNBC TV
February 15, 2013
Kim Gandy, CEO of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, talks about the importance of the act and whether the House will finally pass it.
With the receipt of a letter signed by 17 Republican lawmakers this week, pressure is mounting on Speaker John Boehner to approve the Violence Against Women Act, whose fate lies with the House of Representatives after being passed by the Senate Tuesday.
VAWA passed the Senate in a solid show of support, with 78 Senators voting for the anti-domestic violence measure , including every Republican and Democratic woman in the Senate. The Senate version of the law strengthens federal penalties for repeat sex offenders and allocates funding to train over a half a million law enforcement officers, prosecutors and other personnel, among other things.
Kim Gandy, CEO of the National Network to End Domestic Violence and a former President of the National Organization for Women, pointed out on Andrea Mitchell Reports Friday that support is up from the 68 votes with which the last Senate reauthorized the 19-year-old law. The Senate reauthorized the law by unanimous consent in 2000 and 2005.
Gandy told Mitchell that support for VAWA among House Republicans exceeds the seventeen senators co-signed on the letter to Boehner.
“I was surprised to see that some of the House Republicans who have been supportive up to this point, with whom we’ve been working, weren’t even on the letter,” Gandy said. “This was a whole new set of House Republicans that joined together to say we need a bipartisan bill, we need to do it, we need to get it done now, take leadership, make it happen.”
The core Republican argument against the bill, being advanced by conservative groups like Heritage Action, Freedomworks and the Family Research Council is that it constitutes an overreach of government. Gandy pointed out that while state and local governments do have their own domestic violence laws, “the don’t have sufficient funding to deal with it.”
“And there’s the issue of crimes that take place across state lines, interstate crimes, and crimes on federal lands, like tribal lands, like military bases and the like,” Gandy added. “Those simply were not addressed. And the Violence Against Women Act was needed to set up those criminal laws in areas that were not addressed by state laws and also to provide money that was badly needed for law enforcement, for prosecution, for judges, for training, for direct services.
The original legislation was authored by Vice President Joe Biden, then the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and co-authored by Republican Orrin Hatch in 1994. Gandy pointed to the effects of an influx of women elected to the senate in 1992, often remembered as “the year of the woman.”
“I always wondered why it was just one year and one woman, but that was the big year,” Gandy said.
The law expired in 2011, and the version passed by the Senate Tuesday extends protections to undocumented immigrants, gays, and Native American women. The expanded protections have met resistance from Republican lawmakers in the House.
President Obama urged Congress to reauthorize VAWA in his State of the Union Address Tuesday, saying, “We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers, and daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace, and free from the fear of domestic violence. Today, the Senate passed the Violence Against Women Act that Joe Biden originally wrote almost 20 years ago. I urge the House to do the same.”
Boehner offered a tepid response to the president’s call to action. “I expect the House will act in a timely fashion in some way,” the Speaker said Thursday. “No decision has been made about how we, whether we take up the Senate bill or if we move our own version of the bill.”
House GOP Plots Way Forward on VAWA Bill
Roll Call
February 21, 2013
House Republicans are poised to unveil their version of the Violence Against Women Act as early as next week, eager to put behind them an issue that has been a political hot potato over a key voting bloc.
Staffers from leadership offices and the Judiciary and Natural Resources committees, which have jurisdiction over the bill, have met in Speaker John A. Boehner’s office on each of the last two days to figure out a path forward.
GOP leadership staffers said many decisions have yet to be made, but what seems resolved is that the House will put forward a bill separate from the Senate version, which passed that chamber last week with 78 votes.
“The legislation that you’ll see we believe will be stronger than what the Senate passed,” said a senior GOP leadership aide. “We’re trying to determine what best we can do to make sure the language that passes meets our top two priorities: protecting women and prosecuting offenders.”
Of course, on those two priorities, the parties can agree. What remains to be seen is how Republicans navigate the sensitive social issues the bill brings into play.
The Senate version would extend the bill’s domestic violence protections to LGBT victims as well as undocumented immigrants, and, for the first time, it would allow tribal courts to prosecute non-tribal offenders, which brings up jurisdictional issues.
The House version of the bill in the 112th Congress did not include those provisions, as Republicans held that they were more politically motivated than anything.
“What we saw was moving goal posts and political attacks and those haven’t stopped,” said the leadership aide. “There were a lot of people on the other side of the aisle, the other side of the building, who were more interested in having an issue than a solution.”
As the Republican Party tries to reach out to Latinos and women, this bill could be an indication of just how far its members will allow the outreach to extend.
Still, some House Republicans have said that more than anything, they object to the cost of the bill — more than $600 million annually through 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Heritage Action key-voted its objection to the Senate bill for still other reasons. If those issues keep GOP members from voting for it on the House floor, Boehner could need Democrats to pass the measure.
House Democrats, however, are unlikely to support anything that deviates from the Senate-passed legislation, and Boehner could find himself boxed in, as he did on fiscal cliff and disaster spending votes at the end of last year.
“We have the opportunity to pass a bill that has passed the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly,” said Drew Hammill, spokesman for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “It is absolutely unconscionable that we wouldn’t just take up this bill now and pass it.”
Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has been working on the bill behind the scenes, a holdover from last year when Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. implored him to act on a bill Biden once sponsored when he was in the Senate.
Republicans, though, are aware of the scrutiny they have received from the left that their refusal to take up the Senate bill is “anti-woman.” Last Congress they gave messaging duties for the bill to then-Rep. Sandy Adams, R-Fla., a one-time victim of domestic abuse and a law enforcement officer. They are likely to again delegate the chief messaging on the bill to a female member of their conference, perhaps the highest-ranking woman, Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington.
The question also remains whether leadership would bypass regular order and bring the measure straight to the floor, as House Democrats have called on them to do, or whether the Judiciary Committee would hear it first, as was the case last year. When asked last week, Boehner said only, “it may, it may not.”
“We’re fully committed to doing anything we can to protect women in or society, and I expect that the House will act in a timely fashion in some way,” he said.
The amendment process in committee could be politically perilous. Arizona GOP Rep. Trent Franks, chairman of a subcommittee that could have jurisdiction over the bill, said he would be keen on bringing abortion into the discussion.
“There are those of us that when we see something like aborting little girls because they’re little girls instead of boys, if that’s not violence against women, I’m deceived,” he said. “I think it should go to committee. I just want to make sure the true position of the House is reflected.”
Judiciary Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte, R-Va., declined to comment on the matter, and his spokeswoman, Kathryn Rexrode, did not return multiple requests for comment.
Republicans Face Test in Upcoming Vote on Renewing Domestic Violence Law
Roll Call
February 25, 2013
House Republican leaders may need every vote they can get this week when they bring to the floor a five-year reauthorization of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act.
The Senate passed its renewal of the law (S 47) on a bipartisan 78-22 vote on Feb. 12. But in the House, Democrats and Republicans are sharply divided over whether the chamber should take up the Senate bill or a considerably narrower and more contentious substitute introduced by House leaders late last week.
All 200 House Democrats are co-sponsors of a House bill (HR 11) that is a companion to the Senate measure. As a result, most are likely to vote against the GOP substitute, which Democratic leaders assailed as insufficient last week because it omits language aimed at protecting gay and lesbian, immigrant, American Indian and other abuse victims.
Democrats may choose to set up a floor vote on their bill through a motion to recommit, though a spokesman for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would not indicate Monday whether Democrats would pursue that strategy. The Rules Committee meets Tuesday to set the rules of debate.
If Democrats are united, Republicans are not.
A bipartisan group of 17 moderate Republicans sent a letter to Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., on Feb. 11, urging them to bring a consensus bill to the floor. “We believe a bipartisan plan to reauthorize VAWA is more important than ever,” wrote the lawmakers, led by New Jersey Rep. Jon Runyan.
If those 17 moderates join with all 200 Democrats in opposing the leadership-backed substitute, the coalition would have enough votes to reject the legislation, given the House’s three current vacancies.
Separately, 11 other House Republicans voted against a similar, leadership-backed reauthorization of the domestic violence law when the chamber passed it on a 222-205 vote last May, and those Republicans may continue to have reservations. That legislation ultimately died when time ran out on the 112th Congress.
It is still unclear whether Republicans who are opposed to the leadership-backed measure will vote against it, however. Two moderate Republicans said in interviews Monday that they would vote for the House substitute as a way to move the process into conference negotiations, even though they favor the Senate’s more expansive bill, which also includes provisions to renew a human-trafficking law and to combat dating violence on college campuses.
“I can support the Senate bill as passed,” said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa. “Absent that option, I will vote for the House bill and move the process forward.”
“The biggest thing is to get it reauthorized,” Runyan said.
Tribal Language in Focus
Even conservative Republicans who are closely aligned with House leaders have expressed uneasiness about the House substitute. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said last week that the legislation “falls short” in one area that has emerged as a key difference between the House and Senate bills: how to respond to cases in which American Indian women are abused by non-Indians on tribal land.
The Senate bill authorizes American Indian tribes to exercise jurisdiction over crimes of domestic violence that occur within that tribe’s boundaries, but the House bill takes a more complex approach. It requires tribes to submit a request to the attorney general for a “special domestic violence jurisdiction” certification. The approval can take up to 120 days to process, and tribes must prove they are able to and will provide defendants with their constitutional rights.
The House bill also includes language that allows tribes to prosecute incidents of domestic abuse against their citizens only if they have specific written laws against such abuse. Tribes often do not have written laws, a GOP leadership aide noted. In addition, the House bill would allow tribes to pursue such prosecutions only if crimes are misdemeanors, rather than felonies. Felonies should be prosecuted by the federal government, the aide said, noting that tribes currently impose sentence of up to a year, no matter the severity of the crime.
Cole said last week that he would offer an amendment “to address these shortcomings.” His amendment is likely to mirror a bill (HR 780) that he is co-sponsoring with seven other Republicans that would attempt to strike a compromise between the two chambers’ versions.
Like the Senate bill, it allows tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians accused of domestic violence offenses against Indian victims. But it would also allow non-Indians being tried by a tribal court to claim that their rights aren’t being respected and request the case be moved to a U.S. district court instead.
“I stand ready to work with House leadership and have reached out to Speaker Boehner several times. I have not heard from House leadership once this year,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt.
House Expected to Pass Senate Version of VAWA
Roll Call
February 26, 2013
The House is expected to give in to Democratic pressure Thursday and pass the Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act after failing to find a substitute that can garner the support of a majority of its members.
The Senate passed its bill (S 47) earlier this month with broad bipartisan support. But it includes language unpalatable to many Republicans, including opening domestic violence protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender victims and allowing tribal authorities to try non-tribal offenders if they commit a crime on an Indian reservation.
Republicans did not like that language, so they attempted to draft a version that could find support in the House. In the end, according to GOP sources, there was greater support in the House for the Senate-passed bill than the House-drafted text.
“You can expect the House consideration on VAWA to begin Thursday [morning] with the House language as an amendment to the Senate bill,” said one House source familiar with the bill. By voice vote Tuesday, the Rules Committee advanced a measure (H Res 83) that would provide for such action.
Rules Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, hinted that the underlying Senate version would win out, in a somewhat cryptic exchange with ranking Democrat Louise M. Slaughter of New York.
“I believe you will have every opportunity to pass that Senate bill,” Sessions told the committee.
Slaughter said, “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, you’re saying that yours is going to fail, and we can get right down to it” on the Senate proposal.
Sessions replied, “What I’m suggesting to you is, yes, I believe you’re correct and I believe that the intent of this committee is to pass a bill out of this House.” But Sessions would not explicitly guarantee House passage of the Senate measure.
It is virtually certain that a majority of Republicans will oppose the underlying bill, which would again leave House GOP leaders in a situation where they allow a bill to pass with a minority of their members voting in favor.
“Our members are pleased with the hard work put into the House-drafted version of the Violence Against Women Act and are happy to have the opportunity to vote on it as a substitute to the Senate text,” a GOP aide said.
Drew Hammill, spokesman for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., celebrated the decision.
“America’s mothers and daughters deserve a vote on the bipartisan Senate-passed legislation that has the support of a majority of members of the House of Representatives on both sides of the aisle,” he said.
House Sets Up Final Votes On Domestic Violence Bill
Roll Call
February 27, 2013
The House adopted a rule Wednesday to bring the Senate-passed Violence Against Women Act to the floor, beating back the objections of some conservatives to set up passage of the reauthorization Thursday.
GOP leaders will allow the House version to be offered as an amendment, but many Republicans object to both versions of the bill, making it a foregone conclusion that the House will pass the Senate measure Thursday on the strength of Democratic votes.
Many House conservatives objected to Republican leadership’s decision to bypass committee consideration and bring a bill to the House floor. Nevertheless, the rule was approved 414-9.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said he voted against the rule and will likely vote against the bill in order to send a message to leadership.
“We can send a message to send this back to regular order. This House can only work its will if we use our committees,” he told reporters.
Still, with House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland urging his caucus to vote “yes,” the rule passed.
Republican aides said leadership had been driven to its decision after it was unable to garner support for the House version of VAWA, which the office of Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia helped draft based on a bill the House brought up last year.
But Rep. Raúl R. Labrador, R-Idaho, said he thinks leadership was nervous about suffering a prolonged political flogging over the issue if GOP members were allowed to debate, and potentially change, aspects of the bill in the committee.
“I think we tend to govern by fear instead of principle here, and I think we need to stop doing that,” he said. “The reason you have the hearings is so the American people can see what the legislation does or doesn’t do. Have we really stopped the violence against women because of VAWA? Those are the things that we need to be asking.”
The episode marks another public display of the tensions between conservatives and their GOP leaders, despite some accord on spending and budgetary issues. It came the same day as the Club for Growth announced it would encourage primaries of Republican moderates.
Dan Holler, spokesman for Heritage Action for America, another conservative advocacy group, said he expects to be issuing a key vote against the Violence Against Women Act. He said his group has its eye on whether the floor strategy leadership used will come up again.
“I know that people are frustrated,” he said. “I don’t know whether this is a pattern that they’re going to continue to employ or if this is just with this issue that they want to get off the table.”
Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., who served from 1995 to 2001 and was re-elected in 2012, said members should try to kill rules more often when they disagree with leadership’s tactics.
“It seems to be kind of sacrosanct today, that’s something you just don’t do, and I think that’s garbage. I think that we ought to be looking at selectively taking down rules,” he said.
Congress Set to OK Bill Renewing Anti-Violence Law
Breitbart
February 28, 2013
Calling a truce in the partisan battles, Congress appears ready to send to President Barack Obama a bill that renews and expands the nation’s primary law on protecting women from domestic violence.
In a carefully scripted course, the Republican-led House on Thursday is expected to first reject its own, more limited attempt to renew the Violence Against Women Act before voting for a more ambitious bill that passed the Senate two weeks ago by a wide bipartisan margin.
The GOP decision not to prolong the dispute over how best to extend the 1994 law came after the party’s poor showing among women in last fall’s election and Democratic success in framing the debate over the Violence Against Women Act as Republican policy hostile to women. President Barack Obama won 55 percent of the women’s vote last November. Republican presidential candidates haven’t won the women’s vote since 1984, when Ronald Reagan held a 12-point lead over Walter Mondale among women.
With House approval of the Senate bill, Obama will sign the reauthorization of the law that laid the foundation for federal efforts to better protect women, and some men, from domestic abuse and better prosecute the abusers.
The law expired in 2011, and has been stuck in political limbo as the House, up to now, has resisted Senate efforts to enlarge the scope of the legislation to ensure that gays and lesbians, immigrants and Native American women have equal access to anti-violence programs.
The Senate passed its bill on a 78-22 vote with every Democrat, every female senator and 23 out of 45 Republicans supporting it, but the legislation appeared headed for another impasse at the end of last week when the House introduced its version, which omitted references to sexual orientation and weakened Senate provisions giving Indian courts greater jurisdiction to try non-Indians accused of acts of domestic violence on tribal lands.
But on Tuesday House GOP leaders, apparently not wanting to add a war on women to the ongoing war over the budget, gave ground, agreeing that the House will vote on the Senate version if it first defeats the House proposal. With every Democrat and several dozen Republicans supporting the Senate bill, it is expected to prevail.
Rep. Jon Runyan, R-N.J., said a letter he and 18 other House Republicans wrote to the GOP leadership, urging support of a bipartisan plan that would reach all victims of domestic violence, may have been the catalyst in ending the stalemate. A strong supporter of the law, Runyan said the most important thing was compromising and moving the legislation forward. “A lot of people around here have a hard time understanding that.”
Another Republican backing the Senate approach was Tom Cole of Oklahoma, one of only three House members of Indian heritage and a strong proponent of giving Indian courts the right to prosecute non-Indian domestic violence suspects. He said that while the latest House bill, crafted by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., had made strides in addressing the Indian court issue, “it falls short of giving tribes what they need to keep their citizens protected from the scourge of domestic violence.”
Indian women are victimized by domestic violence at rates more than double national averages, and federal prosecutors, lacking the resources to pursue cases on isolated reservations, prosecute only about half of the violent crimes. Opponents of the Senate bill say there are constitutional questions about Indian courts trying non-Indians.
The House bill quickly ran up against a wall of resistance, with the White House on Tuesday providing a list of supposed flaws. Those included inhibiting prosecutions by tribal authorities, removing Senate provisions that address the high rates of violence on college campuses, omitting a Senate provision reauthorizing the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and not explicitly protecting LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) victims from discrimination when they seek services funded by the law.
The House bill also was opposed by major anti-violence and Native American groups, and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said all Democrats were being urged to oppose it. “The groups that are excluded are the groups that are in most need of protection against violence,” she said.
Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., who co-wrote the original 1994 law with former Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-Colo., said the law, which provides grants for legal assistance, transitional housing, law enforcement training and hotlines, has helped bring instances of domestic violence down by two-thirds over the past two decades. “Perhaps the greatest victory,” she said, “is that the law finally brought millions of victims out of the shadows and gave them a place to stand.”
House Clears Renewal of Domestic Violence Law
Roll Call
February 28, 2013
The House cleared an update of the Violence Against Women Act on Thursday, sending the measure to President Barack Obama after a protracted yearlong push to extend the law.
House lawmakers voted 286-138 to endorse a bipartisan reauthorization (S 47) of the law that the Senate passed earlier this month. The final vote to clear the measure came after the House rejected a Republican alternative that fell flat with many in the GOP caucus.
The law aims to reduce domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking, as well as to help victims of those crimes. It operates primarily through awarding federal grants to state and local authorities, nonprofit organizations and universities.
“Renewing this bill is an important step towards making sure no one in America is forced to live in fear, and I look forward to signing it into law as soon as it hits my desk,” Obama said in a statement following the vote.
First enacted in 1994 as part of an omnibus crime bill (PL 103-322), the domestic violence law has been easily reauthorized twice. But the latest renewal became mired in election year politics and policy fights over provisions designed to ensure access to services for gay and lesbian victims, American Indians and illegal immigrants.
The House cleared the reauthorization bill with 87 Republicans joining a united Democratic Caucus in the “yes” column. That outcome was widely expected after House GOP leaders signaled late Tuesday they knew their narrower alternative, a nonstarter with Democrats, was not gaining enough traction among Republicans.
Before backing the Senate-passed measure, the House rejected the GOP substitute in a 166-257 vote. The Republican proposal was objectionable to Democrats for its lack of Senate-backed provisions on gay and lesbian victims, human trafficking, dating violence on college campuses and a backlog of untested DNA evidence, including rape kits.
Sixty Republicans opposed the GOP substitute and two Democrats — Daniel Lipinski of Illinois and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina — supported it.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said House lawmakers were faced with “a very clear choice,” arguing that the Republican version would leave out “exactly the women who are the most vulnerable.”
But many GOP lawmakers said that argument is flawed, because no women are explicitly excluded from protections. Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., urged support for his party’s alternative, saying, “We want to help all women.”
The GOP measure’s inability to win over enough Republicans stems largely from an intraparty split over how to address high levels of violence against American Indian women.
The final bill, which the Senate passed 78-22 on Feb. 12, will give tribal courts more authority over domestic-violence crimes committed by non-American Indian offenders, but critics worry such a move will undermine constitutional protections for those defendants and ultimately be overturned in court.
The House GOP alternative requires tribal courts to be certified by the Justice Department in order to handle the cases and to prove they give defendants their constitutional rights. But more than a dozen Republicans had signed on to a separate bill (HR 780) that sought to find middle ground on the issue by allowing non-American Indians to ask for their cases to be moved from tribal to federal court.
One of those lawmakers, Republican Tom Cole of Oklahoma, said Tuesday he would have pressed for an amendment along those lines if the floor debate hadn’t been structured to ostensibly allow a vote on the clean Senate bill.
Human Trafficking Provisions
The bill includes provisions that would effectively reauthorize a 2000 anti-human trafficking law (PL 106-386) that was the subject of a fierce partisan battle last Congress.
Until the 112th Congress, the trafficking law — which creates and funds law enforcement and social services programs to combat sex slavery and forced labor in the United States and abroad — had been unanimously reauthorized three times. In October 2012, however, the Health and Human Services Department decided not to renew its contract with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for trafficking victims’ services, due to the bishops’ refusal to cover reproductive health expenses. That raised the ire of House Republicans, who deemed the decision yet another example of the Obama administration’s “war on religion.” Past GOP sponsors refused to move a bill without adding a conscience clause and other significant changes, making the bill toxic for Democrats.
This time around, Senate sponsor Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, sought to avoid getting bogged down in a similar fight, tacking the reauthorization language onto the Violence Against Women Act renewal when that bill, which he also sponsored, came to the Senate floor. That gambit paid off Thursday.
Many Potential GOP Senate Candidates Vote Against VAWA
Roll Call
February 28, 2013
Several congressmen running for Senate in 2014 or considering a bid voted against final passage of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization on Thursday.
A majority of House Republicans voted against the Senate-backed version of the bill, S 47, which passed with Democratic support. But those “no” votes, easily packaged into a 30-second TV spot, could pose a political problem for potential GOP Senate candidates down the road in competitive races.
Republican Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, who is running for the state’s open Senate seat, voted “no.” So did his fellow Peach State Republican Reps. Phil Gingrey, Jack Kingston, Tom Price and Tom Graves — all potential Senate contenders.
Also voting no: Arkansas Rep. Tom Cotton, whom Republicans consider a top potential recruit to challenge Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor next year.
In Louisiana, potential Republican Senate candidates split. Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. voted in favor of the legislation, while Reps. John Fleming and Bill Cassidy voted against it. Democratic Sen. Mary L. Landrieu is up for re-election in 2014.
Republican Rep. Steve King, pondering an Iowa Senate run, also voted against final passage of the bill. But like a lot of his GOP colleagues, he voted in favor of a failed Republican substitute amendment, which might give him and other members cover.
A press release from King’s office was headlined: “King Votes in Support of Violence Against Women Act.”
One declared Senate candidate voted for final passage of the bill: Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.
Not a single Democrat voted against the Senate-passed bill.
Statement from the President on the House Passage of the Violence Against Women Act
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
February 28, 2013
Statement by Vice President Biden on the House Passage of the Violence Against Women Act
The White House
Office of the Vice President
February 28, 2013
Congress Extends Violence Against Women Act, Ending Standstill
PBS News Hour
Feb 28, 2013
SUMMARY
Almost 18 months after it expired, the House voted to renew the Violence Against Women Act and extend the law's protection to gays and lesbians, immigrants and Native Americans, among others. Judy Woodruff talks to Ashley Parker of the New York Times and Cindy Southworth from the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
Transcript
JUDY WOODRUFF: We turn now to the problem of domestic violence here in the United States and the end of a political battle over legislation about that issue.
It was the subject of long-delayed debate and a vote in the House of Representatives today.
WOMAN: The bill is passed. Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.
JUDY WOODRUFF: By 286-138, the House voted to renew the Violence Against Women Act almost a year-and-a-half after it lapsed. The bill extends the law's protections to gays and lesbians, immigrants, Native Americans on reservations and victims of sex trafficking.
REP. MIKE QUIGLEY, D-Ill.: Once again, we have to stand up and fight for equal protections for all victims. We are all in this together. These victims are not nameless, faceless members of some group of others. They are our friends, our neighbors, our family members. We are a nation built on justice, fairness and equal protection.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The original 1994 law provided grants for legal aid and transitional housing for victims of domestic violence. It also created funding for law enforcement training and assistance hot lines.
But the statute expired in 2011, as House Republicans resisted efforts to expand its scope to other groups.
Tennessee's Marsha Blackburn argued today for a more limited alternative.
REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN, R-Tenn.: Making certain that, in a fiscally responsible, targeted and focused way, that those who need access to the help, the assistance, the funds are going to be able to receive the help, the assistance, the funds, the focus and the attention that they are going to need.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But cracks in Republican ranks appeared after President Obama's strong showing among women voters in last year's election.
And, today, moderate Republicans joined Democrats in defeating the GOP bill and passing the Senate version. The legislation now goes to the White House for President Obama's signature.
For more on the political back-and-forth over the legislation and what it means for women and men going forward, we are joined by Ashley Parker, who covers Congress for The New York Times, and Cindy Southworth. She's a longtime advocate and she's vice president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
Welcome to you both.
Ashley Parker, the Republicans, when they originally objected to this legislation back a year-and-a-half ago, what objections did they have and were those objections accommodated?
ASHLEY PARKER, The New York Times: Well, the issues they had about a year-and-a-half ago were they didn't want to go as far as the Senate bill then had gone, which was extending protections to members of the LGBT community and to Native American women.
And, interestingly, these were basically the same objections that we saw this time around, although this time they obviously managed to work them out.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So what happened wasn't that -- so much that the language was changed, but that a number of Republicans changed their position?
ASHLEY PARKER: Well, what happened was Eric Cantor first started -- the Republican leadership decided that, politically, especially after the 2012 elections, where they sort of took a drubbing with female voters, that the Republican Party didn't want to be on the wrong side, so to speak, of this issue. They didn't want to be responsible or seen as responsible, fairly or unfairly, for preventing the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
So they said they were not going to pass anything in the House that didn't have bipartisan support. Obviously, the House version of the bill didn't have bipartisan support. Democrats were united in their support against it. And so that's why they allowed this Senate version to come to a vote and ultimately pass.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Cindy Southworth, how much difference has the Violence Against Women Act made since it was enacted?
CINDY SOUTHWORTH, National Network to End Domestic Violence: It's really been remarkable.
Just since 1994, we have seen almost a 50 percent increase in reporting, when -- and that's not 50 percent increase in incidents of domestic violence. It's more victims reaching out. They're calling the police. They know there are services available and they're getting help.
We have also seen almost a 30 percent -- or a 34 percent even decrease in homicides of women, and even more startling, almost 60 percent less homicides of men, primarily by their female partners when they felt they had no other choice.
And now that we have shelters and resources, they're not having to resort to self-defense.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can directly connect that to this law, this act?
CINDY SOUTHWORTH: We can look at the time period and these remarkable things happening.
Some things, we can talk about in terms of housing units that we have created with Violence Against Women Act funds, hot lines that have opened because of Violence Against Women Act funds. So, some of it, we can directly connect to the Violence Against Women Act, and others of it is we can see what was happening before.
I started in this work before the Violence Against Women Act passed, and we ran a shelter on a tiny shoestring budget and turned more women away than we helped.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Ashley Parker, is that consistent with the debate you have been hearing in the Congress and among members about this?
ASHLEY PARKER: Well, the debate on the floor we heard today was basically -- no one came out against preventing the reauthorization of the bill.
It was House Republicans sort of arguing that their version of the bill went far enough. They said that their version of the bill did, in fact, protect -- the phrase they always used was all women. So they were sort of arguing the same thing, but obviously the Democrats and a lot of women's groups and human rights groups disagreed, and they felt the Senate version did a better job of actually extending protections to everyone.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Ashley -- I'm sorry -- Cindy Southworth, how much difference does it make to extend these protections to these groups we mentioned, LGBT, the Native Americans and so on?
CINDY SOUTHWORTH: When it comes to victims on tribal lands, it's huge, because what's happened previously is, if you're a Native American woman injured on tribal lands by a non-Native, the tribal courts have no jurisdiction.
And when it comes to misdemeanor domestic violence cases, the federal courts are overwhelmed. So they weren't taking these cases up, which meant you got off scot-free for harming a Native woman on tribal lands. Giving jurisdiction to the tribal courts means that we can hold them accountable. That's pretty significant in terms of extending protections to tribal -- to Native women on tribal lands.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And just continuing with you on some questions about the law as it exists today and as it will exist, the new version, our staff here at the News Hour talked today with several law professors who said, overall, the bill has had beneficial consequences, but they said there have also been some unintended consequences, namely, that it still leans in favor of having the perpetrator arrested, no matter whether the woman or the victim wants that to happen or not.
How do you see that issue?
CINDY SOUTHWORTH: First of all, the Violence Against Women Act doesn't require mandatory arrest.
What it does do, though, is train police officers on how to look at what's happening in the house, because if it's mandatory arrest, you might arrest the wrong person. Sometimes, a woman has been beaten and you can't see the bruises, but you see scratch marks on the offender because of the self-defense wounds.
So the Violence Against Women Act doesn't have a mandatory reporting focus to it, but it has got a mandatory training focus to it, which is important for police on the scene to assess. And we have done a lot of work around issues beyond law enforcement within the Violence Against Women Act. There's housing provisions. There's a transitional housing grant program. There's a sexual assault services program.
So while we have spent a lot of time in the last 20 years working to change the justice system, we are really focusing more and more on issues beyond criminal justice.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, in fact, that was another complaint we heard from those who support the law overall, but say that it still leans too far -- it puts so much money into law enforcement and prosecution, and not nearly enough money into those other areas that you mentioned.
CINDY SOUTHWORTH: I'm only smiling because I have yet to see the day where we have so much money in the violence against women movement. I would love that day.
What it really means is, we would -- we would like more money in all those other service areas. We need more housing. We need more hot lines. We need more advocates. We need to beef up those services. We don't need to remove police officers from being able to respond. We have already seen that, in just one day in the United States, over 70,000 adults and children get help from local domestic violence programs.
And on the same day, 10,581 times, a phone rang and someone asked for a bed, a shelter, an attorney, a counselor. They told a perfect stranger, and they couldn't get help.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Ashley Parker, how much of this came up in the House debate?
ASHLEY PARKER: You know, not a ton of that on the debate in the floor today.
A lot of the debate sort of focused on Democrats stepping up time and time again and asking for members to come together to reach bipartisan compromise and get this through, and also a lot of members, both Democrats and Republicans, coming and telling personal stories of a woman in their district who was beaten or faced domestic abuse and either who met a tragic end because they couldn't get the protections necessary, or in some cases were able to use these programs to get help.
So it was sort of a little bit more of a personal touch, as well as a plea to come together for something.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, at the end of it all, the House of Representatives voted to extend the Violence Against Women Act. And we look for the president to sign the legislation.
Cindy Southworth and Ashley Parker, we thank you both.
ASHLEY PARKER: Thank you.
CINDY SOUTHWORTH: Thank you so much.
NNEDV Praises House Passage of VAWA
Looks Forward to President Obama Signing Bill into Law
NNEDV
FEBRUARY 28, 2013
Today, the U.S. House of Representatives took up the Senate-passed bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), and passed this vital legislation by a bipartisan vote of vote of 286-138, including 87 Republicans voting in favor. NNEDV applauds the Members of Congress who led the fight and voted for VAWA's passage.
"Victims of violence and their advocates are breathing a collective sigh of relief today, knowing that this critical bill is on its way to President Obama for signature. We commend those who stood in support of victims and put the needs of those suffering from abuse ahead of partisan politics," said Kim Gandy, President and CEO of NNEDV. "These Representatives, and the Senators who voted in favor of the bipartisan VAWA, have renewed our nation's commitment to protecting victims of domestic and sexual violence."
The legislation that passed today is a strong reauthorization that includes landmark protections for women on Tribal lands, improves protections for immigrant victims, ensures services for LGBT survivors, and adds important housing protections for victims. The bill also preserves and maintains core funding for life-saving victim services.
NNEDV was founded to help pass the original Violence Against Women Act in 1994 and NNEDV is honored to have been part of this next step forward.
"Advocates and survivors have been working on this bill for years and will be elated to watch the President sign it into law," concluded Gandy.
President Obama Signs VAWA Reauthorization
Advocates and survivors celebrate improved law's passage
NNEDV
MARCH 06, 2013
Today, Thursday, March 7th, President Obama will sign the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA) of 2013 into law. The highly anticipated signing secures needed protections and services for victims of domestic and sexual violence.
"We are honored to be part of this long-awaited event, as President Obama stands with victims of violence and signs VAWA's reauthorization into law today," said Kim Gandy, President and CEO of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. "We know that Vice President Biden, who authored the original VAWA as a U.S. Senator, will share in our delight as this legislation is signed into law. He has worked tirelessly to ensure that the final bill was bipartisan and victim-centered."
VAWA 2013 is a strong reauthorization that includes landmark protections for women on Tribal lands, improves protections for immigrant victims, ensures services for LGBT survivors, and adds important housing protections for victims. The bill also preserves and maintains core funding for life-saving victim services.
"This law will substantially improve access to justice and services for ALL victims" said Gandy.
VAWA's movement from a bill to a law is the result of a collaborative effort between survivors, advocates and Congressional champions. In 2010, thousands of advocates joined calls to begin discussing how VAWA could be improved to better meet the needs of victims across the nation. In the years since, national organizations, state coalitions, local service programs, and victims and advocates across the country have spoken out, working in partnership with each other and with Congress to help push VAWA toward passage.
"We know that this bill could not have reached the President's desk without the outstanding commitment of dedicated advocates and Congressional champions. In particular, we acknowledge the steadfast leadership of the bill's original sponsor Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and its co-sponsor Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), and leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives including Representatives Gwen Moore (D-WI), John Conyers (D-MI), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and the many others in Congress who stood together for a final bill that truly reaches all victims.
With the significant and much-needed changes and improvements included in this reauthorization, the law will require coordinated implementation and funding to ensure that it reaches its potential.
"We look forward to working with partners across the nation to turn the letter of VAWA law into avenues for safety and justice for all survivors," concluded Gandy.
Obama signs Violence Against Women Act
Political 44 - A Living Diary of the Obama Presidency
March 07, 2013
President Obama signed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act on Thursday at a ceremony with lawmakers, advocates, survivors and Vice President Joe Biden, who authored the original law in 1994.
"We've come a long way -- back when Joe wrote this law, domestic abuse was too often seen as a private matter," he said, noting that victims too often stayed silent, and when they did go for help they often didn't get it and society swept it under the rug. "One of the legacies of this law is that it didn’t just change the rules, it changed our culture."
Obama thanked the lawmakers from both parties and the advocates and survivors in attendance who helped push the law's reauthorization through Congress. The new law allows for a national hotline for victims, a network of shelters, the enforcement of protection orders across state lines, and training for first responders, among other measures.
"Today's about the millions of women, the victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault who are out there right now, looking for a lifeline, looking for support," Obama said.
Biden said that since the national hotline's inception, some two million women have called for help. But he noted there remains much work to do. He noted that between 2009 and 2012, 40 percent of mass shootings -- "other than the celebrated ones you’ve seen" -- are a result of domestic abuse. And he said every reauthorizaton of the act -- including this one has been stronger.
"Because of the people on this stage and in this room, every time…we improved it, every single time we've improved it, and we did this again," he said.
Obama joked that the bill's passage gave him hope that all the other items on his legislative agenda might get similar treatment. The VAWA was one of the measures he mentioned in his State of the Union address Feb. 12.
"When I see how quick it got done, I'm feeling, [it] makes me feel optimistic," he said.
The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013:
Safely and Effectively Meeting the Needs of More Victims
NNEDV
March 07, 2013
Celebrating Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act
Office On Violence Against Women
Bea Hanson - Acting Director, OVW
March 7, 2013
Today President Obama signed the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA) of 2013, marking an historic day in our nation’s effort to reduce domestic and sexual violence. A week ago today Congress reauthorized this landmark bill, which maintains proven successful programs and includes significant new provisions that expand and improve the federal government’s response to violence against women.
OVW is proud to have been part of the tremendous effort to reauthorize VAWA. I am honored to have stood with you in the fight for legislation that defends the rights of all victims and survivors. The new tribal provisions are of particular importance to all of us at the Department of Justice. VAWA 2013 closes jurisdictional gaps that had long compromised American Indian and Alaska Native women’s safety and access to justice. This change supports the sovereignty of tribes and holds perpetrators accountable – a necessary step to reducing violence against Native women.
The reauthorization of VAWA also ensures that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender survivors have access to the services they need and deserve, enables victims in publicly subsidized housing to stay safe by transferring to a different unit or location, and adds protections for college students, who have some of the highest rates of rape in the nation. I could not agree more with Attorney General Eric Holder, who said, “I applaud Congress for passing a bipartisan reauthorization that protects everyone – women and men, gay and straight, children and adults of all races, ethnicities, countries of origin, and tribal affiliations”
The OVW staff and I are excited to work with all of you in the coming months to turn this legislation into reality. And it’s not just our office – the whole Department is engaged. As the Attorney General said, “The Department of Justice looks forward to implementing this historic legislation.”
Most of the changes to VAWA don’t take effect until FY 2014, but we’re starting work on them now. A big part of that will be hearing from you. We want to hear from survivors, advocates, law enforcement, and all our grantees and other stakeholders across the country. In fact, one of the new VAWA provisions requires us to consult with stakeholders within six months.
Over the next several months, we will be communicating with you about the new VAWA provisions in multiple ways – webinars, conference calls, new grantee orientations, TA provider meetings, fact sheets and more. OVW has always welcomed your input, and we need it now more than ever. Together we can strengthen the safety of our communities and ensure hope and healing is a reality for all survivors.
Moore and Lee: Female Voices Boost Violence Against Women Act
Roll Call
March 08, 2013
Domestic violence and sexual assault transcend every age, every socioeconomic status, and every educational background. It sees neither color nor creed. Regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or nationality, violence against women has completely pervaded our society. Many women are forced to suffer in silence, but late last week they regained their voice.
Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act is at once a heartening testament to our commitment to women’s rights and a sad reminder that violence against women is still happening. It is a reminder that, even with men and women facing violence every day in this country, it took more than 500 days for Congress to reauthorize and reinforce these common-sense protections.
That lag can be chalked up to partisan gridlock, ideological differences and imminent economic issues that dominate policy discussions. But breaking that stagnant streak with action can also be chalked up to female leaders’ voices in Congress, in communities and online. Without women standing up and speaking out about the bill — speaking on the floor, sending action alerts and mobilizing the grass roots to urge passage — we could have seen this inaction persist for another 500 days.
Some women’s “no” votes notwithstanding, this bill’s passage is a palpable example of a point the Barbara Lee Family Foundation’s research has demonstrated: Women in office matter, and they get results. In the Senate, 78 members supported the bill, including all of the 20 women in that chamber. While the gender split wasn’t so clear in the House — 10 Republican women voted against it — women’s voices were still a strong force for passage.
This bill, which strengthens protections for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, Native American women and undocumented immigrants, is reflective of the electorate. Inclusivity in VAWA matters for the same reason it matters in Congress: It is better for everyone. It is no wonder that the most diverse Congress with the most women in history passed the most inclusive VAWA to date.
VAWA’s passage, like women’s wins in November, is a sign that by leveraging their power — their voices, their values and their votes — women are making change.
Research by political scientists at Vanderbilt University and Ohio State University shows that over the past 40 years, women in the House introduced twice as many bills on civil rights, family issues, immigration, labor, health and education (those typically labeled “women’s issues”) than men. To be sure, women are not a monolithic group, all thinking and voting in lock step. But when it comes to traditional women’s issues, women have an advantage among voters.
VAWA’s passage is proof of that idea in action.
Let’s applaud the women who, by elevating their voices in the public sphere, elevated the often silenced voices of women in the private sphere. Let’s work to increase their ranks to a critical mass — a tipping point at which their collective voice will always be enough to get resounding results.
Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore represents Wisconsin’s 4th District. Barbara Lee is founder and president of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, whose nonpartisan research has studied women in politics since 1998.
Afghan Women’s Photo Exhibit Comes to Capitol
Roll Call
March 22, 2013
International advocates for women and girls are bringing an exhibit of telling photographs to the attention of lawmakers from countries that have been coalition partners in the decade-long war in Afghanistan, including the United States.
The exhibit, called Women Between War and Peace, launched on Capitol Hill in March and is a production by the Art Works Project, a human rights advocacy organization that uses art and design to raise public awareness of issues around the world.
Leslie Thomas, executive and creative director at AWP, said the exhibit has received approval for display in the British parliament and that she is involved in active conversations with people in charge in Berlin, Paris and other sites.
“We particularly have an interest in reaching out to audiences of political stakeholders,” Thomas told CQ Roll Call.
The images that debuted together in the Rayburn House Office Building on March 14 and 15 show the spectrum of women’s conditions in Afghanistan. There is, for instance, a print of photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair’s famous portrait of an 11-year-old bride and her 40-year-old husband, but there is also an image of Sabrina Sagheb, the youngest female to have run for — and won — a seat in the country’s parliament.
A handful of honchos gazed upon the images on opening night in the Rayburn Foyer, including Sultana Hakimi, the wife of Afghan Ambassador to the United States Eklil Ahmad Hakimi; Rep. Rick Nolan, D-Minn.; and Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., whose office sponsored the exhibit.
Edwards, who is co-chair of the Afghan Women’s Task Force with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., told CQ Roll Call, “Afghanistan’s future fully depends on our commitment to the success of women in that country.”
That’s never been more clear to her than on her last visit to the war-torn country, when she finally heard girls talking about becoming doctors, scientists and the like when they grow up, she said.
“These girls have dreams, and they have dreams because they’re being educated,” McMorris Rodgers said.
After 12 years of war, American forces are set to depart from Afghanistan in 2014. In her opening night remarks, Afghan women’s activist Wazhma Frogh alluded to women’s ability to dissuade young men from joining the insurgency and the Taliban.
“No question about it,” Edwards said. “Women’s engagement will be what helps define the peace and stability in Afghanistan.”
The United Nations Foundation, a nonprofit that works to advance the United Nation’s goals, helped put on the exhibit in Rayburn.
Maureen Greenwood-Basken, an executive director under the United Nations Foundation’s Women and Population Program, looked at the display and told CQ Roll Call, “It’s so immediate and emotional, and it kind of really brings it home.”
“For instance, there’s a photo of child marriage in Afghanistan. I’ve been working on child marriage legislation for 8 years — and we finally saw it passed on Friday,” she said.
New provisions of the Violence Against Women Act, signed into law earlier this month, direct the secretary of State to develop and implement a plan to prevent child marriage and mitigate its risk factors abroad.
Dovetailing with those provisions, much of Greenwood-Basken’s work focuses on reducing Afghan women’s unusually high rate of death during childbirth. Methods for changing this include improving access to voluntary contraception and training midwives, but also include convincing the powers that be to take notice.
“It means trying to bring attention to these issues and trying to bring some political will in U.S. leadership to address them,” she said.
A Bad Law on Life Support
American Thinker
April 08, 2013
A bad piece of legislation is about to be reauthorized, empowering bureaucrats and tort lawyers and poisoning relations between women and men. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) could be fixed, but Senate Democrats will not hear of it.
Vice President Joe Biden says that out of all the legislation that he was associated with while serving in Congress, he is most proud of his role in getting the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed in 1994. Now, seventeen years later, even the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), admits that the bill is too broad to be effective. An expert in family violence, Dr. Angela Moore Parmley, concurs: "We have no evidence to date that VAWA has led to a decrease in the overall levels of violence against women." To the contrary, some studies indicate an increase in violence against women since VAWA was enacted, including in one study a 60-percent increase in intimate partner homicides.
VAWA has created a vast bureaucracy with an annual price tag of $455 million. Instead of addressing the root problems of violence and ending battering, the broad definitions of violence in VAWA mean that husbands are thrown in jail based on flimsy allegations of causing "emotional distress" or of "unpleasant speech." Meanwhile, drug-addicted boyfriends and alcoholic cohabitors continue to batter, and all men are assumed to be capable of violence.
The end result is that a bill that supposedly addresses domestic violence is, instead, a thinly veiled means of promoting feminist ideology, and anyone who dares to raise questions is accused of waging a "war against women." In such a climate, rational disagreement is virtually impossible. After all, VAWA, like many leftist progressive initiatives, sounds positive. Who, besides jihadists, favors abuse of women?
Decent people condemn anyone who uses power, physical strength, or superior position to take advantage of, abuse, or batter a vulnerable person. But decent people are also outraged at false accusations, trumped up campaigns to promote hidden agendas, and the rush to judgment that so often obscures facts in favor of emotional accounts of abuse. Crystal Smoot, writing on the website WAVE: Women Against VAWA Excess, wrote, "VAWA creates incentives for people to commit fraud, but does not include penalties to punish those who misuse the law. We cannot assume that everyone reporting abuse is telling the truth when rewards are available, especially when innocent people can find themselves accused of a crime."
Yet on February 2, the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected a commonsense amendment that would have curbed the bill's excesses and ensured that it actually protected anyone (not just women) from abusive attacks. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) proposed an amendment -- instituting accountability measures and streamlining the vast bureaucracy -- that was rejected. Imagine such a decision in these days of fiscal crisis, when the national deficit affects everyone's future. Sen. Grassley's amendment, he said, "means that less money is spent on bureaucrats, leaving more funds for victims." Nevertheless, the reauthorization of the bloated legislation passed out of committee on a strict party-line vote. It will now come before the Democrat-dominated full Senate and, even in this time of fiscal crisis, it is expected to pass along partisan lines.
A major underlying problem with VAWA is that the bill lacks appropriate focus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified approximately 30 causes of domestic violence. From this, we know the factors that lead to violence in the home. Those factors are a complete mismatch with the provisions of VAWA. Domestic violence is a problem that stems from problems in relationships, psychological or social maladjustment, anger, alcoholism, and substance abuse. VAWA is all about restraining orders, arrests, prosecution, batterer intervention programs, fostering false allegations, re-educating judges in feminist ideology and biases, and law enforcement training, all of which have been shown to increase rather than decrease violence. The vast VAWA bureaucracy is a full-employment entity for feminist lawyers and social workers and a boondoggle for feminist organizations who assume that all men are prone to violence and that any accusation a woman makes is fully truthful without question. Any skeptic is labeled "anti-women."
An unintended (or perhaps not) consequence of VAWA is that the legislation has created a climate of suspicion of men and an abusive system that contributes to the breakdown of families. The bill is more about pushing a gender ideology than about stopping partner violence. The result has undermined males in general and husbands/fathers in particular. As lawyer Phyllis Schlafly pointed out, "[a]ny man accused of domestic violence effectively loses a long list of Constitutional rights accorded to ordinary criminals. These include due process, presumption of innocence until proven guilty, equal treatment under the law, right to a fair trial, right to confront his accusers, freedom of speech, right to privacy in family matters, custody or visitation rights with his own children and even the right to bear arms. On the other hand, the woman receives free legal representation even if she has presented no evidence of injury or harm."
A favorite (unsubstantiated) argument frequently used by feminists is that "controlling communities" foster violence against women; those "controlling communities" are military and religious families. Not only are these families not on the CDC's long list of risk factors for domestic violence, but the social science data are clear: families that go to church are happier and healthier on every measure of women's well-being. A married father-mother home is the safest and most nurturing place for the nation's women and children. Military personnel, too, are not potential abusers of women because of their profession; they are, by and large, honorable men who are in the military to protect their families and nation.
By now, everyone should know that the majority of "domestic violence" incidents are committed by boyfriends, not husbands. Probably because of that fact, statistics are now kept on "intimate partner" violence, and we refer to "domestic violence" rather than breaking down violence into types of intimate partners or domestic household arrangements. We also know that out-of-control anger, alcoholism, and drug addiction are among the top risk factors; VAWA ignores those problems in favor of "re-educating" judges and law enforcement on the feminists' version of "women's rights."
In short, VAWA offers women both a "tactical advantage" and a "powerful weapon" when they want to "get back" at a man, have regrets the next morning, or want out of a marriage for any reason at all. Allegations of abuse can cause men to lose their homes, jobs, children, and standing in the community. Once they've been thrown in jail because of mandatory arrests and have been assumed guilty, where do they go to get their reputations and their jobs back when the accusations are proven false?
President's 2014 Budget Proposal Would Restore and Increase Resources for Victims
NNEDV calls on Congress to maintain and increase investments
NNEDV
APRIL 11, 2013
Yesterday, President Obama released his fiscal year 2014 budget proposal, which includes desperately needed investments in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) and the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) shelter funding.
"At a time when fiscal decisions are tough, we are reassured by the continued support of President Obama and Vice President Biden for lifesaving programs that address violence against women," said Kim Gandy, NNEDV's President and CEO. "Recent decreases in federal funding due to sequestration have jeopardized victims' access to safety. Congress should build on the President's budget proposal to ensure that victims of violence won't be denied critical services."
The President's budget would release $800 million from the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) fund (made up of criminal fines, penalty fees, forfeited bail bonds and the like) dedicated to direct services for victims of crime, including survivors of domestic and sexual violence. The budget targets a portion of the VOCA funding to support national initiatives and services to tribal victims, while maintaining funding to state victim assistance programs. The budget proposal would restore funding for the recently renewed Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Resources for domestic violence shelters, funded by the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA), would be restored and increased by $6 million in this budget.
For most VAWA programs, increases in the President's budget proposal basically restore funding that was cut in fiscal year 2013 due to sequestration and other cuts. In some programs, the President's budget provides modest increases over fiscal year 2012, which will result in more funding to meet the needs of domestic violence victims. The essential VAWA transitional housing grant, however, is reduced below FY 12 funding.
The President's budget proposal responds to a prolonged crisis faced by victim services providers. There are simply not enough resources to meet the demand for victim services. In September 2012, NNEDV surveyed the 56 state and territorial coalitions working against domestic violence to obtain information on funding of those programs throughout the United States. The survey revealed that across the country, state and local programs are experiencing substantial cuts in funding from federal, state and local governmental sources. Additionally, the vast majority of states reported that their programs have seen decreases in their funding in the last fiscal year.
Since 2011, at least 19 local DV programs across the country have been forced to close entirely. NNEDV's "Domestic Violence Counts" report found that in one 24-hour period in 2012, nearly 65,000 victims received lifesaving services at domestic violence programs nationwide. Unfortunately, during that same 24-hour period more than 10,000 requests for services went unmet largely due to lack of funding. The President's proposed investment in these programs will help local domestic violence shelters respond to more victims who are fleeing abuse.
"Plainly," said Gandy, "the funding crisis means that victims will be turned away when they are at their most vulnerable. While service providers work with each victim who comes to them to find safety, they cannot create shelter beds out of thin air, hire advocates on a promise, or build affordable housing on a wing and a prayer. They need funding to help provide refuge and safety for victims."
While the President's budget is a strong starting place, NNEDV encourages Congress to make additional investments in victim safety. NNEDV calls on Congress to release at least $1 billion from the VOCA fund and to structure the release to maximize the funding distributed through the state formula grants directly to local programs. Additionally, NNEDV encourages Congress to increase VAWA STOP (Services*Training*Officers*Prosecutors) funding to at least $205 million to ensure that states can continue to improve the response to victims. Congress should maintain VAWA transitional housing at $25 million to ensure that victims are not faced with the choice between continued abuse or homelessness. Finally, NNEDV encourages Congress to target at least $140 million for the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) to support domestic violence shelters and programs.
"We look forward to working with Congress throughout the budget process to restore funding lost through sequestration and to target investments to lifesaving victim services," Gandy concluded.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Renewal passes the House and Senate and signed into law
New law will safely and effectively meet the needs of more victims
NNEDV
April 13, 2013
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is the cornerstone of our nation's response to domestic and sexual violence. A strong bipartisan bill to reauthorize VAWA (S. 47) passed in the Senate on February 12, 2013 (78-22) and in the House of Representatives on February 28, 2013 (286-138). President Obama signed the bill into law on March 7, 2013.
YOUR calls made a difference! This is our collective victory for survivors. Want to make one more call? Visit our Legislative Action Center to find out how you can thank your Senators and Representatives for voting for VAWA.
What will this renewal of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) change?
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has improved our nation's response to violence. However, not all victims have been protected or reached. VAWA 2013 will close critical gaps in services and justice. VAWA 2013 reauthorized and improved upon lifesaving services for all victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking - including Native women, immigrants, LGBT victims, college students and youth, and public housing residents.
VAWA 2013 also authorized appropriate funding to provide for VAWA's vitally important programs and protections, without imposing limitations that undermine effectiveness or victim safety.
Justice and safety for Native American Women: Native American victims of domestic violence often cannot seek justice because their courts are not allowed to prosecute non-Native offenders -- even for crimes committed on Tribal land. This major gap in justice, safety, and violence prevention must be addressed. VAWA 2013 includes a solution that would give Tribal courts the authority they need to hold offenders in their communities accountable.
Justice and safety for LGBT survivors: Lesbian, gay, bisexul and transgender survivors of violence experience the same rates of violence as straight individuals. However, LGBT survivors sometimes face discrimination when seeking help and protection. VAWA 2013 prohibits such discrimination to ensure that all victims of violence have access to the same services and protection to overcome trauma and find safety.
Safe housing for survivors: Landmark VAWA housing protections that were passed in 2005 have helped prevent discrimination against and unjust evictions of survivors of domestic violence in public and assisted housing. The law, however, did not cover all federally subsidized housing programs. VAWA 2013 expands these protections to individuals in all federally subsidized housing programs, explicitly protects victims of sexual assault and creates emergency housing transfer options.
Protections for immigrant survivors: VAWA 2013 maintains important protections for immigrant survivors of abuse, while also making key improvements to existing provisions including by strengthening the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act and the provisions around self-petitions and U visas.
Justice on campuses: College students are mong thos emost vulnerable to dating violence. Provisions in VAWA 2013 add additional protections for students by requiring schools to implement a recording process for incidences of dating violence, as well as report the findings. In addition, schools would be required to create plans to prevent this violence and educate victims on their rights and resources.
Maintaining VAWA grant programs: VAWA grants are effectively meeting the needs of millions of victims across the country. VAWA 2013 includes many important improvements to these grant programs, including allowing state domestic violence coalitions to be the lead applicant on the Grants to Encourage Arrest program; ensuring that specific stakeholders, including domestic violence coalitions, play a meaningful role in developing state STOP plans; and providing a formal process for the Office on Violence Against Women to receive coalition and other key domestic violence and sexual assault community input.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is effective and important:
VAWA creates and supports comprehensive, cost-effective responses to the pervasive and insidious crimes of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking. Since its enactment in 1994, VAWA programs, administered by the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS), have dramatically improved federal, tribal, state, and local responses to these crimes.
- There has been as much as a 51% increase in reporting by women and a 37% increase in reporting by men.
- The number of individuals killed by an intimate partner has decreased by 34% for women and 57% for men, and the rate of non-fatal intimate partner violence against women has decreased by 67%.
- VAWA not only saves lives, it saves money. In its first six years alone, VAWA saved taxpayers at least $12.6 billion in net averted social costs. A recent study found that civil protection orders saved one state (Kentucky) on average $85 million in a single year.
- Find more information here.
Initially passed in 1994, VAWA created the first U.S. federal legislation acknowledging domestic violence and sexual assault as crimes, and provided federal resources to encourage community-coordinated responses to combating violence. Its reauthorization in 2000 improved the foundation established by VAWA 1994 by creating a much-needed legal assistance program for victims and by expanding the definition of crime to include dating violence and stalking. Its subsequent reauthorization in 2005 took a more holistic approach to addressing these crimes and created new programs to meet the emerging needs of communities working to prevent violence. Included in the 2005 reauthorization were new focus areas such as prevention, landmark housing protections for survivors, funding for rape crisis centers, and culturally- and linguistically-specific services. VAWA 2013 will ensure the continuation and improvement of these vital, lifesaving programs and laws.
NNEDV continues to be a leading force in efforts to reauthorize VAWA. NNEDV and its member state domestic violence coalitions also played a crucial role in the passage of VAWA in 1994 and its reauthorizations in 2000 and 2005.
NNEDV is currently working with state coalitions, national organizations, and Congress to ensure VAWA’s swift reauthorization and targeted investments in VAWA grant programs through the appropriations process.
NNEDV's Role in VAWA Reauthorization
NNEDV played an integral role in efforts to reauthorize VAWA. NNEDV and its member state domestic violence coalitions also played a crucial role inthe passage of VAWA in 1994 and its reauthorization in 2000 and 2005.
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Learn More About VAWA:
VAWA - U Status For Immigrant Domestic Violence Victims - Application Guide
FIRRP/ The Florence Immigrant And Refugee Rights Project
May 01, 2013
The Problems with VAWA
Concerned Women For America
May 24, 2013
A bad piece of legislation is about to be reauthorized, empowering bureaucrats and tort lawyers and poisoning relations between women and men. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) could be fixed, but Senate Democrats will not hear of it.
President Joe Biden says that out of all the legislation that he was associated with while serving in Congress, he is most proud of his role in getting the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed in 1994. Now, 17 years later, even the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), admits that the bill is too broad to be effective. An expert in family violence, Dr. Angela Moore Parmley, concurs, "We have no evidence to date that VAWA has led to a decrease in the overall levels of violence against women." To the contrary, some studies indicate an increase in violence against women since VAWA was enacted, including in one study a 60 percent increase in intimate partner homicides.
VAWA has created a vast bureaucracy with an annual price tag of $455 million. Instead of addressing the root problems of violence and ending battering, the broad definitions of violence in VAWA mean that husbands are thrown in jail based on flimsy allegations of causing "emotional distress" or "unpleasant speech." Meanwhile, drug-addicted boyfriends and alcoholic cohabitors continue to batter, and all men are assumed to be capable of violence.
The end result is that a bill that supposedly addresses domestic violence is, instead, a thinly veiled means of promoting feminist ideology, and anyone who dares to raise questions is accused of waging a "war against women." In such a climate, rational disagreement is virtually impossible. After all, VAWA, like many leftist, progressive initiatives, sounds positive. Who, besides jihadists, favors abuse of women?
Decent people condemn anyone who uses their power, physical strength, or superior position to take advantage of, abuse, or batter a vulnerable person. But decent people are also outraged at false accusations, trumped up campaigns to promote hidden agendas, and the rush to judgment that so often obscures facts in favor of emotional accounts of abuse. Crystal Smoot, writing on the website, WAVE: Women Against VAWA Excess, wrote, "VAWA creates incentives for people to commit fraud, but does not include penalties to punish those who misuse the law. We cannot assume that everyone reporting abuse is telling the truth when rewards are available, especially when innocent people can find themselves accused of a crime."
Yet, on February 2, the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected a commonsense amendment that would have curbed the bill's excesses and ensured that it actually protected anyone (not just women) from abusive attacks. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) proposed an amendment - instituting accountability measures and streamlining the vast bureaucracy - that was rejected. Imagine such a decision in these days of fiscal crisis, when the national deficit affects everyone's future. Sen. Grassley's amendment, he said, "means that less money is spent on bureaucrats, leaving more funds for victims." Nevertheless, the reauthorization of the bloated legislation passed out of committee on a strict party-line vote. It will now come before the Democrat-dominated full Senate and, even in this time of fiscal crisis, it is expected to pass along partisan lines.
A major, underlying problem with VAWA is that the bill lacks appropriate focus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified approximately 30 causes of domestic violence. From this, we know the factors that lead to violence in the home. Those factors are a complete mismatch with the provisions of VAWA. Domestic violence is a problem that stems from problems in relationships, psychological or social maladjustment, anger, alcoholism, and substance abuse. VAWA is all about restraining orders, arrests, prosecution, batterer intervention programs, fostering false allegations, re-educating judges in feminist ideology and biases, and law enforcement training that have been shown to increase, rather than decrease violence. The vast VAWA bureaucracy is a full-employment entity for feminist lawyers and social workers and a boondoggle for feminist organizations who assume that all men are prone to violence and that any accusation a woman makes is fully truthful without question - any skeptic is labeled "anti-women."
An unintended (or perhaps not) consequence of VAWA is that the legislation created a climate of suspicion of men and an abusive system that contributed to the breakdown of families. The bill is more about pushing a gender ideology than about stopping partner violence. The result has undermined males in general and husband/fathers in particular. As lawyer Phyllis Schlafly, pointed out, "Any man accused of domestic violence effectively loses a long list of Constitutional rights accorded to ordinary criminals. These include due process, presumption of innocence until proven guilty, equal treatment under the law, right to a fair trial, right to confront his accusers, freedom of speech, right to privacy in family matters, custody or visitation rights with his own children and even the right to bear arms. On the other hand, the woman receives free legal representation even if she has presented no evidence of injury or harm."
A favorite (unsubstantiated) argument frequently used by feminists is that "controlling communities" foster violence against women; those "controlling communities" are military and religious families. Not only are these families NOT on the CDC's long list of risk factors for domestic violence, the social science data are clear: families that go to church are happier and healthier on every measure of women's well-being. A married father-mother home is the safest and most nurturing place for the nation's women and children. Military personnel, too, are not potential abusers of women because of their profession; they are, by-and-large, honorable men who are in the military to protect their families and nation.
By now, everyone should know that the majority of "domestic violence" incidences are committed by boyfriends, not husbands. Probably because of that fact, statistics are now kept on "intimate partner" violence, and we refer to "domestic violence" rather than breaking down violence into types of intimate partners or domestic household arrangements. We also know that out-of-control anger, alcoholism, and drug addiction are among the top risk factors; VAWA ignores those problems in favor of "re-educating" judges and law enforcement on the feminists' version of "women's rights."
In short, VAWA offers women both a "tactical advantage" and a "powerful weapon" when they want to "get back" at a man, have regrets the next morning, or want out of a marriage for any reason at all. Allegations of abuse can cause men to lose their homes, jobs, children, and standing in the community. Once they've been thrown in jail because of mandatory arrests and have been assumed guilty, where do they go to get their reputations and their jobs back when the accusations are proven false?
Biden: 'Neanderthal crowd' slowed VAWA renewal
Political 44 - A Living Diary of the Obama Presidency
September 12, 2013
Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday slammed the Republicans who slowed the passage of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act as "this sort of Neanderthal crowd" in the House as he touted what he considers to be his unique understanding of how Congress works.
"I'm going to say something outrageous," Biden said at the Naval Observatory at an event marking the 19th anniversary of the bill. "I think I understand the Senate better than any man or woman who's ever served in there, and I think I understand the House ... I was surprised this last time ... the idea we still had to fight? We had to fight to reauthorize?"
"Did you ever think we'd be fighting over, you know, 17, 18 years later to reauthorize this?" he asked the crowd, which included people who'd worked on getting the original bill passed in 1994. "Well, you know what? The thing they didn't like, they said we like it the way it is," he said, without the protections for Native Americans living on tribal lands and LGBT people that the supporters pushed to include in the bill.
A five-year reauthorization finally passed in March, allowing Biden a small victory that served to remind him of the achievement of getting the first bill passed. "Nothing, nothing, nothing I've ever been engaged in matters to me more than what you've made real," he told the crowd.
