VAWA Posts:
VAWA Reauthorization Acts - Used to pass Biden administration 'red flag' laws; Paralyzing the federal 1996 Lautenberg DV Gun Ban; Denying victims rights/protections under the Lautenberg DV Gun Ban and violating 2nd amendment rights via enactment of 18 USC §§ 921(a)(32 - 33) in 2019 and intended amendments in 2021 VAWA.
VAWA - Paralyzing the federal 1996 Lautenberg DV Gun Ban; denying victims rights/protections under the Lautenberg DV Gun Ban and violating 2nd amendment rights via creation of 18 USC §§ 921(a)(32 - 33) :
The federal Lautenberg Domestic Violence Gun Ban/18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) was enacted in 1996.
"Senator Lautenberg intended to close a dangerous loophole in the Gun Control Act enabling domestic violence offenders to evade an additional felony conviction for gun possession by getting domestic violence felony charges reduced to misdemeanors." [Examining the Lautenberg Amendment in the Civilian and Military Contexts. Jessica A. Golden. The Fifth Annual Domestic Violence Conference. 2001]
In states, such as Michigan, the Lautenberg Amendment was ignored. Through plea bargains (specifically for law enforcement and officials) abusers convicted of any domestic violence offense (less than murder) are allowed to have their offense expunged/set aside, and their guns returned to them. Michigan has a specific Lautenberg Loophole: MCL 769.4a. Despite the danger this poses to victims, Michigan officials refuse to uphold the Lautenberg Amendment.
During the reauthorization of the VAWA of 2018 (enacted in 2019), legislators (specifically MI Congresswoman Dingell) pushed for 'red flag' laws - citing (incorrectly) that domestic violence victims were not federally protected via federal gun prohibition laws. Unfortunately, many legislators, the public and victims themselves were unaware of the 1996 Lautenberg DV Gun Ban law that was already in effect - and the VAWA reauthorization sponsors/co-sponsors took advantage of this for their own agenda. Additionally, VAWA sponsors/co-sponsors were not concerned with the protections and rights of victims which were in the Lautenberg Domestic Violence Gun Ban/18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) and were not placed in the VAWA DV gun ban law/ 18 USC §§ 921(a)(32 - 33).
- "The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019, which Leader McConnell refuses to bring to the floor for a vote, includes a number of reforms to keep firearms out of the hands of abusers...But if McConnell refuses to act, Biden will enact legislation to close the so-called “boyfriend loophole” and “stalking loophole” by prohibiting all individuals convicted of assault, battery, or stalking from purchasing or possessing firearms, regardless of their connection to the victim...Biden also supports enacting the proposal to prohibit anyone under a temporary restraining order from purchasing or possessing a firearm before their hearing." [The Biden plan to end our gun violence epidemic. Joe Biden Campaign. Gun Safety. April 25, 2019.]
- "He (Biden) indicated he was “absolutely sure” the Democrats could pass more gun control, but stressed they must do it by burying the controls in a larger bill. He suggested this approach would serve the purpose of giving Republicans cover as well, so they could cross the aisle and support Second Amendment restrictions....Biden said: The way we did it last time is we included it in a larger bill that had really good things in it like the Violence Against Women Act..." [Las Vegas Sun Publishes Radical Anti-Gun Joe Biden Interview a Year After It Took Place. Breitbart. February 08, 2021]
- "Joe went on to reveal how he intends to pass his anti-gun proposals; he wants to hide it in larger bills that legislators may feel forced to support. In other words, Biden admits that he cannot pass gun control as a standalone measure..."[LV Sun Finally Reveals Biden Interview That Exposes Depths of Anti-Gun Views to Public. NRA. February 8, 2021.]
- "President Biden is reiterating his call for Congress to pass legislation to reduce gun violence. Last month, a bipartisan coalition in the House passed two bills to close loopholes in the gun background check system. Congress should close those loopholes and go further, including by closing “boyfriend” and stalking loopholes that currently allow people found by the courts to be abusers to possess firearms, banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines, repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability, and investing in evidence-based community violence interventions. Congress should also pass an appropriate national “red flag” law, as well as legislation incentivizing states to pass “red flag” laws of their own." [FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Initial Actions to Address the Gun Violence Public Health Epidemic. Whitehouse Briefing Room Statements Releases. April 04, 2021.]
Via the VAWA of 2018/2019, 18 USC §§ 921(a)(32 - 33) was enacted. The law allowed for abusers to retain their guns if their conviction was set aside or expunged. The Lautenberg Amendment did not allow for domestic violence convictions to be set aside/expunged. Thus, victims were better protected under the Lautenberg Amendment - and therefore, victims lost these rights/protections with the enactment of 18 USC §§ 921(a)(32 - 33).
The "Boyfriend Loophole" that VAWA backers are currently in an uproar about with the 2021 VAWA reauthorization? In writing 18 USC §§ 921(a)(32 - 33), "boyfriend" relationship wasn't listed in the law - and they are not subject to the conditions of the law. NOTE: "boyfriends" are not excluded in the Lautenberg Amendment.
For the past 25 years, Michigan legislators (specifically Congresswoman Dingell) and the Office on Violence Against Women/OVW (which distributes the VAWA funding and addresses issues for ALL victims of domestic violence except OIDV) - have never had a concern with the safety of victims of OIDV and the state/courts not upholding the Lautenberg DV Gun Ban. Not a peep of concern for OIDV victims as law enforcement officers convicted of domestic violence pled under MCL 769.4a and were quickly returned to duty with their guns strapped to their hips - Despite their own statistics demonstrating the dangers of guns in domestic violence situations:
- The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%." [Risk Factors for Femicide in Abusive Relationships: Results From a Multisite Case Control Study. US National Library of Medicine. National Institutes of Health]. [National Statistics Domestic Violence Facts. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. 2020]
- 19% of domestic violence involves a weapon." [Nonfatal Domestic Violence, 2003–2012. Department Of Justice]
- In 2019, there were 44 reported domestic violence murders in Michigan. [Domestic Violence in MICHIGAN. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. 2020]
- Over half of domestic violence homicides in Michigan are committed with guns. [Domestic Violence in MICHIGAN. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. 2020]
- Between 2008 and 2017, there were 903 reported domestic violence murders and non-negligent manslaughters. [Domestic Violence in MICHIGAN. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. 2020]
- Abusers’ access to firearms increases the risk of intimate partner femicide at least five-fold. When firearms have been used in the most severe abuse incident, the risk increases 41-fold. [Domestic Violence in MICHIGAN. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. 2020]
In fact, the only concern that Michigan officials had was with the media coverage of OIDV cases in which the Lautenberg Amendment was not being adhered. So, in 2013, Michigan legislators amended MCL 769.4a and put a permanent gag order on all court proceedings in which the Lautenberg Amendment was not upheld. In doing so, Michigan silenced the voice of OIDV victims and all other domestic violence victims whose abusers retained their guns via the Michigan Lautenberg Loophole law.
In 2019, the enactment of the VAWA reauthorization act, and 8 USC §§ 921(a)(33)(B)(ii) allowed for the setting aside of domestic violence convictions. Michigan legislators displayed no concern for the safety of OIDV/DV victims and quickly set to work amending MCL 769.4a.
In February 2020, amended MCL 769.4a was enacted. Under MCL 769.4a and in accordance with 8 USC §§ 921(a)(33)(B)(ii), any domestic violence conviction (less than murder) could be expunged/set aside/deferred, with guns returned to the convicted abuser. Furthermore, the harshest sentence a convicted abuser in the state of MI can receive under MCL 769.4a is probation.
Were VAWA funded programs financially rewarded for allowing the VAWA legislation to be used for Biden's red flag laws?
- "President Biden has asked for $1 billion to support Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) programs at the Department of Justice as part of his Fiscal Year 2022 budget, a $487 million or 95 percent increase over the 2021 enacted level." [Following Letter Led by Sen. Klobuchar, President Biden Requests Historic Level of Funding for Violence Against Women Act Programs. Targeted News Service. April 09, 2021]
- "President Joe Biden on Thursday signed a bill to increase funding to support victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and other crimes....“This bill is going to allow us to make sure that all of the fines and penalties that are from federal cases go to the victims, the Crime Victims Fund, to rebuild this fund."[Biden signs bill to increase funding to Crime Victims Fund. Breitbart. July 22, 2021]
Thousands of news articles on the VAWA reauthorization act of 2021 - and only one news article on OIDV:
"In the last decade, dozens of South Carolina officers were charged with domestic violence — an offense that Gov. Henry McMaster called “a scourge in our state” after a sheriff was charged in 2019...The crime has garnered a name — officer-involved domestic violence...When all the arrests of South Carolina officers accused of off-duty violence from 2010 to 2020 were totaled and averaged, a disturbing statistic emerged. Nearly nine law enforcement employees were charged each year with violence. And that number is likely too low, according to policing and domestic violence experts...The number of arrests show that an alarming number of South Carolina officers tasked with protecting the public are themselves the perpetrators of violence, especially when they are off duty...From the start of 2010 to the end of 2020, at least 96 people tied to law enforcement agencies were accused of violence against current or former spouses and partners or other relatives. Three officers were charged more than once in the decade for a total of 99 cases..." [A decade of abuse: SC police have an issue with violence against women. What can fix it? The State, Columbia SC. April 27, 2021]
Federal Court: President Donald Trump Has Authority to Bar Uninsured Immigrants from Admission
Breitbart
January 01, 2021
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in favor of President Donald Trump’s order barring entry to legal immigrants until they fund their own health insurance and avoid becoming a “public charge’ for taxpayers.
The San Francisco Chronicle put the number of migrants who would not be admissible at an estimated 375,000 every year — or about one million every 2.5 years.
The Chronicle claimed migrants have a right to enter American’s homeland even if they need Americans to pay for their healthcare, and suggested that President-elect Joe Biden would probably reverse Trump’s move:
Thursday’s court ruling involved his October 2019 proclamation denying visas to immigrants who did not have health insurance and could not show that they would obtain it within 30 days of entering the country. Immigrants could receive Medicare and be allowed to remain, but those who planned to obtain coverage under the low-income Medicaid program or the government-subsidized Affordable Care Act would not be eligible. Advocates for immigrants say Trump’s proclamation would bar entry to nearly two-thirds of all otherwise legal migrants, those who obtain their entry visas from employers, U.S. relatives or an annual lottery.The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, if it becomes final, would allow Trump’s order to take effect for the first time. But attorney Esther Sung of the Justice Action Center, one of the legal organizations challenging the policy, said that under the court’s standard timetable, the ruling will not be binding for 52 days. That would be well past President-elect Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration. Biden has promised to undo his predecessor’s anti-immigration policies as soon as possible.A federal judge in Portland blocked Trump’s proclamation from taking effect in December 2019, saying it exceeded the president’s legal authority. Panels of the appeals court twice denied emergency orders that would have let Trump enforce the ban during the court proceedings. But a different panel of the court ruled 2-1 Thursday that the president’s broad powers over immigration include the authority to limit entry only to those who can afford health insurance. The majority said the U.S. Supreme Court recognized those powers in 2018 when it upheld Trump’s ban on travel to the U.S. from a number of predominantly Muslim nations.
The ruling “makes clear that the Biden administration must move swiftly to rescind all of President Trump’s xenophobic presidential proclamations, including this health care ban,” Sung said in the Chronicle report. “Countless people have been hurt by this ban, and each passing day keeps families needlessly separated.”
Judge Daniel Collins said in the majority opinion that the law “grants the president sweeping authority to decide whether to suspend entry, whose entry to suspend, and for how long” and “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
Collins said Trump can put in place restrictions beyond those enacted by Congress as long as the rules do not conflict with federal laws.
And the cost of this migrant demographic is staggering.
“The appeals court said the Trump administration had presented evidence that legal immigrants are only one-third as likely as U.S. citizens to have health insurance, and that uninsured residents cost taxpayers and health care providers more than $35 billion a year,” the Chronicle reported.
Open border advocates side with migrants on the issue.
In dissent, Judge A. Wallace Tashima said Trump’s order conflicts with immigration policies and laws passed by Congress, including the Affordable Care Act, which made legal immigrants eligible for the same subsidized coverage as U.S. citizens.
Tashima said the restriction violates part of the Violence Against Women Act that protects victims of violent sex crimes from being deported.
The president’s proclamation was “a major overhaul of this nation’s immigration laws without the input of Congress — a sweeping and unprecedented exercise of unilateral executive power,” Tashima said.
Nolan Out Loud: Pelosi tries to erase gender
January 4, 2021
Detroit News, The
California's Nancy Pelosi turned back a weak revolt by Democratic progressives to remain speaker of the House.
Among her first acts of the new session was to move to change House rules to make the language of legislation gender neutral. No more grandfather, father, son or grandmother, mother, daughter. Him, her, she and he get the boot, too.
This is likely to cause some problems for legislation that is gender specific, like the Violence Against Women Act. Will it now be the Violence Against Those Who Identify as Persons With Vaginas Act?
Perverting the language to foster the ridiculous idea that gender doesn't really exist is offensive, and silly. And this comes from the supposed party of science.
Year of lost liberty
2020 will be remembered as the year of lost liberty. We were locked in our houses and out of our churches, our businesses were closed by government edict, and we were told who could enter our homes and how many. A precedent has been set that will lead to further such trampling of freedom whenever America faces a threat to safety or security. See my Sunday column.
GOP delusion continues
Republicans plan a S___ Show Wednesday when Congress convenes to approve the results of the Electoral College vote that made Joe Biden president. Several House members and Senators plan to challenge the results, which will lead to a lengthy debate and ultimately a vote that will certify the election in Biden's favor. One word for this partisan exercise: Stupid. See our editorial.
ETC.
Speaking of woke nonsense -- a judge in Fairfax, Virginia agreed to a black defendant's request to have portraits of judges removed from the courtroom before his trial because most of those pictured were white.
Some health experts are suggesting that the new Moderna vaccine be delivered in half doses to make supplies go farther. Apparently, for those under 55, a half-dose works just as well as a full-strength shot.
Airlines are doing a great job of enforcing mask mandates. But if you get on a plane sneezing, coughing or even vomiting, you're welcome to take your seat.
I spent some time this weekend doing road-side clean-up. Along with empty juice containers, the No. 1 item I picked up was discarded face masks. C'mon folks. Tossing a used mask out the window is nasty.
Everytown Congratulates President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Strongest Gun Safety Administration in American History
Targeted News Service (USA)
January 22, 2021
MANHATTAN, New York, Jan. 22 -- Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a campaign of Everytown for Gun Safety, issued the following news:
Everytown for Gun Safety and its grassroots networks, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, released the following statements celebrating the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Calling gun violence a "public health epidemic," President Biden and Vice President Harris ran on an expansive platform to reduce gun violence, which included requiring background checks on all gun sales, enacting red flag laws, stopping the proliferation of "ghost guns," prohibiting the sale of assault weapons, and ending immunity for the gun industry. Together, they represented the strongest presidential gun safety ticket in history.
The election of President Biden, along with the election of gun sense majorities in the House and the Senate, clears the path for executive action and legislation to address our nation's gun violence crisis and save lives. This is also a colossal loss for the newly-bankrupt NRA, former President Donald Trump's largest outside backer in 2016, which halved its spending for President Trump this election cycle amid unprecedented internal turmoil, and while undergoing multiple investigations.
"President Biden and Vice President Harris have put together the strongest gun safety administration in American history, and we are all safer now that they are officially in office," said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. "Everytown is grateful to count both of them as longtime allies, and we will do everything in our power to help them enact the common-sense gun safety policies the American people are demanding."
"America is facing an array of crises, including COVID-19, gun violence, and extremism. Fortunately, President Biden is eminently qualified to address them simultaneously," said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. "We congratulate him and Vice President Harris on their inauguration, and we look forward to standing with them as they continue their legacies of standing up to the NRA to make American families safer."
President Biden's history on gun safety demonstrates his unwavering commitment to this issue, which could lead to life-saving executive action and legislation during his presidency:
* He wrote and championed the Violence Against Women Act: Gun violence is inextricably tied to domestic abuse, and President Biden took crucial steps to address this uniquely American crisis when he passed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994. He also supports the bipartisan, House-passed Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019, which would strengthen federal law by closing the deadly "boyfriend loophole."
* He helped pass the bill that established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System: In 1993, President Biden beat the NRA by passing the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which "established the background check system that has since kept more than [3.5] million firearms out of dangerous hands."
* He voted against giving legal immunity to the gun industry (PLCAA: Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act): In 2005, President Biden voted against PLCAA -- a gun-lobby bill that passed through Congress, giving the gun industry unique legal immunity from most lawsuits. President Biden was right to vote against this disastrous bill, which has since enabled reckless, negligent, and outright dangerous practices by the gun industry that have cost American lives.
* He helped secure a 10-year ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines: In 1994, President Biden beat the NRA again by working with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to pass 10-year bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
* He pledged to take swift action on gun safety as a candidate: As a candidate, President Biden put forward an excellent plan to end gun violence, consistently raised the issue in debates, and pledged to act on gun safety within the first 100 days of his administration.
Additionally, in 2019, both President Biden and Vice President Harris participated in Everytown Action Fund's first-ever Presidential Gun Sense Candidate Membership Forum, held in Iowa, following the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. Last year, Vice President Harris also participated in Everytown Action Fund's virtual series, "Demanding Women: Quarantine Conversations About Gun Violence." The series featured conversations with potential vice presidential contenders.
Restraining orders double during pandemic
Charlotte Sun (Port Charlotte, FL)
January 23, 2021
The murder-suicide in Port Charlotte on Wednesday drove home the reality of tensions between intimate partners: They can often lead to violence, or worse.
Linda Lusk, chief advancement officer for the Center for Abuse and Rape Emergencies (CARE), said orders of protection, also known as restraining orders, "have doubled during the pandemic" — a time when many couples and families were holed up at home and isolated from friends and work.
She cited statistics from renowned criminologist James Alan Fox, of Northeastern University. He reported a 72% increase in all murder-suicides between intimate partners from 2014 to 2017. Furthermore, 94% of the victims were female, his studies showed.
Lusk said from domestic violence episodes to murder, the issue is "control." That is the time when the victim is in the greatest danger, she explained. "The trigger event is the female's rejection of the partner," and the abuser losing control "is what's driving many cases."
CARE counselors advise clients involved in domestic violence situations to "do constant safety planning," Lusk said.
Counselors ask whether clients are threatened with a weapon. Also, they should have a code word they should give to someone they trust, she added. In the event they need to use the code word, the person would know to call police.
"Overall, the weapon of choice is the gun," Lusk said, citing statistics showing between 86% and 92% of all perpetrators use firearms.
When an order of protection is filed against someone owning weapons, they must turn in the firearms. But that doesn't always solve the problem, Lusk said. She gave this possible scenario: "Maybe he gave two guns to the officer, but 16 to his brother to hang onto for him."
Jealousy and guns have led to the U.S. having the highest murder rate and the most permissive gun laws compared to other industrialized counties, Lusk said.
A bill that could help would-be victims — The Violence Against Women Act — was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives but it stalled in the Senate last year due to what's known as the "boyfriend loophole," Lusk said.
The House added a new provision by extending existing gun restrictions to include former and dating partners convicted of abuse or stalking. It passed with bipartisan support 263-158. It is unknown whether the new Senate will take up the issue.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-478-2316) has a questionnaire to help devise a safety plan. After answering questions, a customized safety plan would be sent to the person's email. That website is bit.ly/39Xf9MH.
Also, The National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence also offers its Safety Plan, at bit.ly/399zcrQ.
Children should also be given a code word and be instructed on what to do if they are threatened. If old enough, they should be taught how to use the phone to call for help, and where to go if they feel threatened.
Other measures to take if a person needs to escape quickly are to decide which door or window to exit from quickly, and have a purse or bag with vehicle keys nearby.
If threatened inside the home, move to an area near an outside door and away from a room that contains guns, knives or other weapons.
Since abusers strike back when they believe their partner is leaving, the victim is advised to leave money, extra keys, extra clothing, and documents with a trusted family member or friend, the Network advises.
All organizations recommend keeping the plans away from the abuser; view and fill them out away from the perpetrator, and leave with a trusted friend or family member.
If a restraining order is in place, the victim should consider changing locks on doors and windows. Also, replace wooden doors with metal doors, and install a security system and outdoor lighting.
Inform the children's school and workplace of the order of protection.
Are Biden ties with Senate Republicans enough to win votes for COVID relief bill?
McClatchy Washington Bureau (DC)
January 27, 2021
President Joe Biden is counting on his personal relationships with veteran Republican senators to help his first major proposal - a massive coronavirus relief package - overcome legislative gridlock and become law.
But even the best of friendships might yield little progress in the current Congress, a place that has changed rapidly since Biden last held a Senate seat there a dozen years ago, longtime lawmakers and seasoned Capitol Hill operatives said.
“It’s become a lot more partisan,” said Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, who served with Biden for more than 20 years. “A lot less respect by a lot of people of traditions in the Senate, precedents, rules.”
Biden has said he wants his first legislative bill - a nearly $2 trillion coronavirus relief package - to receive at least some Republican support. It’s a desire that some liberal critics have derided as naive, but the president and his aides insist it is possible.
White House aides have repeatedly cited Biden’s deep and lasting relationships with senators as the reason why he is uniquely positioned to restore bipartisanship to the lawmaking process.
Many of the Republicans who were close to Biden, however, have long since left office. And those who remain say the institution, political parties and atmosphere are far less conducive to the type of deal-making that was more common during Biden’s nearly 40-year career in the chamber, which ended in early 2009 when he resigned from the Senate to become vice president.
Whether Biden’s connection to the 13 GOP lawmakers with whom he served in the Senate can help him tame those forces will set the tone for his presidency.
“It’s not just the Senate that’s changed,” said Billy Piper, a former chief of staff to Republican leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “It’s society at large that’s changed.”
Biden doesn’t necessarily need Republican support to pass the coronavirus relief bill into law. Using a process known as reconciliation, a unified Democratic Senate caucus can pass it with 50 votes and the tie-breaking support of Vice President Kamala Harris.
But from the early days of his campaign, Biden emphasized an intention to bring the country together to start solving problems that have thwarted policymakers for decades. It’s an aspiration the new president reiterated this week, saying he’s optimistic he can eventually earn bipartisan support for his relief package.
Those close to Biden say his personal touch is much different than his predecessor, former President Donald Trump. The sitting president enjoys making calls to his former colleagues - though neither he nor the White House will say which ones - and does not harangue dissenters of his policies on Twitter.
“It’s not just about who he knows, it’s about how President Biden treats people and understands what they need,” said Kendra Barkoff Lamy, who was press secretary to Biden when he was vice president. “He respects their point of view, knows how to find common ground and that compromise is not a dirty word.”
When Biden was vice president to former President Barack Obama, he was the administration’s chief liaison to Capitol Hill, representing the White House at his party’s weekly luncheon and often negotiating directly with McConnell during legislative impasses.
His record on making deals in Congress, such as authoring the Violence Against Women Act in the 1990s, wins him praise even from Republicans, some of whom argue that Biden has a better chance to achieve legislative breakthrough than many in Washington expect. What’s important about the president is his “style and demeanor” when it comes to governing and not his Republican friendships, said Piper, the longtime Republican operative.
“By that, what I mean is, he doesn’t get out of bed being dismissive of the other side,” Piper said. “He gets out of bed thinking, ‘How can I accomplish my goals within the framework that exists?’ That was certainly absent in the last White House, and I would argue that’s a bit of a change from the president he worked for.”
The White House is promoting the idea that Biden and Harris, who was until earlier this month the junior senator from California, will be able to unite their former colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support a relief bill in a way that the previous administration could not.
“Obviously, the president served in the United States Senate for an extremely long time, has a wealth of relationships,” Symone Sanders, a senior advisor to Harris, told reporters. “And I think the president’s relationships coupled with the vice president’s relationships will prove extremely, extremely valuable as we go about the business - as they go about the business of truly building bipartisan support for these packages.”
White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre meanwhile brushed off a suggestion that the current Republican Party on Capitol Hill is different from the one that was in office when Biden served.
“A lot of the folks on the Hill who are senators, he’s known for a very long time and has had relationships with them for a very long time,” she said.
Still, there are many Senate Republicans who say they don’t know Biden very well.
“I don’t really have a relationship with the president. He was here a lot, but I was never in his circle,” said Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican who has served in the Senate since 2013.
McConnell and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham are among the Republicans who are still in the Senate and, in the past, have had good relationships with Biden. Graham once referred to his former colleague as “the nicest person I think I’ve ever met in politics” and “as good a man as God ever created,” although their relationship has somewhat soured in recent years.
Former Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who served with Biden in the Senate, said the Delaware Democrat’s frequent trips to Capitol Hill helped build his reputation there. And compared with Trump, Biden will have more “realistic expectations about what can happen in the Senate,” Corker said in an interview.
“But just because Senator McConnell and Joe Biden may have known each other a long time, Senator McConnell’s the kind of person that’s still going to be highly focused on the actual policy outcomes,” Corker said. “And importantly, where his caucus is, and all of that.”
Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, who was a House GOP leader when Biden was in the Senate, said that he and Biden were in many meetings together and found him to be “a likeable guy.”
“I think relationships do matter, and I think that opens the door to find the things you agree on easier than you open that door otherwise,” Blunt said of Biden’s relationships with Senate Republicans. “But I don’t think it means that you suddenly wind up agreeing on things that in 20 years of knowing each other you have never agreed on before.”
It’s not just the people and policies that have changed in Congress, say veteran political operatives. The rise of social media has changed the very process of negotiating, making agreement more elusive at a time when lawmakers can receive instant feedback from constituents and special interest groups.
“There’s no question that relationships still matter,” said Brian Walsh, a former aide to Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. “The problem is how information is disseminated and processed so quickly on the left and the right that the debates are being defined before the lawmakers even reach an agreement. In the good old days, you could sit in a conference room and hammer out deals. Well, it can blow up in 10 seconds on Twitter now.”
Sun’s 2020 sit-down with Joe Biden shines a light on how he will lead the country
Las Vegas Sun
January 31, 2021
On Jan. 11, 2020, the Sun interviewed Joe Biden as part of a series of conversations with Democratic candidates leading up to the Nevada presidential caucuses. What ensued that day at the Sun’s offices was a two-part, 90-minute discussion in which Biden expanded on his policy plans on a number of key issues: the economy, jobs, immigration, infrastructure and gun safety among them.
Biden, of course, went on to win the Democratic nomination and the presidency.
As he begins his term, we felt the interview was worth publishing to give readers a better idea of where Biden will lead the country.
Please note that the interview took place before the novel coronavirus reached American shores; as you’ll see in the accompanying photos, the conversation occurred before the need for masks or social distancing.
Following is a transcript, edited for brevity and clarity.
We have a two-part question on gun safety. One, as you sit within distance of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, do you think assault weapon bans are enough? And two, although public sentiment for gun-safety measures is growing and support for the NRA is weakening, there’s still strong opposition to gun measures in the Senate. What’s your plan for dealing with that opposition and successfully guiding your measures through the process?
First, I’m the only guy who’s ever beaten the NRA nationally twice. I’m the guy who got the Brady Bill up and passed and expanded, No. 1. No. 2, I was able to include an assault weapons ban and the number of rounds that could be held in any magazine.
What’s fundamentally changed since then is two things: the spontaneous response in both Florida at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School well as what happened in Connecticut.
And (the gun-safety movement) is real. One of the things I talk about is restoring the soul of the country. If you want to talk about a sick soul, one of the first things our kids now have to learn at school is the ability to duck and cover. We’re building schools that have abutments so you can avoid a mass shooting.
When the president (Barack Obama) asked me to put together executive orders in light of what happened at Pulse all the way back through Connecticut, we got a lot of them passed. And this is significant: An overwhelming majority of NRA members thought we should do away with assault weapons.
There’s no rationale whatsoever to have more than 10 rounds in a magazine, and even that is too much in my view.
I believe we can get this done because it now has a profound impact in the following sense: People are finding out — I spent a lot of time working on mental health issues, and one of the things we found was that the single generation that is most at risk in terms of their mental health is Gen Z — 7 to 17 years old. And the greatest fear of that generation is being shot in school. It’s generating legitimate, serious anxiety and affecting their mental health.
So one of the things I think people are realizing is the effect on an entire generation that in fact is really being impacted on in terms of long- and short-term mental health issues.
I also dealt with the folks in Silicon Valley; we have the capacity now to build any weapon where it can only be fired with your biometric marker. And that technology doesn’t violate anyone’s Second Amendment right at all. If you pass the background check, you can purchase a weapon which only you can pull the trigger.
So I am absolutely convinced I can get (gun-safety legislation) passed. The way we did it last time is we included it in a larger bill that had really good things in it like the Violence Against Women Act, community policing, etc.
So the way you give cover to some of our Republican friends who are scared of the NRA — and this outfit owns the White House right now — is you put it in a larger bill. So they (Republicans) say, “Look, I had to vote for it.”
You know, I have a 20-gauge and a 12-gauge shotgun. I’m a skeet shooter, and I used to go up and down the (Delmarva) Peninsula in Delaware and talk to the guys hunting and fishing. They’d say, ‘God darn, Joe, why are you taking my weapon away? You’re taking my shotgun.”
And I’d show ’em a picture of an assault rifle and I’d say, “You need this to hunt with? And you need a magazine with a hundred rounds or 30 rounds? You must be a lousy damn shot.”
The point is, it’s a totally salable idea.
Also, the gun industry is the only outfit in America exempt from being sued. The only one. Imagine if that were the case with drug companies now. We’d still have 9 billion opioids being sold without warnings. But guess what? You can sue them.
Imagine what we could do if we held the gun manufacturers accountable for lying about products, for producing products they know are doing great harm, etc.?
That’s going to be one of the things I’m going to move very hard against.
Here’s the last point. This is an issue that no one wants to campaign against me on. Nobody. No Republican wants to stand up and say, “No, I want assault weapons out there.”
Think about that; not a joke. Even the ones who are afraid because they think they’re going to lose, they don’t want that argument.
So I think the whole environment has changed.
Everytown Responds to New FBI Data Showing Spike in January Gun Sales Compared to Last Year
Targeted News Service (USA)
February 3, 2021
MANHATTAN, New York, Feb. 3 (TNSRep) -- Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a campaign of Everytown for Gun Safety, issued the following news:
Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, a part of Everytown, responded to new data from the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which found that 4.3 million background checks were conducted in January of 2021, the highest number of checks ever conducted in a calendar month -- 60% more than in January 2020. That translates to an estimated 2.1 million guns sold, an increase of 80% over last January.
"As the country reels from multiple crises, the gun industry has cashed in with record sales that have made Americans less safe," said Nick Suplina, managing director of law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety. "Without swift changes in policy, our already devastating gun violence epidemic could get even deadlier. The good news, though, is that we finally have leaders in the White House and in both chambers of Congress who recognize that this crisis demands action."
This surge in gun sales is overwhelming our background check system: According to an Everytown report, NICS is overwhelmed due to surging gun sales during the pandemic -- leading to likely thousands of guns being sold to people who can't legally own them. The report estimated that by the end of 2020, 600,000 checks took longer than three business days -- and because of a gap in federal law known as the Charleston loophole, dealers can complete gun sales after three business days even if a background check is still ongoing.
How the White House can address this crisis: As detailed in this Everytown roadmap, there are important steps the Biden-Harris administration can take to strengthen the background system, including by addressing the Charleston loophole. While closing this loophole completely requires legislation, the administration can require gun dealers to notify the Department of Justice of their intention to transfer any weapons without a completed background check, which would allow the agency to more quickly recover guns that shouldn't have been sold in the first place. Strengthening the background check system is one of four core areas where the White Housecan act to address gun violence:
* Keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them by strengthening the background check system.
* Prioritize solutions to the city gun violence devastating communities every day.
* Heal a traumatized country by making schools safe, confronting armed hate and extremism, preventing suicide, and centering and supporting survivors of gun violence.
* Launch a major firearm data project and protect the public with modern gun technology.
How Congress can address this crisis: In the 116th Congress, the House of Representatives passed the bipartisan Enhanced Background Checks Act to address the Charleston loophole, and given the surge in background checks over the last year it is more urgent than ever that legislation be enacted to close this gap in the law. Ensuring that a background check is completed before every gun sale is one of the six steps Everytown has laid out that the 117th Congress should take to reduce gun violence:
1. Keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them by requiring a completed background checks on all gun sales, which 93% of American voters support
2. Intervene before tragedy strikes with an Extreme Risk (or "red flag") law, which 87% of American voters support
3. Disarm domestic abusers by reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)
4. Reduce police violence by passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act
5. Prioritize solutions to the city gun violence devastating communities every day
6. Undo the damage the gun lobby has done to our laws, which has led to the deaths of countless Americans
The risk of gun violence is high right now: There is an increased likelihood of gun-related domestic violence, daily gun violence, unintentional gun violence, and gun suicide right now across the U.S. The risk of gun suicide is particularly high right now due to COVID-19 isolation, the economic crisis, and the surge in gun sales. This is particularly concerning relating to young people: a CDC report found that 1 in 4 young people have "seriously considered suicide" during the pandemic -- a tragic and dangerous trend at a time when the firearm suicide rate has already increased 56% for young people between the ages of 10 to 24 years old over the last decade.
Peters & Menendez Lead Push for DHS to Enforce ‘Lautenberg Amendment’ to Keep Firearms Out of Hands of Domestic Abusers
Federal law enforcement agencies failed to screen their ranks for domestic abusers
Homeland Security And Government Affairs
February 05, 2021
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Gary Peters (D-MI), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) today led several of their colleagues in urging the Department of Homeland Security to establish a zero-tolerance stance for domestic violence and take immediate steps to enforce a federal law that keeps firearms out of the hands of those convicted of domestic violence or subject to a restraining law—including those who carry a federal badge.
The statute, known as the “Lautenberg Amendment” to the Gun Control Act of 1968, is named for the late New Jersey U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg and has resulted in a 17% drop in murders of intimate female partners, according to a 2017 Stanford University study. The amendment makes it a felony for anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence to ship, transport, receive or possess firearms without exceptions for federal law enforcement officers.
“Regrettably, some of the nation’s law enforcement agencies charged with protecting the public have failed to comply with this important law,” the Senators wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “We request that DHS act swiftly to ensure that federal law enforcement meaningfully addresses domestic violence within its ranks. In addition to mandating domestic violence training at all DHS law enforcement agencies, we request that you take action to ensure that all federal officers are appropriately screened for domestic violence convictions on an ongoing basis.”
The DHS Inspector General (IG) found last year that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) failed to screen their agents for domestic abusers through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) databases. The IG investigation also revealed these agencies, along with the Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration (TSA), failed to provide required domestic violence awareness training to law enforcement officers.
The Senators also requested DHS report back to Congress within six months on its progress implementing the Lautenberg Amendment to ensure full compliance.
Joining Peters and Menendez on the letter are U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Patty Murray (D-WA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Edward Markey (D-MA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI).
Full text of the letter is below and available here.
Dear Secretary Mayorkas:
We are writing to request that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) establish a clear zero-tolerance stance for domestic violence and take immediate steps to enforce the current federal law known as the “Lautenberg Amendment.” It is imperative that DHS keep firearms out of the hands of those convicted of domestic violence or subject to a restraining order.
Nearly twenty-five years ago, Congress adopted an amendment by former Senator Frank Lautenberg to prevent domestic abusers from obtaining firearms. The Lautenberg Amendment to the Gun Control Act of 1968 makes it a felony for anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence to ship, transport, receive or possess firearms. There are no exceptions for federal law enforcement officers. A 2017 Stanford study found that implementing this amendment resulted in a seventeen percent decrease in murders of intimate female partners.
Regrettably, some of the nation’s law enforcement agencies charged with protecting the public have failed to comply with this important law. Last year, the DHS Inspector General found that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) failed to check their agents through the FBI databases that would have flagged domestic abusers. In addition, the Inspector General noted that CBP, ICE, Secret Service, and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) neglected to provide the required domestic violence awareness training to law enforcement officers.
We request that DHS act swiftly to ensure that federal law enforcement meaningfully addresses domestic violence within its ranks. In addition to mandating domestic violence training at all DHS law enforcement agencies, we request that you take action to ensure that all federal officers are appropriately screened for domestic violence convictions on an ongoing basis. Finally, we respectfully ask that you report back to Congress within six months of receipt of this letter on your progress to ensure that DHS is fully compliant with the Lautenberg Amendment.
Thank you for your attention to this serious issue. We look forward to working with you on this important issue.
As Confirmations Pick Up Steam, Everytown Applauds President Biden For Creating the Strongest Gun Sense Cabinet in History
Targeted News Service (USA)
February 5, 2021
MANHATTAN, New York, Feb. 5 -- Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a campaign of Everytown for Gun Safety, issued the following news on Feb. 4, 2021:
Everytown for Gun Safety and its grassroots networks, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, applauded President Joe Biden for nominating the strongest gun sense cabinet in history -- including gun sense champions like Health and Human Services Secretary-Designate Xavier Becerra, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Housing and Urban Development Secretary-Designate Marcia Fudge, Attorney General-Designate Merrick Garland, Energy Secretary-Designate Jennifer Granholm, Interior Secretary-Designate Deb Haaland, Veterans Affairs Secretary-Designate Denis McDonough, Commerce Secretary-Designate Gina Raimondo, Office of Management and Budget Director-Designate Neera Tanden, Labor Secretary-Designate Marty Walsh, and more. He has also filled out other high-level White House positions with advocates of gun safety, including appointing John Kerry as United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, Ron Klain as Chief of Staff, Dr. Vivek Murthy as Surgeon General, Susan Rice as Domestic Policy Advisor and Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and Cedric Richmond as Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.
President Biden's commitment to surrounding himself with gun sense champions started with his selection of Vice President Kamala Harris, who has long been a staunch advocate for gun safety -- including supporting background checks on all gun sales, closing the boyfriend loophole, and much more. In 2020, Vice President Harris also joined Everytown's Demanding Women Series to discuss fighting city gun violence during the pandemic.
"President Biden has put together the strongest gun sense team in history, starting with Vice President Harris, and we look forward to them swiftly taking action to save lives," said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. "Gun safety is unifying, it is life-or-death, and -- with the NRA sidelined by bankruptcy -- the time for the Biden administration to act on this issue is now."
"Our country is facing several simultaneous crises right now -- including COVID, domestic terrorism, and gun violence -- and President Biden has put together exactly the right team to tackle all three at once," said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. "The Senate should waste no time confirming his nominees so the strongest gun safety administration in history can get to work on saving lives."
Here are the gun safety credentials of the gun sense champions in the Biden administration:
Xavier Becerra, HHS Secretary-Designate
* As a member of Congress, then-Rep. Becerra supported strengthening our background check system, voted against PLCAA (a gun lobby-backed law that makes it nearly impossible to hold irresponsible or reckless gun sellers accountable in court, even when they allow a criminal or unstable person to access a gun), and was consistently given F-ratings by the NRA.
* As attorney general of California, Becerra has sued the Trump administration to stop the proliferation of ghost guns -- untraceable, do-it-yourself firearms made from parts available without a background check -- and joined a multi-state lawsuit to stop the proliferation of downloadable guns.
* When he ran for AG of California in 2018, he was a gun sense candidate and endorsed by Everytown.
Pete Buttigieg, Transportation Secretary
* While running for president, Mayor Buttigieg released a plan calling for requiring background checks on all gun sales, passing a Red Flag law, allocating funding for gun violence research and dedicating $1 billion to fighting radicalization and violent extremism. He also earned a presidential gun sense candidate distinction from Everytown.
* Buttegieg was a longtime member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Everytown's nationwide coalition of mayors who support gun safety laws.
Marcia Fudge, HUD Secretary-Designate
* In the last Congress, Rep. Fudge voted for critical gun safety legislation, including bills to require background checks on all gun sales (H.R. 8), address the Charleston loophole (H.R. 1112), close the boyfriend and stalker loopholes in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA, H.R. 1585), and address police violence (H.R. 7120). She also voted for the strongest gun safety appropriations package in history.
* As a Congresswoman, she was consistently given F-ratings by the NRA.
Merrick Garland, Attorney General-Designate
* According to The Trace, Judge Garland was "a key figure in a 2000 case involving the National Rifle Association" during which the NRA claimed that the National Instant Background Check System was a step towards a national gun registry. After a dismissal by a lower court, the NRA appealed the case to Judge Garland's D.C. Circuit Court, which upheld the ruling and wrote: "We see no basis for concluding that auditing the [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] would suddenly produce constitutional violations. Nor does the NRA identify any specific features of the auditing process that implicate constitutionally protected rights." Later, the NRA unsurprisingly opposed his nomination to the Supreme Court.
* Garland's team is full of gun sense champions as well, with Lisa Monaco acting as President Barack Obama's homeland security adviser as his administration pushed for gun safety laws; Vanita Gupta leading on police reform, advocating for gun safety laws, and speaking out against armed extremists; and Kristen Clarke advocating for background checks on all gun sales.
Jennifer Granholm, Energy Secretary-Designate
* After the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, Granholm called for action on gun safety, saying: "We can not stand idly by. We can sit and complain about what those darn politicians are doing, or say words, or we can do something. But, we can not wait for the politicians. Do not wait. You live in a state with an initiative process, you can organize, you can gather the signatures, you can use democracy to your advantage. Most states require a certain number of signatures; usually equal to between five and ten percent of the number of votes cast for Governor in the last election. If Tom Mauser can do it, if Colorado can do it, so can you." She added, "It's time for a call to action, everybody, people. I'm just sick of this garbage too. You should be as well."
Deb Haaland, Interior Secretary-Designate
* In the last Congress, Rep. Haaland voted for critical gun safety legislation, including bills to require background checks on all gun sales (H.R. 8), address the Charleston loophole (H.R. 1112), close the boyfriend and stalker loopholes in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA, H.R. 1585), and address police violence (H.R. 7120). She also voted for the strongest gun safety appropriations package in history.
* As a Congresswoman, she was an Everytown/Moms Demand gun sense candidate and was consistently given F-ratings by the NRA.
Ron Klain, WH Chief of Staff
* After the Parkland mass shooting, Klain penned an op-ed calling for Democrats to prioritize gun safety, saying: "As far as Democrats are concerned, the NRA is no longer the 800-pound gorilla of American politics. Indeed, it may prove to be a thousand-pound anvil around Republicans' necks in November."
John Kerry, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate
* Kerry -- a gun owner himself -- has long been an advocate of gun safety, including supporting an assault weapons ban during his 2004 presidential campaign.
* In 1993, Kerry voted for the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which "established the background check system that has since kept more than [3.5] million firearms out of dangerous hands." The next year, he voted for 10-year bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Denis McDonough, VA Secretary-Designate
* McDonough has long been a gun sense champion. During his time as White House chief of staff, the Obama administration twice (2013 and 2016) signed executive actions to address our nation's gun violence crisis, and pushed vehemently for the passage of the Machin-Toomey background checks proposal -- legislation to strengthen America's background check system. McDonough was also chief of staff for the administration's 2014 suite of executive actions to fulfill "our promises to service members, veterans and their families," which included a good first step of encouraging firearm safety as part of the plan to address suicide among veterans.
Dr. Vivek Murthy, Surgeon General
* Murthy has been an advocate for gun safety for years, since his organization -- Doctors for America -- sent a letter to Congress after the Newtown shooting saying: "As health care professionals who are confronted with the human cost of gun violence every day, we are unwavering in our belief that strong measures to reduce gun violence must be taken immediately." He was also one of the first prominent advocates to call gun violence a public health crisis.
Gina Raimondo, Commerce Secretary-Designate
* As Governor of Rhode Island, Raimondo signed legislation to prohibit ghost guns in Rhode Island and submitted a package of gun safety bills to RI legislators -- including bills to ban assault weapons, ban high capacity magazines, and ban all guns at school, except for law enforcement personnel.
* She also signed an executive order to extend the background check window during the pandemic, thus allowing background checks to be completed while the system was overwhelmed.
* In 2014, she launched the States for Gun Safety initiative with several other Northeastern governors.
* She was endorsed by Everytown in 2018, and earned our gun sense candidate distinction.
Susan Rice, Domestic Policy Advisor and Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council
* Earlier this year, she joined Everytown and Moms Demand Action's "Demanding Women" series to discuss addressing gun violence and systemic inequities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Key quotes include:
* * On gun violence: "As a mother with kids in school, like any other parent, I just fear that their school could become the next target. As an African American mom and a woman, I can't escape the reality that gun violence is the number one killer of Black children in this country. And as a policy leader, it's unthinkable to me that even though vast majorities of Americans favor common-sense gun restrictions -- universal background checks, bans on assault weapons -- we have a very powerful lobby that has effectively prevented so much of that from being enacted. It's absolutely outrageous, and it makes me as angry as anything."
* * On NRA allies: "Vote out those who are doing the NRA's bidding and vote in those who would make change, That is absolutely essential."
* * On white supremacist violence: "The reality is that far more Americans have been killed by domestic terrorists with white supremacist leanings than by foreign terrorists in recent years on our soil. That should be a wake-up call to our federal institutions, our Justice Department, our Department of Homeland Security, to prioritize domestic terrorism -- white nationalist terrorism -- as the threat that it is."
* In 2018, Ambassador Rice also signed a letter led by National Security Action saying that gun violence is a national security issue -- and calling for U.S. leaders to "ban assault weapons, mandate background checks and waiting periods, and raise the minimum age to purchase guns."
Cedric Richmond as Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement
* In the last Congress, then-Rep. Richmond voted for critical gun safety legislation, including bills to require background checks on all gun sales (H.R. 8), address the Charleston loophole (H.R. 1112), close the boyfriend and stalker loopholes in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA, H.R. 1585), and address police violence (H.R. 7120). She also voted for the strongest gun safety appropriations package in history.
* As a Congressman, Richmond was endorsed by Everytown, earned our gun sense candidate distinction, and consistently given F-ratings by the NRA.
Neera Tanden, OMB Director-Designate
* Tanden has been a staunch gun safety advocate for years, calling for action to address gun violence and white supremacy after the Dayton and El Paso shootings, writing that partisan gerrymandering leads to more gun violence; and writing that republicans must work with progressives on gun safety.
* Before being nominated to the administration, Tanden cosigned a 2020 Giffords plan entitled Steps the New Administration Should Take to Save Lives from Gun Violence -- which called for several executive actions on gun safety.
Marty Walsh, Labor Secretary-Designate
* Walsh is a longtime member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Everytown's nationwide coalition of mayors who support gun safety laws.
* Walsh has for years stood by activists on the issue of gun safety, calling for action on gun safety after the Parkland shooting, participating in an Everytown and Moms Demand Action rally in 2019, and cosigning a letter with 200 mayors urging the Senate to pass gun safety legislation.
Where was all this concern about guns increasing the danger to victims, while Michigan refused to uphold the Lautenberg amendment for 25 years - resulting in law enforcement officers with domestic violence convictions retaining their guns and being returned to duty:
Presence of guns increases their threat
Susan K. Browder: Presence of guns increases their threat
Winston-Salem Journal (NC)
February 6, 2021
I am a survivor of gun violence, having watched my father holding a loaded gun to my mother's head when I was a little girl, and having grieved for the death of my daughter Sarah by the gun of her abusive husband in 2012. Both incidents were inspired by the understandable desire of a woman to make her own decisions, to protect herself from violence, to just be safe in her own home. I am still struggling with the fact that progress in preventing such tragedies has been incredibly slow. Unfortunately, it appears that we have put the issue of gun violence aside in the face of the unique challenges of 2020.
The past year has been one of extreme stress for most Americans. We have watched as COVID-19 took the lives of more than 450,000 of our fellow citizens and damaged the health and economic well-being of countless others. We have watched the evening news recapping protests against police brutality and systemic racism. We have watched as former President Trump made one false claim after another to encourage disunity among Americans and as he incited hundreds of angry Trump supporters to attack our Capitol with the intention of disrupting the electoral process, destroying property, kidnapping lawmakers and perhaps executing one or more of our elected officials.
In the midst of all this chaos and the grave threats to our democracy, some of us may have put aside our concern for the scourge of gun violence in this country, but we do so at our own peril. Some people turn to firearms as a tool to lessen their fear. Fear is certainly in abundance, and yet, the actual presence of so many guns is likely to increase the threats that so many of us are facing. While incidents of domestic violence, child abuse and gun violence have surged, the sale of guns has nearly doubled over the same time period a year ago. Our federal background check system has been unable to keep pace with the rise in sales. Many checks were not completed within the allotted amount of time, allowing gun purchases by people who might otherwise have been deemed too dangerous to buy a gun. Firearms in the wrong hands have always led to problems, but in these trying times, that issue has led to far more murders, domestic homicides, unintentional shootings, child deaths and injuries, and suicides.
Feb. 1 marked the beginning of National Gun Violence Survivors Week. That date is significant because by that date, Americans have experienced more gun violence than other developed nations experience within the entire year. In any given year, our nation experiences 11 times the gun homicide of other developed nations, and American women are 22 times more likely to be shot and killed than women in other countries. During National Gun Violence Survivors Week, Americans and their leaders are honoring the memories of those stolen from us by firearms. We honor the resilience of America's gun violence survivors whose lives have been shattered by gun violence, by unintentional shootings, homicides or suicides.
I urge our state legislature and Congress to prioritize the following sensible solutions:
Require background checks on all guns sales, as desired by 93% of Americans. Pass extreme risk protection order laws, also known as red flag laws, supported by 87% of Americans, that would allow courts to intervene before tragedy strikes. Disarm domestic abusers by reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. Reduce police violence by passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
Surely these and other measures would draw bipartisan support from citizens across the country and in the city of Winston-Salem. Our leaders at every level of government must be held accountable to us on this issue that impacts every community and so many individual Americans.
Susan K. Browder is an Everytown Survivor Senior Fellow, part of the North Carolina chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense. She lives in Winston-Salem.
LV Sun Finally Reveals Biden Interview That Exposes Depths of Anti-Gun Views to Public
NRA
February 8, 2021
Those who stay involved in the efforts to defend the Second Amendment have always known President Joe Biden is, to put it lightly, no friend to gun owners. During his campaign for the White House last year, the legacy media did everything they could to conceal that fact. The Las Vegas Sun recently revealed that it went so far as to bury an interview with candidate Biden that showed not just his disdain for our right to keep and bear arms, but his utter lack of comprehension of reality.
The interview took place on January 11, 2020, and was published last week—more than one year later—with the paper noting they “felt the interview was worth publishing to give readers a better idea of where Biden will lead the country.” Perhaps it would have been more helpful to their readers to have published the information BEFORE the 2020 election, rather than after, so they actually knew the views of Biden when they cast their ballot for President.
Again, people reading this already knew how anti-gun Biden is, but many others did not. We always thought that one of the purposes of the media was to get information that may not be widely known out to the public, especially when that information may better inform voters about candidates they may be considering supporting.
When seeking the Democrat nomination, Biden and his fellow candidates did everything possible to try to position themselves as the most anti-gun candidate. But after securing the nomination, Biden stopped talking about his anti-gun agenda, and most in the media stopped mentioning it. The Biden-Trump debates didn’t bring up guns, and neither did the vice-presidential debate.
The failure to discuss such an important topic seems odd, considering the Sun’s contention that “public sentiment for (gun control) is growing and support for the NRA is weakening.” If that were true, wouldn’t it be important to note the stark difference between Biden—an avowed anti-gun politician with a decades-long record of opposing the Second Amendment—and Donald Trump—a strong supporter of the right to keep and bear arms?
The truth is, most Americans do not believe in Joe Biden’s agenda of targeting lawful gun owners, and the media knows it. That’s most likely the reason this Sun interview didn’t see the light of day until now.
It may also explain why anti-gun lobbying groups spent millions on electing candidates while rarely actually mentioning gun control, until they got called out on it.
So, what would the LV Sun interview have revealed to voters—especially those in a battleground state like Nevada?
Right at the start, Biden’s delusion shows through, as he continues to repeat the fantasy that he is the only reason Congress passed the Brady Bill and ban on so-called “assault weapons” in the early ‘90s.
“I’m the guy who got the Brady Bill up and passed and expanded, No. 1,” Biden claimed. “No. 2,” he continued, “I was able to include an assault weapons ban and the number of rounds that could be held in any magazine.” It’s as if then-Senator Biden was in charge of the Senate (he was not) and was the lone voice calling for such restriction (again, he was not).
Yes, he worked against law-abiding gun owners on those two measures, but there were plenty of anti-gun Senators who helped ram the bills through—who then sat back and watched as the 1994 mid-term elections saw control of the House and Senate flip in one of the worst mid-term thrashings a party that held the White House and both chambers of Congress has ever seen.
But Biden’s delusions didn’t stop with his belief that he alone is capable of passing anti-gun bills. He also claimed in this year-old interview, “An overwhelming majority of NRA members thought we should do away with assault weapons.”
Of course, only NRA knows who are its members, so only NRA is capable of gauging what its members do and do not support. Biden’s claim, quite simply, is just his personal fantasy, based on nothing more than what he would like people to believe.
When speaking of what he supports, though, the interview does become quite revealing.
He still wants to ban the standard-capacity magazines that come with most new semi-automatic firearms, but he says the old anti-gun standard of limiting capacity to 10 rounds is still “too much in my view.” Who knows what isn’t “too much” for Joe? We know he has alluded to limits of three rounds, but he may even be open to just one round.
He also mentioned the alternate reality where he believes “we have the capacity now to build any weapon where it can only be fired with your biometric marker.” While he probably meant capability, not capacity, the fact is that such technology is only available in Hollywood, and only on the big screen. He does mention dealing with people in Silicon Valley to, apparently, support his claim. And while those developers have made great strides in computers, we have yet to see them develop any firearms—other than those virtual ones you might see while gaming.
If Silicon Valley is able to develop firearm technology that the public wants, that’s great. Biden accurately notes that developing such “biometric marker” technology doesn’t infringe on the Second Amendment. Allowing the public access to such things is not a problem, but the President went on to imply that he would mandate these types of guns—if they are ever a reality—be all that would be allowed, stating, “If you pass the background check, you can purchase a weapon which only you can pull the trigger.”
Look, as good as the R&D people in Silicon Valley are, people who own firearms for the purpose of defending their lives and those of their loved ones may take pause before deciding the latest pistol from Microsoft or Apple is their best choice. One need only to think back to the last time your computer crashed, or failed to boot up, before determining something from an actual gun maker might be a bit more reliable when lives are at stake. Mandating such technology, if it is ever actually developed, would clearly violate the Second Amendment.
Joe went on to reveal how he intends to pass his anti-gun proposals; he wants to hide it in larger bills that legislators may feel forced to support. In other words, Biden admits that he cannot pass gun control as a standalone measure, which certainly undermines the Sun’s claim of “growing” public support for gun control. Then again, maybe it just points out the fact that there might very well be “growing” support, but the growth is small, and the vast majority of Americans still don’t think restricting law-abiding gun owners is what Congress (or Biden) should do if they want to address the problem of violent crime. Perhaps the Sun should have made this scheme a little more public, so voters could decide if this type of political arm-twisting was what they wanted out of the candidate they decided to support.
Finally, but perhaps most importantly, Biden makes it clear that he intends to try to cripple the firearms industry under crushing legal fees by repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). While this has always been part of his agenda, the media didn’t talk about it much prior to the 2020 election. Thanks to the Sun burying this year-old interview, many Nevada voters were likely unaware of this aspect of Biden’s anti-gun scheme.
Biden lied about the PLCAA, as he often does, claiming it exempts the firearms industry from being sued. It does nothing of the sort, but Biden keeps saying it, and his supporters in the media never question him about it.
So, Biden told the Sun in January 2020 that he wants to ban most commonly-owned magazines and limit their capacity to fewer than 10 rounds, and perhaps as few as three rounds, or even one; he wants to cripple gun manufacturers under the burden of expensive, meritless lawsuits; he wants to mandate only firearms equipped with technology that does not exist be lawful for sale in America; and he wants to do all this through secretive backroom deals on larger legislative packages that might force reluctant, relatively pro-gun lawmakers to betray their constituents.
And the Las Vegas Sun decided to sit on this information for a year.
In Nevada.
A battleground state that wasn’t called for Biden until several days after Election Day.
A state where more than 160,000 background checks for firearm purchases were conducted through the first week of November 2020—a new annual record with nearly two months still to be tallied.
It’s no wonder the public’s trust of the media is so low.
Whether it’s through legislative bullying, executive action, anti-gun cabinet nominees, or attacking NRA and its members, there is little doubt that Joe Biden will do everything he can to eviscerate the Second Amendment.
Perhaps the legacy media might find those attempts newsworthy.
Las Vegas Sun Publishes Radical Anti-Gun Joe Biden Interview a Year After It Took Place
Breitbart
February 08, 2021
On January 31, 2021, the Las Vegas Sun published an radical anti-gun interview given by President Joe Biden on January 11, 2020.
The Sun introduced the interview benignly by saying, “As [Biden] begins his term, we felt the interview was worth publishing to give readers a better idea of where Biden will lead the country.”
The interview covered a number of topics including nuclear waste, FISA courts, healthcare, and others. The discussion on guns and the Second Amendment was quite revealing.
For example, Biden told the Sun he had “dealt with the folks in Silicon Valley” so there is “the capacity now to build any weapon where it can only be fired with your biometric marker.” He discussed a scenario where Americans would pass a background check, then purchase weapons which only the gun owner could pull.
He did not mention that biometric readers have been marked by failure; that wet, bloody, or muddy fingers can not unlock smart guns, just as wet, bloody, or muddy fingers cannot be read to unlock cell phones.
Biden also told the Sun, “There’s not rationale whatsoever to have more than 10 rounds in a magazine.” He spoke of banning “assault weapons” and removing the law that protects gun manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits.
He indicated he was “absolutely sure” the Democrats could pass more gun control, but stressed they must do it by burying the controls in a larger bill. He suggested this approach would serve the purpose of giving Republicans cover as well, so they could cross the aisle and support Second Amendment restrictions.
Biden said:
The way we did it last time is we included it in a larger bill that had really good things in it like the Violence Against Women Act, community policing, etc.So the way you give cover to some of our Republican friends who are scared of the NRA — and this outfit owns the White House right now — is you put it in a larger bill. So they (Republicans) say, “Look, I had to vote for it.”
The NRA-ILA reacted to the Sun publishing the Biden interview a year after the fact, saying, “The interview took place on January 11, 2020, and was published last week…Perhaps it would have been more helpful to their readers to have published the information BEFORE the 2020 election, rather than after, so they actually knew the views of Biden when they cast their ballot for President.”
Keeping kids safe motivates Ann Arbor mom in fight against gun violence
Ann Arbor News: Web Edition Articles (MI)
February 14, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
ANN ARBOR, MI -- As a child, Celeste Kanpurwala's father played Russian roulette with a pistol in front of her mother.
Then in 2014, the day after her 31st birthday, he killed himself with a shotgun.
Despite those experiences, the now-37-year-old Ann Arbor mom never thought about herself as a victim of gun violence until she got more involved in gun safety advocacy. She now wants everyone to realize how pervasive gun violence is.
On Feb. 2, Kanpurwala introduced the Moms Demand Action Gun Violence Survivors Week proclamation during an Ypsilanti City Council meeting in hopes that it will raise awareness and honor the lives stolen by gun violence.
Kanpurwala stated that like herself, many other people aren't aware that they are gun violence survivors. During the meeting, even Ypsilanti City Mayor Lois Richardson said that she did not realize it until she read the proclamation.
"I had never thought of myself as a gun violence survivor, but in reading your proclamation, it just hit me that I am," said Richardson. "And I think that as you said, so many people do realize that when they start hearing, and not necessarily having acknowledged that before or recognized it as such."
Gun safety
Kanpurwala got interested in gun safety advocacy after becoming a mother. She now pushes for regulations she feels will keep her community and the nation safer.
In 2012, she found out that she was pregnant with her eldest son two days prior to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. What started off as an exciting new life journey, quickly fell into what she called "a total depression," causing her to question "how can I bring a child into this world we live in where first graders are murdered in their classrooms?"
As a mother of two boys who would eventually be attending public school, Kanpurwala was afraid for the safety of her children, she said. With constant headlines revolving around mass shootings, Kanpurwala was sick and tired of the ongoing violence and was pushed by her husband to do something about it.
At the end of 2015, she joined Everytown for Gun Safety, which led her to her first Moms Demand Action meeting in Feb. of 2016. It was at that meeting, talking about her experiences, that she began to see herself as a survivor of gun violence with the help of Kristen Moore, the Ann Arbor ambassador for the Michigan chapter of Moms Demand Action.
"At first I was in denial. I thought, 'How could I be a survivor of gun violence?' I thought a survivor of gun violence was somebody who had survived a shooting or had been held at gunpoint, but little did I know that 58 percent of Americans are considered gun violence survivors in some way shape or form," said Kanpurwala. "Because basically a gun violence survivor is anybody who has been threatened or shot with a gun. . . or has had somebody stolen from gun violence, or known somebody who has been shot or part of a shooting as well."
Stoneman Douglas shooting
Kanpurwala became an Everytown Survivor Fellow in 2018, right after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, when 17 people were killed and 17 others injured on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14. She was on vacation with her family at Disney World at the time of the tragedy. Her mother told her what happened. She remembers researching the incident that day, not being able to sleep as she read the devastating story.
"I remember the day after Valentines Day while we were at Disney World, I was calling senators across the U.S. and demanding that they do something about gun violence," Kanpurwala said.
Now, Kanpurwala serves as a senior Everytown fellow and is the Moms Demand Action Local group leader for Washtenaw County. As group leader, she is in charge of coordinating with other leaders in her local group and planning their monthly meetings, which are now virtual as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, she helped orchestrate and spoke at the March For Our Lives event at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, where more than 4,000 people attended.
March For Our Lives in Ann Arbor draws more than 4,000 people
"I think that the more people that you have fighting for something, the more likely that fight is going to be won," Kanpurwala said. "Not only do we have survivors who are all gathering together, we have people who are just fed up with what's happening with the inaction that's taking place with our legislatures. We feel that we need to push them and if the legislators aren't going to vote for gun safety, if they aren't going to vote for anti-gun violence, then we will vote them out."
The law 'could've helped save my dad'
Currently, Moms Demand Action has three initiatives that they'd like to spread across the country. This includes, asking the Biden Administration to initiate background checks on all gun purchases, enforcing a red flag law and putting in place the Violence Against Women Act, something that U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, joined in introducing the bipartisan reauthorization of the act back in 2019.
"It brings a personal level to me. Things like a red flag law could've helped save my dad, by temporarily removing a firearm from someone who is a danger to himself and others," said Kanpurwala. "That kind of gives me some amplification to speak to legislators in ways they can help to prevent these types of tragedies."
Kanpurwala stresses she is anti-gun violence, not anti-gun.
Coronavirus brings troubled times for youth, increase in gun violence, other crimes
"We believe in the Second Amendment, and we believe that the existence of guns and gun safety do not need to be mutually exclusive," Kanpurwala said.
In 2019, she created her mantra "Be bold, be brave. Because if you don't do something, who will?" With that, she developed her own blog to help share her story in hopes that it will inspire others to speak up and help destigmatize mental health, suicide and women who have been domestically abused.
"I wanna destigmatize so many different things. Trauma, alcoholism, all the things that I've experienced in my life," Kanpurwala said. "I want to show people that you can work through your issues, you can get through it and it's ok to talk about."
KLOBUCHAR INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO PROTECT IMMIGRANT VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
US Fed News (USA)
February 17, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 -- The office of Sen. Amy Klobuchar has issued the following news release:
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) reintroduced legislation to protect immigrant victims of domestic violence. Currently, immigrants who experience domestic violence are able to petition for independent legal status under the Violence Against Women Act only if their spouse is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. The Protecting Immigrant Victims of Domestic Violence Act would expand this protection to people whose spouses entered the U.S. on a temporary visa. The legislation is cosponsored by Senators Chris Coons (D-DE), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI).
"We need to ensure all domestic violence victims who are immigrants can petition for independent legal status," said Senator Klobuchar. "No one should be forced to stay in an abusive relationship because they're afraid they may be deported. This legislation will protect victims so they can come forward and receive the support they need."
The bill is supported by ASISTA, Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence, Futures Without Violence, National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence, National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, International League of Advocates, South Asian Bar Association of North America, South Asian Bar Association Foundation, Immigration Center for Women & Children, Violence Free Minnesota, Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Manavi, Maitri, Daya, Sakhi for South Asian Women, South Asian Network, Her Justice, Inc., Raksha Inc., and Apna Ghar, Inc. (Our Home).
As a former prosecutor, Klobuchar has long championed victims of sexual assault and has been outspoken about the need to protect immigrant victims of domestic abuse. Klobuchar introduced similar legislation to the Protecting Immigrant Victims of Domestic Violence Act in 2013 as an amendment to the comprehensive immigration reform legislation, which was adopted in the Senate Judiciary Committee with a bipartisan and unanimous vote and passed the full Senate.
In April, Klobuchar led a letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) to ensure immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and other serious crimes could continue to access programs during the coronavirus pandemic through which they obtain legal status independent of abusers and perpetrators.
Klobuchar also authored legislation to reform training for sexual assault investigations and protect dating partners from gun violence.
The Abby Honold Act would promote the use of trauma-informed, evidence-based techniques by law enforcement when responding to sexual assault crimes.
The Protecting Domestic Violence and Stalking Victims Act would help close what is commonly referred to as the 'boyfriend loophole' by preventing people who have abused dating partners from buying or owning firearms. The bill would also prevent convicted stalkers from possessing a gun.
MI Congresswoman Debbie Dingell - Zero Tolerance For Abusers Act/ H.R. 1494
117th Congress (2021-2022)
Introduced in House (03/02/2021)
Missouri House of Representatives: Domestic Abusers Could Not Legally Have Guns Under House Proposal
Targeted News Service (USA)
March 4, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
JEFFERSON CITY, Missouri, March 4 -- The Missouri House of Representatives issued the following news:
Those under a full order of protection or convicted of a crime of domestic violence would no longer be able to have or buy guns under a proposal now in the Missouri House. Supporters say the bill would mirror Missouri law to federal law and fix a gap unintentionally created by 2016 legislation.
House Bill 473 would require a court, when issuing an order of protection, to order that the subject of that order not be able to have firearms. Law enforcement would be notified, to make sure the order is followed. Those convicted of 2nd degree stalking and 4th degree assault would also not be able to possess a firearm.
"This bill ... is not about taking the 2nd Amendment rights away from you, to bear arms. It's about protecting the women and children and even men in our state. This is an issue I believe all of us can agree on," said bill sponsor Ron Hicks (R-St. Charles).
House Bill 473 would address an issue with Missouri state law that was exacerbated with the passage of Senate Bill 656 in 2016.
"This is something that [the House] has tried to tackle for years. In 2016 I sat in this body when a promise was made by our former speaker ... to have this put back in. It was stricken out of a bill and all I want to do is put it back in," said Hicks.
Judy Kile has testified in past years on previous versions of this language. For six years she has been the Executive Director of COPE, a shelter in Lebanon. She told the House Committee on General Laws her twin sister was murdered by her abusive husband.
She said at her sister's funeral many people told her they wished there was something they could do. She told lawmakers, "I'm gonna put that on you all. There's something you can do. You can get the guns away during that time that's so volatile."
Kile said that in her work at the shelter she has seen the patterns to domestic violence. She said for a variety of reasons, a victim often goes back to an abuser a number of times even after an order of protection or conviction has been secured.
"If I took a poll I would say that 90-percent of the people - it's women, mostly, in our shelter - that come into our shelter have had a gun held to their head in their home, and sometimes, a gun held to their children's head."
The Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence has been pushing for passage of this change for years. Public Policy Director Jennifer Carter Dochler said even before SB 656 in 2016, Missouri had not mirrored the federal Violence Against Women Act. It gave direction to judges and law enforcement about removing guns from the hands of abusers.
What lawmakers unintentionally struck in 2016 had denied those under orders of protection or convicted of domestic assault when they applied for concealed carry permits. Under the 2016 law those permits are no longer needed.
"We're very appreciative of Representative Hicks' leadership to close a loophole in Missouri's law and to protect victims of domestic violence," said Carter Dochler.
Hicks said following the hearing he spoke to a representative of the NRA and he believes that organization will issue a letter of support for the bill.
The committee has not voted on the legislation.
Klobuchar leads call for Biden to prioritize Violence Against Women Act programs in budget
Biden was sponsor of measure in 1994 when it became law
Roll Call
March 05, 2021
Senate Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to provide strong backing for the Violence Against Women Act in his fiscal 2022 budget request, in light of increased reports of domestic violence during the pandemic and lack of supplemental funding for the law’s programs.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., along with 26 other Senate Democrats sent a letter to Biden on Friday, asking the president to prioritize support for Justice Department programs that provide services for survivors of gender-based violence in his fiscal 2022 budget request to Congress.
“We are very concerned that, as a result of the pandemic, cases of domestic violence and sexual assault have increased in communities across the country. Local law enforcement report more domestic violence-related calls and rape crisis centers are seeing increased need for services,” the senators wrote. “The pandemic has also made it more difficult for service providers to respond to the increased need for crisis intervention, legal services, and transitional housing.”
Biden was the original sponsor of the measure in the Senate when it was first passed in 1994.
While Congress passed a slate of emergency funding bills last year to address an array of crises linked to the pandemic, no additional funding was provided for VAWA programs at the Justice Department. Supplemental funding was included for programs authorized under the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, but not VAWA.
Senate Democrats are hoping that with the landmark bill’s original sponsor in the White House and their party controlling the Senate, they’ll have the backing to both reauthorize and fund VAWA programs supporting survivors and victims.
“While the absence of supplemental funding has been challenging for all Department of Justice grantees, survivors of sexual assault and those from communities of color are in particular need,” the senators wrote.
More than half of all Indigenous women are subject to sexual violence in their lifetime and, for them, murder is the third-leading cause of death, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The only grant program for community organizations that provide culturally specific services under the Sexual Assault Service Program is among those strained for funding.
“We additionally request that the federal government fulfill its trust responsibility to Indian Tribes by providing equitable resources to American Indian and Alaska Native communities to address gender-based violence,” they wrote.
The House is scheduled to take up a VAWA bill the week of March 15, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer announced this week. It may be more than a month before the Biden administration submits its budget request to Congress and even then, appropriators in both chambers will have to negotiate funding details within the Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations bills. But a Biden budget with VAWA prioritized could give the effort some momentum.
Originally passed in 1994 to address the prevalence of domestic and sexual violence, the law has been reauthorized several times. It created programs to enhance investigation and prosecution of violent crime against women and authorized grants to state and local law enforcement.
House Democrats mounted a strong effort to reauthorize VAWA in recent years, but negotiations on a Senate version fizzled over gun provisions. Democrats wanted to lower the criminal threshold to bar someone from buying a gun to include misdemeanor convictions of stalking and a broader swath of domestic abuse crimes. The law currently applies to felony convictions and a subset of misdemeanors.
A quarter of women experience severe intimate-partner physical violence, and 1 in 7 have been stalked by an intimate partner to the point where she felt very fearful, or believed that she or someone close to her would be harmed or killed, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Earlier this week, Klobuchar teamed up with Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski to urge the Federal Trade Commission to do more to protect domestic violence victims’ personal information online, as the pandemic complicates access to resources for help.
The senators warned acting Chair Rebecca Slaughter about victims’ phone numbers, email addresses and other data being revealed, putting them in danger.
“While some states have addressed confidentiality programs that allow victims to use a post office box as their legal address, we have serious concerns that third party data brokers play a role in revealing the protected address and providing access to personal information that can lead to continued abuse,” Klobuchar and Murkowski wrote.
The pair asked if the FTC has the resources to protect victims from the data broker sites and how they can prevent the collection, purchase and sale of data from vulnerable populations.
Shaheen, Hassan, Klobuchar introduce legislation to keep guns from stalkers and protect women from domestic abuse
Telegraph, The (Nashua, NH)
March 6, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) reintroduced the Protecting Domestic Violence and Stalking Victims Act with a group of Senators to close what is commonly referred to as the 'boyfriend loophole.' This legislation will prevent people who have abused dating partners from buying or owning firearms and stop convicted stalkers from possessing a gun.
According to the Department of Justice, nearly half of the cases resulting in women being killed by intimate partners involve a dating partner, and 76 percent of women who were murdered by intimate partners were first stalked by their partner. The bill has 37 cosponsors in the Senate. A bipartisan companion bill in the House of Representatives is led by Representatives Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA).
"Domestic and sexual violence is a serious, pervasive problem in this country that is exacerbated by glaring loopholes in our laws that allow abusers to easily access firearms and endanger the lives and well-being of survivors and their families," said Shaheen. "Congress must act to right this wrong by passing the Protecting Domestic Violence and Stalking Victims Act, commonsense legislation that will help save lives and provide survivors with the safety and security they need. Protecting and supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence will continue to be a top priority for me in the Senate."
"Survivors of domestic or sexual abuse should not have to fear for their lives because of a dangerous loophole that allows their abuser to legally purchase a firearm," said Hassan. "This commonsense legislation would help protect survivors and save lives by preventing convicted stalkers and abusers from being able to purchase a weapon. We must get this done, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in supporting this important bill to help prevent senseless acts of gun violence."
This legislation is also cosponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chris Coons (D-DE), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tom Carper (D-DE), Bob Casey (D-PA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Angus King (I-ME), Ed Markey (D-MA), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Gary Peters (D-MI), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tina Smith (D-MN), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Jon Tester (D-MT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mark Warner (D-VA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
Last month, Senator Shaheen successfully added an amendment to the budget resolution – which cleared the Senate unanimously – that supports organizations serving survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse.
Shaheen is the Chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) and is a leader in Congress on efforts to combat domestic and sexual violence, and to bolster resources to help survivors stay safe, recover and seek justice. Last year, Senator Shaheen visited the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence (NHCADSV) in Concord where she met with NHCADSV's leadership and representatives from crisis centers to hear more about the impact COVID-19 has had on survivors and the state's crisis centers.
Throughout the pandemic, Senator Shaheen has worked to provide more resources and services to domestic violence survivors nationwide. Shaheen and Hassan have called on Congressional leadership to include additional funding to support the victims of family violence, domestic violence and dating violence in COVID-19 legislative packages. During the last Congress, Shaheen and Hassan introduced the Lori Jackson Domestic Violence Survivor Protection Act, strongly-supported bicameral legislation to protect domestic violence survivors from gun violence.
Senator Shaheen has led efforts in the Senate to establish basic rights and protections for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Her bill, the Survivors' Bill of Rights Act, was signed into law in 2016 and created the first federally codified rights specifically for sexual assault survivors and for the first time allowed survivors the opportunity to enforce those rights in federal court. Last year, Shaheen introduced the bipartisan, bicameral Survivors' Bill of Rights in the States Act to build on the Survivors' Bill of Rights Act by incentivizing states to pass legislation that guarantees the survivors rights included in the federal legislation. For the third year in a row, Senator Shaheen – Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds the OVW – successfully added the highest funding amount ever for Violence Against Women Act programs in the fiscal year (FY) 2020 government funding.
Congress' Re-Introduction Of The VAWA Reauthorization Act
March 08, 2021
PELOSI STATEMENT ON RE-INTRODUCTION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT
US Fed News (USA)
March 8, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, March 8 -- House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi issued the following news release:
"Today, our nation takes a great step forward to advance justice, safety and dignity for American women, as the House re-introduces a landmark and transformative Violence Against Women Act. We are particularly proud to do so under the leadership in the White House of President Joe Biden: a staunch champion of this law and of strong action to ensure that every woman can live free from the fear of violence in her life.
"Democrats' VAWA reauthorization builds upon the progress forged over the two-and-a-half decades since this legislation was first passed. This robust and bipartisan long-term reauthorization strengthens and expands essential protections for the most vulnerable, including immigrant, LGBTQ and Native American women. Among its many life-saving provisions, it strengthens services for victims and survivors, empowers law enforcement to protect their communities, helps stop abusers and stalkers from obtaining firearms and expands protections for victims' and survivors' financial security.
"This legislation is particularly needed as the coronavirus crisis forces millions of Americans to quarantine, including, too often, in homes that are unsafe for them and their families. House Democrats will move swiftly to pass this legislation and to send it to the Senate and then to the President's desk - so that we can uphold the right of every woman, everywhere to live free from abuse."
STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT BIDEN ON THE INTRODUCTION OF THE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2021
March 8, 2021
US Fed News (USA)
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, March 8 -- The White House released the following press release/statements:
I applaud the House of Representatives for introducing today the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA), and I urge Congress to come together in a bipartisan manner to ensure swift passage of VAWA legislation in both the House and the Senate. Strengthening and renewing VAWA is long past due. Delay is not an option, especially when the pandemic and economic crisis have only further increased the risks of abuse and the barriers to safety for women in the United States. Domestic violence is being called a pandemic within the COVID-19 pandemic, with growing evidence showing that the conditions of the pandemic have resulted in escalated rates of intimate partner violence, and in some cases more severe injuries.
I was raised to believe that the greatest sin was the abuse of power, and I've spent my life in public office trying to fight those abuses everywhere I see them. That's what motivated me to write and champion the original Violence Against Women Act - even as I was told time and time again that domestic violence was a "family issue" that should be left to families to address in private. VAWA has been reauthorized three times with bipartisan support in the years since we first passed it. Each time, I worked to enhance the legislation to address barriers and to expand access to safety and well being for all survivors, including those from marginalized communities. Studies demonstrated that in the first two decades following VAWA's implementation the rates of domestic violence declined significantly. While there has been significant progress in efforts to prevent and improve the response to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking, there is still much work to do.
In 2019, a bipartisan coalition in the House of Representatives passed the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019, which included significant improvements and increased pathways to safety that were proposed by advocates, survivors, lawyers, experts, prosecutors, and law enforcement who are in the trenches protecting and supporting survivors. Every single Senate Democrat signed on to the Senate version of the House-passed bill, but Republican Senate leadership refused to bring VAWA to the floor for a vote. This should not be a Democratic or Republican issue - it's a matter of justice and compassion. I am grateful to see the House of Representatives champion ending gender-based violence, and I urge Congress to follow past precedent and bring a strong bipartisan coalition together for swift passage of VAWA.
Gun control groups pin hopes on Biden, Democratic majority
National Journal Daily AM (USA)
March 9, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
For gun-control advocates, two bills to overhaul federal background checks set for a vote this week mark a campaign to capitalize on Democratic majorities and advance long-sought legislation on firearms.
Major gun legislation hasn’t passed since the 1994 federal assault-weapons ban. While advocates must still contend with the Senate filibuster, they are hopeful to make progress over the next two years, as the National Rifle Association is in internal disarray and some Republicans have signaled they’re open to deal making on gun bills.
“For nearly 25 years, we have seen what happens when the NRA and its allies write our federal gun laws: people die,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, a nonprofit advocating gun control. “But we ended that era on Election Day, and soon we will all be safer for it.”
The House is set to vote Wednesday on two gun-related bills. One, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, would require background checks for all gun sales. The House passed a similar bill in 2019, shortly after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida that left 17 people dead. Sen. Chris Murphy has introduced companion legislation in his chamber.
The other, the Enhanced Background Checks Act, would close the “Charleston loophole” by lengthening the waiting period to acquire a firearm from three days to 10 days, an effort to ensure the government has time to complete a background check.
The push comes as statistics show a spike in gun violence in 2020, with 43,530 deaths compared to 39,529 in 2019, according to the Gun Violence Archive. This month also marks the 40th anniversary of the shooting of then-White House press secretary James Brady, who was left partially paralyzed after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Still, the bills have broad Republican opposition in the House and an unclear future in the Senate.
“The net effect of both of these bills is only to deprive law-abiding citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights while doing little to prevent mass shootings or to prevent those who should not possess firearms from purchasing them,” Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma said during Monday’s Rules Committee hearing on the bills.
Though Democrats control the Senate now, the bills still need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and pass the chamber, a reality acknowledged by Kris Brown, president of Brady, a gun-violence-prevention group.
“It’s hard to see, necessarily, a path forward,” Brown said. “But ultimately, if we can’t get 60 [votes] on a measure that is more popular than pizza in America, literally, it really does call into question the role of the filibuster—not just for our issue but a host of others that are quite important.”
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, and Mitt Romney of Utah have all been open to some expansion of background checks for gun purchases, but that still leaves a sizable vote deficit.
Brown says that Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia—who, along with Toomey, crafted compromise language on background checks in 2013 that failed 54-46—will be critical in any effort to get 10 Republican votes for a bill.
Peter Ambler, executive director of the gun-control-advocacy group Giffords, said his organization is in contact with Republican senators, and he pointed to broad support for some form of expanded background checks for gun purchases.
“When you’ve got over 90 percent of people who support something, the arguments against legislation like that dry up very quickly,” Ambler said.
Giffords was cofounded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was among 19 people shot during a constituent meeting in 2011. Her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, won an Arizona Senate seat in 2020.
Next week, the House is set to take up a long-delayed reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which includes a closure of the so-called boyfriend loophole, implementing gun restrictions on current and former dating partners convicted of abuse or stalking. The measure passed the House in 2019 with 33 Republican votes despite the NRA key-voting the bill, though it died in the Senate. Joe Biden sponsored VAWA as a senator in 1994.
Beyond the bills up for a vote this week and next, Ambler said there’s a chance Congress could take up legislation creating a federal red-flag law, which would allow local officials to remove access to guns for individuals found to be an “extreme risk” to themselves or others.
Sens. Collins and Lindsey Graham cosponsored legislation to create a federal red-flag law in 2018, but those bills stalled in their chamber.
Ambler said lawmakers could also reintroduce the Disarm Hate Act, which would prohibit the sale or transfer of firearms to those who have been convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime.
Gun-related provisions will likely appear as lawmakers draft the fiscal 2022 appropriations bills. Brown said the next appropriations cycle could increase funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health to study the origins and remedies of gun violence. Congress approved $25 million in funding for gun-safety research in 2020, breaking a decades-long stalemate over the issue, though that was only half of what the House had originally proposed.
“We’ve lost a generation of researchers in violence because the government didn’t fund it for 20 years, until last year,” Brown said.
The Biden administration has been active on gun control in the weeks since taking office. Domestic policy adviser Susan Rice and senior adviser Cedric Richmond met with gun-control groups including Moms Demand Action, Giffords, and Brady in February to discuss the agenda going forward.
There are some actions the White House can take unilaterally, and gun groups are pressing Biden to do something soon. At the top of the list is an order requiring the buyers of so-called ghost guns—firearms home-built from kits, which are easy to obtain and difficult to trace—to undergo background checks.
“We’d like them to kick this off with ghost guns, because it shows elections matter, and with a single executive action we can really close this loophole,” Brown said.
She added that the White House could unilaterally enhance the Brady background system by providing more resources and authority to the FBI to perform the checks. The White House could direct the Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to increase oversight of the firearms industry. The administration could also overhaul the ATF’s enforcement of gun dealers who violate the law, increasing the frequency of agency inspections.
Everytown for Gun Safety, which comprises multiple groups, including Moms Demand Action, released a road map for executive action on gun control for the Biden administration in December.
“At the end of the day, there is not a corner of the Justice Department or the administration that can’t be doing something to save lives from gun violence,” Watts of Moms Demand Action said.
Reps. Jackson Lee, Nadler and Fitzpatrick Introduce Bipartisan Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act
Targeted News Service (USA)
March 9, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, March 9 -- Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued the following news release on March 8, 2021:
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security along with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), introduced the bipartisan Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA) of 2021. The legislation authorizes funding for a variety of critical grant programs, including for victim services, prevention, training, education, enforcement, economic stability, and other programs that support survivors and help them to heal and to access justice.
VAWA's authorization expired in 2018. Last Congress, the House passed a bipartisan reauthorization, but the Senate failed to take it up. The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021 is a slightly updated version of the bill passed last Congress. It addresses the challenges identified by survivors and by domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, and other organizations that serve survivors. It has now been eight years since VAWA was last authorized. The landmark legislation, enacted in 1994 under the leadership of then Senate Judiciary Chair Joe Biden, responds to our nation's crisis of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.
Subcommittee Chair Jackson Lee: "After its initial enactment a quarter-century ago, VAWA--through policy reforms, interstate cooperation and grant allocation--has been pivotal in providing a national response to protecting half of the population. Equally important, it has ushered in a seismic transformation on how society perceives violence against women. The law has enhanced and improved the lives of girls and women, boys and men. It has unquestionably improved the national response to these terrible crimes."
Chairman Nadler: "I am proud to reintroduce the bipartisan Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021 (VAWA) in support of women and all survivors who have been subjected to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. The last year has demonstrated the immense needs to reauthorize and improve VAWA. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a sharp rise in domestic violence and other crimes. As demand for services has increased, service providers have seen funding drop while caseloads skyrocket. It is imperative that Congress act now to increase funding for victims services, expand training and education for providers, and strengthen and improve VAWA programs to respond to this crisis. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this bill as quickly as possible and ensuring that every survivor - women, men, and children - has the resources they need to lead safe and healthy lives free from violence and fear."
Representative Fitzpatrick: "Congress must continue to aggressively combat domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking by passing our bipartisan Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021. VAWA has been instrumental in improving and enhancing our nation's response to safeguarding women and children from abuse, anguish, and violence. Congress has historically reauthorized VAWA with broad, bipartisan agreement, and I look forward to working alongside my colleagues to ensure that VAWA continues to protect victims and survivors across the nation."
Representative Gwen Moore (D-WI): "As a survivor and a member of Congress, I want to use my power to protect other people from what I have experienced. With domestic violence cases on the rise during the pandemic, we need the Violence Against Women Act signed into law now. I am proud to stand with my colleagues in introducing this essential legislation because survivors cannot wait."
The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021 improves current law in several important respects:
* Enhances and expands victim services;
* Reauthorizes grant programs to improve the criminal justice response to gender-based violence and expands allowable uses;
* Invests in prevention;
* Improves access to housing for victims and survivors;
* Helps survivors gain and maintain economic independence;
* Ends impunity for non-Native perpetrators of sexual assault, child abuse co-occurring with domestic violence, stalking, sex trafficking, and assaults on tribal law enforcement officers on tribal lands;
* Supports Communities of Color;
* Protects victims of dating violence from firearm homicide;
* Maintains existing protections for all survivors; and
* Improves the healthcare system's response to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking.
VAWA Reauthorization Act of 2021 is supported by the National Task Force To End Sexual and Domestic Violence (NTF), a large and diverse group of national, tribal, state, territorial, and local organizations, advocates, and individuals that focus on the development, passage and implementation of effective public policy to address domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.
A copy of the bill is available here.
A section-by-section is available here.
Everytown Applauds House for Introducing VAWA Reauthorization to Close Dating Partner and Stalker Loopholes
Targeted News Service (USA)
March 10, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
NEW YORK, March 10 -- Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a campaign of Everytown for Gun Safety, issued the following news:
Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, the grassroots arm of Everytown, applauded the introduction of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act in the House of Representatives -- a bill that would close the deadly dating partner and stalker loopholes. The bipartisan legislation, which former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refused to put on the Senate floor after it passed the House last Congress, was introduced last night by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA).
Passing this bill is a top legislative priority for Everytown this Congress, and recent polling shows that 90% of Americans support it -- a number on par with passing another COVID-19 relief package. President Joe Biden wrote and passed the original Violence Against Women Act in 1994 -- legislation that helped contribute to a 64% drop in intimate partner violence rate between 1993 and 2010. During his campaign, he reiterated his long standing support for this bill, writing on his campaign website that he "will enact legislation to close the so-called 'boyfriend loophole' and 'stalking loophole' by prohibiting all individuals convicted of assault, battery, or stalking from purchasing or possessing firearms, regardless of their connection to the victim."
"We must work to disarm all domestic abusers, regardless of whether they're a married spouse or a dating partner," said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. "The boyfriend loophole is a death sentence for many American women, who are just as likely to be killed by a dating partner as by a spouse. I'm grateful to Rep. Jackson Lee and her colleagues for their leadership on this issue, despite the gun lobby's efforts to block their bill to protect women. We urge every member of Congress to vote yes on this lifesaving bill."
"Last Congress, this bill died on then-Majority Leader McConnell's desk, even as more than 1,000 women were killed by domestic abusers," said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. "Fortunately, there's a new majority in town, and the Oval Office is now occupied by the very same leader who wrote the original Violence Against Women Act. Everytown will stand behind the Gun Sense Majority in the House and President Biden as they fight to pass this life-saving bill into law."
"Domestic abusers shouldn't have access to firearms, period," said Leslie Washington, a survivor of domestic abuse, volunteer with the Missouri chapter Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, and member of the Everytown Survivor Network. "My ex-husband abused me for nine years, threatening me with his gun and telling me he was going to kill me. Nobody should have to go through that, regardless of whether they're married or dating -- and that's why we have to close the boyfriend loophole. I applaud the House of Representatives for stepping up to do exactly that."
Last Congress, this bill passed the House with support from 33 Republican representatives despite the NRA's opposition, then sat untouched on then-Majority Leader McConnell's desk for nearly two years while more than 1,000 women were shot and killed by domestic abusers.
Intimate partner violence and gun violence in the U.S. are inextricably linked, impacting millions of women, families, and communities across the country -- which is why closing the dating partner loophole would be a landmark step towards saving women's lives in America. The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely that a woman will be killed, and women are just as likely to be killed by dating partners as by spouses.
Biden pressed to fund domestic violence programs
Winston-Salem Journal (NC)
March 11, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to provide strong backing for the Violence Against Women Act in his fiscal 2022 budget request, in light of increased reports of domestic violence during the pandemic and lack of supplemental funding for the law's programs.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., along with 26 other Senate Democrats sent a letter to Biden on Friday, asking the president to prioritize support for Justice Department programs that provide services for survivors of gender-based violence in his fiscal 2022 budget request to Congress.
"We are very concerned that, as a result of the pandemic, cases of domestic violence and sexual assault have increased in communities across the country. Local law enforcement report more domestic violence-related calls and rape crisis centers are seeing increased need for services," the senators wrote. "The pandemic has also made it more difficult for service providers to respond to the increased need for crisis intervention, legal services, and transitional housing."
Biden was the original sponsor of the measure in the Senate when it was first passed in 1994.
While Congress passed a slate of emergency funding bills last year to address an array of crises linked to the pandemic, no additional funding was provided for VAWA programs at the Justice Department. Supplemental funding was included for programs authorized under the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, but not VAWA.
Senate Democrats are hoping that with the landmark bill's original sponsor in the White House and their party controlling the Senate, they'll have the backing to both reauthorize and fund VAWA programs supporting survivors and victims.
"While the absence of supplemental funding has been challenging for all Department of Justice grantees, survivors of sexual assault and those from communities of color are in particular need," the senators wrote.
More than half of all Indigenous women are subject to sexual violence in their lifetime and, for them, murder is the third-leading cause of death, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The only grant program for community organizations that provide culturally specific services under the Sexual Assault Service Program is among those strained for funding.
"We additionally request that the federal government fulfill its trust responsibility to Indian Tribes by providing equitable resources to American Indian and Alaska Native communities to address gender-based violence," they wrote.
The House is scheduled to take up a VAWA bill the week of March 15, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer announced this week. It may be more than a month before the Biden administration submits its budget request to Congress and even then, appropriators in both chambers will have to negotiate funding details within the Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations bills. But a Biden budget with VAWA prioritized could give the effort some momentum.
Originally passed in 1994 to address the prevalence of domestic and sexual violence, the law has been reauthorized several times. It created programs to enhance investigation and prosecution of violent crime against women and authorized grants to state and local law enforcement.
House Democrats mounted a strong effort to reauthorize VAWA in recent years, but negotiations on a Senate version fizzled over gun provisions. Democrats wanted to lower the criminal threshold to bar someone from buying a gun to include misdemeanor convictions of stalking and a broader swath of domestic abuse crimes. The law currently applies to felony convictions and a subset of misdemeanors.
A quarter of women experience severe intimate-partner physical violence, and 1 in 7 have been stalked by an intimate partner to the point where she felt very fearful, or believed that she or someone close to her would be harmed or killed, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Klobuchar recently teamed up with Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski to urge the Federal Trade Commission to do more to protect domestic violence victims' personal information online, as the pandemic complicates access to resources for help.
The senators warned acting Chair Rebecca Slaughter about victims' phone numbers, email addresses and other data being revealed, putting them in danger.
"While some states have addressed confidentiality programs that allow victims to use a post office box as their legal address, we have serious concerns that third party data brokers play a role in revealing the protected address and providing access to personal information that can lead to continued abuse," Klobuchar and Murkowski wrote.
The pair asked if the FTC has the resources to protect victims from the data broker sites and how they can prevent the collection, purchase and sale of data from vulnerable populations.
Biden reviews Trump-era Title IX changes
Erie Times-News: Web Edition Articles (PA)
Author: Tania Tetlow - former federal prosecutor, president of Loyola University New Orleans
March 14, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
As the primary author of the Violence Against Women Act, President Joe Biden has arguably achieved more progress than any other single American on the issues of domestic violence and sexual assault. Now his administration, led by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, plans to review the Trump-era regulations governing higher education's response to gender-based violence.
Most of the reforms made under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have been decried by advocates and by the higher education community itself, and deserve close examination by the Biden administration. On the one hand, the department made some regulatory changes to Title IX that are hailed as progress — for example, clarifying that domestic violence and stalking constitute gender discrimination under the law.
But the new regulations also created unprecedented protections for those accused of sexual or domestic violence, far beyond a normal university disciplinary process. The regulations required higher education to morph our student conduct process into something closer to a criminal justice system, requiring mini criminal trials with live hearings and cross-examinations.
The Trump reforms to Title IX claimed to correct the alleged overreach of the Obama era — that those reforms pushed higher education to take on issues better left to the criminal justice system, that the accused didn't get their due, that increased enforcement exaggerated the specter of sexual violence on campus.
But this critique of the Obama regulations misses a couple of more fundamental points. First, universities have always — for centuries — regulated the character of our students in order to protect the quality of our educational communities. From academic cheating to fighting, from drugs to underage drinking, universities have no choice but to govern the conduct of our students. As we teach, we also work to define character and establish community norms that will forever shape students' lives. More urgently still, we have the responsibility to make hurting other members of our community unacceptable.
Character is not a peripheral issue we can delegate to the local criminal justice system, any more than a company can delegate its human resources policies to the criminal justice system. Imagine if the only way you could fire employees accused of stealing from you, or of violently attacking other employees, was if they were first criminally convicted of the crime?
It is true that disciplining students for a serious crime like sexual assault can have a devastating impact on a student's future and career, but that is also true when universities discipline students for cheating, drug possession or other kinds of violence. Those severe consequences are precisely why universities work hard to create a clear, predictable and fair disciplinary process. But the DeVos-era regulations make those processes unwieldy and impractical, without actually making them more fair.
Last summer, when colleges and universities had to implement the new regulations in the midst of the pandemic, I dusted off my prosecutor skills to train our Title IX staff, an unusual role for a university president. As I tried to teach them cross-examination skills, they asked me questions that had no clear answers under the new regulations. Do the rules of evidence apply? Do we make up our own? How do you define hearsay?
These unwieldy new expectations might be worth it if they made the process appreciably more fair, but they do not. Proponents of the Title IX changes take it on faith that a formal and adversarial system is better suited to finding the truth than an investigative one, but there's actually no evidence of that. University disciplinary processes generally focus on thorough investigations that follow the evidence. They seek truth and create rights of appeal to guard against error.
It may in fact be true that some universities, eager to avoid federal scrutiny, were sloppy in changing their own student conduct systems. The Biden administration should take a cold, hard look at the balance between fairness and justice, and make clear that while institutions must take violence on campus seriously, that does not relax the need for fairness.
Many of the critics' arguments come down to this: Isn't it more important to protect fairness rather than to punish the guilty? Shouldn't we weigh the scales heavily in that direction? But here's the second point I think we are missing. It matters, enormously, to get the answers right, to find the truth, to balance fairness with justice. We cannot solve process issues by throwing our hands up and allowing unacceptable behavior to flourish.
To put this in another context, universities have come to understand our obligation to protect students from violent and cruel hazing rituals. Now imagine if the federal government intervened and required us to make it as daunting as possible for potential witnesses to come forward. It would certainly provide much reassurance to students accused of hazing, but the stakes of getting the answer wrong are real, not rhetorical. Students die from hazing.
Students also die, all the time, from domestic violence. And research shows that the lifelong trauma of sexual assault — the post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism and suicide that result — is worse on average than even the extreme trauma resulting from combat duty.
I want to propose an alternative solution to this criminal justice system model, one that should have support from all sides and from a new president with the expertise and concern to address these issues. Let's invest in the research to figure out how to prevent sexual assault and domestic violence, instead of trying to investigate and punish after the damage is done. Sexual violence has a massive public health impact and economic cost, yet federal research dollars devoted to prevention are remarkably limited. Much of the research money available now focuses only on the criminal justice response to rape, not to its prevention.
Universities provide important places to attempt prevention efforts, but for the most part, we are flying blind. We replicate each other's programs often without much evidence that they work. And we do our best knowing that interventions aimed at college students probably come far too late in their psychological and moral development.
We need more serious research on how to protect our children from sexual violence before it happens — not just how to comfort them afterward. We need to know how to prevent men and women from becoming perpetrators, not just how to hold them to account after the profound harm has been done. It is time to focus on finding the answers.
Tania Tetlow, a former federal prosecutor, is the president of Loyola University New Orleans.
Lori Jackson Domestic Violence Survivor Protection Act - Senate Bill
S.763 — 117th Congress (2021-2022)
March 16, 2021 - Introduced in Senate
"Section 921(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended—
(1) by inserting before paragraph (32) the following:
‘‘(31) The term ‘covered domestic violence court order’ means a court order—
‘‘(A) that was issued—
‘‘(ii) in the case of an ex parte order, relative to which notice and opportunity to be heard are provided..."
—
Summary:
This bill makes changes to the federal statutory framework that prohibits the shipment, transport, receipt, or possession of firearms or ammunition by an individual who is subject to a qualifying domestic violence court order.
Under current law, a qualifying domestic violence court order must meet certain criteria, including to (1) be issued after a hearing of which the individual had notice and an opportunity to participate; and (2) restrain the individual from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner (i.e., a current or former spouse, a co-parent of a child, or a current or former cohabitant) or the child of an intimate partner.
- This bill expands the scope of qualifying domestic violence court orders to include an order that is issued after an ex parte hearing (i.e., a hearing with only one party present);
- restrains the individual from harassing, stalking, or threatening a dating partner or former dating partner;
- or restrains the individual from intimidating a witness.
Current law also prohibits an individual who is convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing firearms or ammunition. These restrictions generally only apply to spouses, co-parents, and cohabitants, and to offenses that involve physical force or deadly weapons. This bill expands the scope of these restrictions to include dating partners and offenses that involve stalking.
Lori Jackson Domestic Violence Survivor Protection Act - Congress Bill
H.R.1923 — 117th Congress (2021-2022)
March 16, 2021 - Introduced in Congress
"Section 921(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended—
(1) by inserting before paragraph (32) the following:
‘‘(31) The term ‘covered domestic violence court order’ means a court order—
‘‘(A) that was issued—
‘‘(ii) in the case of an ex parte order, relative to which notice and opportunity to be heard are provided—"
Violence Against Women Act Runs Into GOP Objections on Guns and Trans Rights
Mother Jones
March 16, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Three years after Republicans in Congress allowed the Violence Against Women Act to expire, Democrats have introduced an expanded version of the landmark legislation. But some Republicans' initial objections to provisions concerning gun control and trans rights leave the fate of the bill uncertain.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) introduced the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021 on March 8. The bill expands on legislation first passed in 1994 to improve the criminal justice response to domestic violence and sexual assault and provide funding for victims' services, as well as training, prevention, and law enforcement programs. This reauthorization is so far cosponsored by 168 Democrats and two Republicans, but other Republicans in Congress are finding new ways to attempt to undermine it.
In a statement, Rep. Jackson Lee said the Violence Against Women Act and its subsequent reauthorizations have "ushered in a seismic transformation on how society perceives violence against women." President Joe Biden sponsored the original legislation as a senator and is now urging "Congress to follow past precedent and bring a strong bipartisan coalition together for swift passage of VAWA."
The last reauthorization to extend VAWA for five years expired in 2018. Although the House passed bipartisan legislation during the last Congress with the support of 33 Republicans, the GOP-controlled Senate allowed it to lapse. Among the sticking points for Republicans was a provision to end the so-called "boyfriend loophole" by expanding the the provision that prohibits perpetrators of domestic violence from purchasing guns to include dating partners and stalkers. The NRA fiercely opposed the provision, which it called "a gun-control poison pill," and lobbied against the bill.
This year's version keeps that provision in place, while also expanding survivors' access to housing and extending "the jurisdiction of tribal authorities over non-Indians who commit a crime in Indian country," among other new protections. Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), who was just confirmed by the Senate to lead the Interior Department as the first Native American Cabinet secretary, is one of the cosponsors of the bill.
Everyone deserves to feel safe & have access to justice when they experience violence. We need a full & enhanced #VAWA to provide more permanent protections for all survivors. That's why I'm a cosponsor. https://t.co/PXUsTubbtP — Rep. Deb Haaland (@RepDebHaaland) March 13, 2021.
While Democrats and advocates for survivors of domestic and sexual violence are pushing for VAWA to be reauthorized quickly in light of the significant increase in domestic violence in the United States during the pandemic, some House Republicans have already geared up to undermine provisions of the bill involving gun control and trans rights.
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) has led the fight on both counts. First, he submitted an amendment to replace all "gender identity" and "sexual orientation" language with "biological sex." He has also proposed adding "findings included in a study by Pew Research Center on gun ownership increases" where women cited "personal protection as the primary reason for obtaining a gun." (Other studies have shown that firearm possession can put women at greater risk for violence.) He would like to include a sentence saying that VAWA can't take away a person's constitutional right to bear arms "based on an allegation where such person does not have the opportunity to contest such allegation."
Other Republicans have joined the fray. Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona proposed an amendment to authorize grants to train survivors on how to use firearms. Rep. Debbie Lesko or Arizona, a survivor of domestic violence but a critic of trans rights, suggested a change to prevent service providers "from being compelled to place a woman or child into a circumstance in which they fear for a violation of privacy or safety." In 2019, Lesko had defended a similar proposal by arguing that it wasn't "fair to women" that the government was "forcing these organizations to take in biological males to be sleeping right next to biological women." Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee wants to stipulate that organizations that provide services exclusively "to women based on sex at birth" can't be prevented from receiving grants. QAnon enthusiast Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) proposed an amendment to strike a severability clause ensuring that even if parts of the legislation are deemed unconstitutional, the rest should still stand.
Late last week, Greene also used inflammatory and inaccurate language to decry VAWA on Twitter:
The Democrats have complete meltdowns over kids in cages.
But next week the Democrats want to pass a law that would allow children to be raised in PRISON!
The so called Violence Against Women Act is actually violent against children!
Stop the insanity!
Democrats hate kids.
— Marjorie Taylor Greene (@mtgreenee) March 11, 2021
If the bill passes in the Democratic-led House, it still faces the prospect of a filibuster in the Senate, which Democrats could only overcome with the backing of at least 10 Republicans.
Ryan Grim DISMANTLES Media Smears Of Tara Reade
Rising - The Hill
March 16, 2021
DC bureau chief at The Intercept, Ryan Grim, discusses Tara Reade's battle with major media outlets over her college education.
House set to pass Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, with renewed hope for Senate action
GOP opposition to gun, LGBTQ provisions remains
Roll Call
March 16, 2021
Corrected 6:40 p.m. | The House will vote to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act this week, after standoffs over LGBTQ issues and gun rights prevented an update of the law for years.
Authorization for the law, which provides funding for federal prosecution of domestic violence as well as state and local grant programs, lapsed in 2019. The legislation has support from a handful of Republicans heading into Thursday’s debate, but it has also attracted GOP opposition over provisions that lower the threshold to bar someone from buying a gun based on certain misdemeanors.
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said the chamber will likely pass the legislation Thursday and blamed Mitch McConnell for stymieing the process in the last Congress when he was Senate majority leader.
“It is a shame that we have not in the last Congress passed this bill that we sent to the Senate and, like so many other very important pieces of legislation, Sen. McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate simply ignored,” said Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat.
The House will debate 41 amendments made in order under a rule advanced Tuesday, including a substitute amendment from New York Republican Elise Stefanik that would simply reauthorize VAWA as it currently exists for one year without updates or expansion. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has voiced opposition to a one-year extension.
A bipartisan amendment would establish federal criminal liability for individuals who share private, sexually explicit or nude images without the consent of those photographed. In 2019, California Democratic Rep. Katie Hill was a victim of this practice, known as “revenge porn,” and resigned after nude images were published without her consent and following allegations that she had a relationship with a staffer.
Hill alleges that those nude images, published without her permission on two news sites, were part of a “smear campaign built around cyber exploitation” executed by her former husband.
Originally passed in 1994 to address the prevalence of domestic and sexual violence, VAWA has been reauthorized several times. It created programs to enhance investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women and authorized grants to state and local law enforcement.
The authorization for the bill lapsed at the end of 2018, although programs have still been funded by congressional appropriations.
In the last Congress, bipartisan Senate talks broke down primarily over provisions to restrict the gun rights of an expanded number of convicts. Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who took the lead among Republicans in the talks, accused Democrats of playing politics, while Democrats said their GOP colleagues had bowed to the National Rifle Association.
The base language of the bill the House will debate Wednesday is almost identical to language that passed the chamber in 2019 on a 263-158 bipartisan vote. New provisions in this year’s bill, sponsored by Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee, would create a $40 million dedicated fund for “culturally specific victim services programs” for organizations in specific communities or to combat practices such as female genital mutilation.
Ruth Glenn, the CEO of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said she thinks the change in congressional control will prove critical to eventually passing the reauthorization. Nearly three dozen national organizations have pushed for changes since the 2013 reauthorization, including restricting access to guns for people who violate the law.
“We have a different Congress, quite frankly, that really will understand that philosophy of making sure that everyone is safe, including our LGBTQI community, and including the necessity of making sure that those that harm others in relationships or non-relationships — dating, for instance — don’t have the means by which to have another tool to hurt someone,” Glenn said.
Glenn said her group and 30 others nationwide would work to convince senators of the benefits of the legislation and help get it across that chamber’s 60-vote threshold.
A quarter of women experience severe intimate-partner physical violence, and 1 in 7 have been stalked by an intimate partner to the point of feeling very fearful or believing that she or someone close to her would be harmed or killed, according to Glenn’s group.
Republican opposition resurfaces
Once again, firearms provisions and specific protections for LGBTQ victims are raising opposition from Republican members.
California Rep. Tom McClintock voiced concerns Tuesday that the bill’s firearms provisions would impose a lifetime ban on gun ownership for those convicted of “nondomestic, nonviolent misdemeanor crimes,” in reference to misdemeanor stalking.
McClintock said recent VAWA reauthorizations have “strayed farther and farther from its original purpose into a woke world in which gender has become optional and the law has become fluid.”
Some Republicans take issue with the expansion of the definition of domestic violence to include psychological and economic abuse, in addition to physical violence, and the lack of faith-based exemptions for some program providers.
McClintock referenced provisions centered on providing shelter to LGBTQ victims, saying the bill would put women in danger by allowing “men who identify as women” to access women’s shelters and other resources.
Oklahoma GOP Rep. Tom Cole called the Democratic-led VAWA reauthorization effort a “lost opportunity” on an issue with broad bipartisan support. He said the measure includes provisions that are “unnecessarily partisan” and warned that the last time the House considered a VAWA reauthorization without broad bipartisan support, it was untouched by the Senate and never signed into law.
“I’m afraid we are running that risk again,” he said.
Cole said the bill could provide important changes for tribes like his own, the Chickasaw Nation.
“Not only does VAWA provide critical tools for addressing domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking in the broader community, but it also provides specific support for Native American tribes in their efforts to end violence against women in their own communities,” he said.
More than half of all Indigenous women are subject to sexual violence in their lifetime and, for them, murder is the third-leading cause of death, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
M. Brent Leonhard, an attorney for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, said the proposed reauthorization would give key expansions of tribal jurisdiction over crimes committed by nonmembers. The 2013 authorization allowed tribes to prosecute nonmembers for domestic violence, dating violence and violation of protective orders.
“So if they’re trying to tamper with a witness, you can’t charge that. If they’re trying to tamper with a jury, you can’t charge that. If they assault staff member of a court, you can’t charge that,” under current law, Leonhard said.
Bipartisan Senate talks
Senate Judiciary Chair Richard J. Durbin said he’s part of a bipartisan group bringing VAWA reauthorization through the Senate. A committee aide said the Illinois Democrat plans to introduce another version of the bill in the next few weeks.
“We’re ready to move. I’m the lead sponsor on it, by virtue of being chairman of the committee, I believe. And we have a bipartisan group of senators ready to move on it,” Durbin said.
With Joe Biden, one of the sponsors of the original 1994 bill, in the White House, Democrats are hopeful they can get the measure through the chamber and eventually signed into law. Ernst said her priorities include addressing shelter needs in rural areas as part of a bipartisan compromise.
“We are hoping to get there, and I’ve been working on some legislation obviously following on to the last Congress, but we are hoping that we can come together and really get this resolved. Pass it and have a bipartisan bill,” she said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she has discussed a Senate version of the bill with some of her colleagues as well as Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Murkowski said she has been most involved on the tribal provisions.
“The Senate version is in the works, there are a good number of us working on it,” she said.
NRA fights Dingell measure to stop domestic abusers from getting guns
The Detroit News
April 03, 2019
UPDATED: March 16, 2021
Washington — The National Rifle Association is opposing reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act this week over a gun-reform provision by Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell that the NRA says "politicized" an otherwise noncontroversial bill.
Dingell’s measure aims to close the so-called "boyfriend" loophole by amending federal law to include convicted abusers of current or former dating partners among those prohibited from purchasing or owning firearms.
Those convicted of domestic abuse currently can lose their weapons only if their victim is their current or former spouse, or they have a child with the victim.
Dingell's provision also would prohibit firearm ownership by people convicted of misdemeanor stalking.
"What we're trying to do it close a loophole. Keep women safe," said Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat.
"It's not naming anybody who is innocent. If somebody can't get access to a gun, it's because they were convicted of stalking or abuse."
The NRA is urging lawmakers to oppose the bill, which is set for a Thursday vote in the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives.
It argues there are no “loopholes” for domestic violence or stalking, and that the legal system has sufficient tools to prohibit dangerous individuals from possessing firearms.
The group says it had not previously gotten involved in the debate over the Violence Against Women Act, first passed in 1994, because it didn't contain firearm provisions.
The NRA says "former dating partners" is a subjective term that could be abused. Some misdemeanor stalking offenses don't include violent or threatening behavior or even personal contact, it says.
"Anti-gun" politicians and the gun-control lobby added the firearm provisions to intentionally politicize the bill “as a smokescreen to push their gun-control agenda,” NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said.
"The NRA opposes domestic violence and all violent crime, and spends millions of dollars teaching countless Americans how not to be a victim and how to safely use firearms for self-defense," Baker said in a statement.
"It’s appalling that the gun control lobby and anti-gun politicians are trivializing the serious issue of domestic violence."
The NRA contends that the gun-control lobby added the provision as a “poison pill," so Democrats can use the issue in campaigns to portray those who vote against it as favoring domestic violence.
Dingell, who last year co-founded the bipartisan Working Group to End Domestic Violence, said she doesn't view the measure as "poisoning" the vote.
"Why is it a poison pill? When you're in a domestic violence situation, the presence of the gun makes it five times more likely — 500 percent more likely — that someone will be killed," Dingell said, referring to data from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
"If we are doing a Violence Against Women Act and we are trying to save lives, why would you not close a simple loophole?"
She first introduced her bill as a freshman lawmaker in 2015 and pushed to incorporate it into the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which expired earlier this year and helps victims of domestic, dating and sexual violence.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, has sponsored a companion to Dingell's Zero Tolerance for Domestic Abusers Act in the Senate in recent sessions of Congress.
Asked about the bill's prospects in the Republican-controlled Senate, Klobuchar said she's had GOP senators tell her in the past that they would not put their names on her bill but would vote for it.
"That's who we're going to be focusing on," said Klobuchar, who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Supporters highlighted crime data to make their case.
More than half of all female homicide victims are killed by a current or former "intimate partner," according to a 2017 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that defined "intimate partner" as a current or former spouse or boyfriend.
"Women are as likely to be killed by dating partners than by spouses," said Debbie Weir of the group Every Town for Gun Safety.
Also, 76 percent of women killed by an intimate partner experienced stalking in the year prior to the murder, according to a 1999 study.
"We're not trying to take the guns away," Dingell said of herself and Klobuchar. "We both believe and respect the Second Amendment."
Gun reform is among the few issues on which she disagreed with her late husband, Rep. John Dingell Jr., who died in February at age 92. John Dingell, whose seat Debbie won in 2014, used to sit on the NRA board.
She has pushed for stricter firearm restrictions for domestic abusers in part because the issue is personal.
She tells the story of living with her father, who was mentally ill, and a terrifying night as an eighth grader when he wielded a gun and threatened to shoot her mother.
Dingell has said she intervened and tried to grab the weapon, then locked herself and her siblings in a bedroom to try to hide.
"I was sure I was going to die that night," she said. "I know that fear. I know that terror, and I just want to save another family from going through that."
Dingell provision in Violence Against Women Act again draws NRA ire
The Detroit News
March 17, 2021
Washington — The U.S. House voted 244-172 Wednesday to reauthorize the expired Violence Against Women Act with a gun-reform provision by Michigan U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell that has drawn the ire of the National Rifle Association.
Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat, spoke passionately Wednesday about the need to renew the broader law, which enhances federal domestic and sexual violence protections for women.
Dingell has openly discussed growing up in a household where she lived with domestic violence, noting statistics that 1 in 15 children also witness domestic violence.
"We don't forget about hiding in closets. Or our father taking locks off of doors. Or my grabbing a gun from my father, so he wouldn't kill my mother, and being convinced that we would die," Dingell said of her early life with her siblings.
The NRA opposes the legislation over the provision, arguing there are no “loopholes” for domestic violence or stalking, and that the legal system has sufficient protections to prohibit dangerous individuals from possessing firearms.
The gun owners group has said "former dating partners" is a subjective term that could be abused and noted that some misdemeanor stalking offenses don't include violent or threatening behavior or even personal contact.
The NRA also fought the Dingell provision when the House reauthorized the bill in 2019, when the legislation died in the Republican-led Senate.
"The NRA did not score the legislation until last Congress because it never impacted Second Amendment rights," said Jason Ouimet, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.
"However, Speaker Pelosi and anti-gun lawmakers chose to insert gun control provisions into this bill in 2019 to pit pro-gun lawmakers against it so that they can falsely and maliciously claim these lawmakers don’t care about women," Ouimet added.
"This is Washington at its filthiest. It’s proof that anti-gun lawmakers care more about smearing opponents than passing meaningful legislation.”
Dingell, who co-founded the bipartisan Working Group to End Domestic Violence, has rejected the idea that her measure "poisons" the legislation, which previously was reauthorized with bipartisan support.
"I’m not trying to take guns away from responsible gun owners,"Dingell said. "I’m trying to keep men and women from dying."
The legislation, sponsored by Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee,faces an uncertain fate in the divided Senate.
Dingell noted that in the early months of the pandemic, calls to the national domestic violence hotline were up 9%, but said the calls don't reflect the total number of people affected.
"We are working very hard on the Senate. It’s time. This pandemic has endangered many women and children," Dingell said.
"I talked to my sister last night. We do not want anyone to go through what we did as children."
House passes renewed effort to reauthorize Violence Against Women Act
Breitbart
March 17, 2021
March 17 (UPI) — The House on Wednesday passed legislation to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, originally authored by President Joe Biden during his time in Congress.
The measure, which seeks to provide state and local funding for programs assisting victims of domestic abuse, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking as well as close the so-called boyfriend loophole for gun purchases, passed by a vote of 224-172.
It was passed largely along party lines with 29 Republicans joining Democrats in voting to approve the measure.
“Women cannot go back. Women cannot continue in an intimidated fashion to tragically be subject to men who violently attack them. That is what this legislation is about,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.
Jackson Lee reintroduced the bill along with Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.
The original legislation written by Biden as a senator from Delaware expired in 2018 after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach an agreement on plans to extend and update the measure.
In 2019, the House passed a version of the measure, but it was not taken up by the Republican-held Senate.
One point of contention has been a provision that would extend restrictions preventing spouses or formerly married partners convicted of domestic violence or abuse from purchasing firearms to also include dating partners.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, is working on a GOP alternative to the measure in the Senate as Republicans and the National Rifle Association have objected to the firearm provision.
“Certainly we ran into hiccups with some of the gun issues and that’s a big one for a number of us,” Ernst said. “Stripping away people’s constitutional rights is not something that we should be doing.”
The Senate is currently split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote in the event of a tie.
Biden on Wednesday applauded the House for passing the measure and urged the Senate to do the same, describing domestic violence as an “urgent crisis” exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“While we have made significant progress, there is still much work to do. As many as 1 in 3 women are subjected to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking at some point in their lives and the rate is even higher for women of color, Native American women and members of the LGBTQ community,” Biden said.
House passes domestic violence bill, pushes issue to Senate
Breitbart
March 17, 2021
With a nod to Women’s History Month, the Democratic-led House has passed two measures, one designed to protect women from domestic violence, the other to remove the deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment
WASHINGTON (AP) — With a nod to Women’s History Month, the Democratic-led House passed two measures Wednesday, one designed to protect women from domestic violence, the other to remove the deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.
The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act passed 244-172 with 29 Republicans joining Democrats in supporting the legislation.
The resolution to repeal the ERA’s ratification deadline passed 222-204. Both measures face a more difficult path in an evenly divided Senate.
The White House announced its support earlier Wednesday for reauthorizing VAWA, which aims to reduce domestic and sexual violence and improve the response to it through a variety of grant programs. Many of the Democratic congresswomen wore all-white outfits to commemorate the day, a nod to the women’s suffrage movement when marchers would wear white dresses to symbolized the femininity and purity of their cause.
President Joe Biden introduced the original Violence Against Women Act in June 1990 when serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. A subsequent version was eventually included in a sweeping crime bill that President Bill Clinton would sign into law four years later. Congress has reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act three times since.
Biden applauded the House action and urged the Senate to follow suit. “This should not be a Democratic or Republican issue — it’s about standing up against the abuse of power and preventing violence,” the president said in a statement Wednesday evening.
The original bill created the Office on Violence Against Women within the Justice Department, which has awarded more than $9 billion in grants to state and local governments, nonprofits and universities over the years. The grants fund crisis intervention programs, transitional housing and legal assistance to victims, among other programs. Supporters said the reauthorization would also boost spending for training law enforcement and the courts.
“This bill leaves no victim behind,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.
The legislation also would prohibit persons previously convicted of misdemeanor stalking from possessing firearms, a provision that generated opposition from the NRA and resulted in most Republicans voting against the measure in the last Congress.
The other measure the House took up Wednesday would remove the deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, a decades-long effort to amend the Constitution to expressly prohibit discrimination based on sex. Congress initially required the states to ratify it by 1979, a deadline it later extended to 1982.
The Justice Department under President Donald Trump said Congress cannot revive a proposed constitutional amendment after the deadline for its ratification has expired. Supporters would have to start over and follow Article V of the Constitution, which requires support from two-thirds of each chamber of Congress and ratification from three-quarters of the states before an amendment is added to the Constitution.
The fight over the Equal Rights Amendment began almost a century ago. The amendment finally passed with the requisite majority in each chamber when President Richard Nixon was serving his first term.
Shortly after Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the amendment last year, the archivist of the United States declared he would take no action to certify the amendment’s adoption, citing the Justice Department opinion.
Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by three Democratic state attorneys general that had sought to force the federal government to recognize Virginia’s vote.
In a separate statement Wednesday, Biden pointed out that he supported the ERA when he was a young senator, adding, “Nearly 50 years later, it is long past time that we enshrine the principle of gender equality in our Constitution.”
A White House official said Biden remains committed to the ERA, but he won’t direct the Office of Legal Counsel to rescind its opinion or to reach a particular conclusion out of respect for the Justice Department’s independence. The official said Biden considered the House vote the appropriate next step. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., noted that a champion of the amendment, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, had said it was time to start anew.
“This measure is brazenly unconstitutional,” McClintock said. “If the majority were serious, they would reintroduce the ERA and debate it openly and constitutionally as Ginsburg suggests.”
The ERA faced bitter opposition from some conservatives, who say it could be used as a legal tool to fight state efforts to curb abortion.
“If ratified, the ERA would be used to codify the right to abortion, undoing pro-life protections and forcing taxpayers to fund abortions,” warned Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz.
Supporters argued that the Constitution does not guarantee that all the rights it protects are held equally by all citizens without regard to sex.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., the sponsor of the resolution to repeal the ratification deadline, said there is no expiration date on equality.
“We demand that we be put into the Constitution,” Speier said.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the Constitution places no deadlines on the process of ratifying constitutional amendments and that Congress clearly has the authority to extend or remove any deadlines it chose to set previously.
“We are on the brink of making history and no deadline should stand in the way,” Nadler said.
House votes to reauthorize, expand Violence Against Women Act
GOP opposition focuses on gun and LGBTQ provisions
Roll Call
March 17, 2021
The House voted Wednesday to reauthorize the lapsed Violence Against Women Act, but the proposal was opposed by most Republicans because of provisions dealing with gun rights and LGBTQ victims' access to services.
The 244-172 vote sent the measure to the Senate for the second time since the law’s authorization lapsed in 2019.
Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., brought up her own family’s history with domestic violence in pushing for passage of the bill at a press conference Wednesday. Dingell spotlighted sections that would expand provisions in existing law that bar domestic abusers from owning firearms by including some misdemeanors.
“It's not just my story. It's the story of my siblings, and we don't forget about hiding in closets, or our father taking locks off doors or grabbing a gun from my father so he wouldn't kill my mother, and being convinced that we would die this time,” Dingell said. “This bill is needed, as guns in volatile situations are dangerous and have devastating consequences.”
More than 1 in 3 women have experienced sexual violence during their lifetime, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Biden an original sponsor
First passed in 1994, VAWA enshrines legal protections for victims of domestic and sexual violence. The original bill was championed by then-Sen. Joe Biden, and was reauthorized and updated in 2000, 2005 and 2013.
The House bill would expand victim services and reauthorize for five years grant programs for the criminal justice response to domestic and sexual violence. It also includes provisions that would expand housing options for survivors, and allow tribal jurisdiction over non-Native perpetrators of sexual violence on tribal lands.
The White House Office of Management and Budget released a statement on Wednesday saying that "the administration strongly supports" reauthorizing VAWA.
The OMB statement praised the bill for recognizing “the need to provide protection and services to all victims of abuse and includes proposals to strengthen existing policies that were supported by both Democrats and Republicans last year. The Administration urges swift passage of this legislation."
In 2019, the bill received support from 33 House Republicans, and the current version is cosponsored by Pennsylvania Republican Brian Fitzpatrick.
Other Republicans, including New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, criticized Democrats for moving forward with what they called an overly partisan bill. Stefanik pointed out that the process shut out the record number of Republican women who joined the chamber after the 2020 election.
Stefanik said Democrats “shunned the bipartisan history of VAWA and advanced a bill filled with controversial provisions, rejecting Republican offers to work in good faith and prioritize the well-being of women and children.”
Objections to transgender rights
She and others criticized the bill for restricting gun rights, as well as the expansion of LGBT rights. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, couched some of his criticism in statements that denied the existence of transgender people, referring to them as “biological males” who would be housed in shelters and prisons.
“It seems to me that many on the left decided that could use this critical legislation that’s intended to protect women and girls from violence as a vehicle to promote their far-left political agenda,” Chabot said.
Government data does not currently account for nonbinary or transgender people by disaggregating sex from gender. But existing research suggests transgender people face high rates of intimate partner violence and additional barriers to receiving help.
The Justice Department's Office for Victims of Crime points to research that says that half of transgender individuals are sexually abused or assaulted at some point in their lives.
An amendment proposed by GOP Rep. Anne Wagner of Missouri, allowing the attorney general to bar entities found to have misused VAWA grant funds from participating for five years, was adopted on a 242-174 vote.
Ex-Rep. Katie Hill attends session
Former Rep. Katie Hill was at the Capitol for the votes, and her former colleagues adopted an amendment addressing the issue of cyber exploitation, which prompted her resignation in 2019.
The California Democrat resigned after nude images were published without her consent following allegations that she had a relationship with a staffer. A bipartisan amendment that was adopted would establish federal criminal liability for individuals who share "revenge porn," as this practice is called.
Stefanik offered one of the two Republican amendments that were voted down 177-249, which would have extended the authorization for just one year.
The chamber adopted more than three dozen bipartisan amendments to the bill en bloc in a 228-197 vote. They included funding for document replacement for victims and protecting the immigration status of domestic violence victims.
The measure now heads to the Senate, where bipartisan talks have already started. Democrats would need Republicans to join them to advance any VAWA proposal to reach the 60 votes required to pass most legislation.
Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski is part of the negotiations, focusing especially on provisions related to tribal rights and the specific needs of indigenous communities.
"I think it's critically important that we advance VAWA," she said.
House on track to pass two bills aimed at bolstering women
Detroit News
March 17, 2021
Washington – With a nod to Women’s History Month, the Democratic-led House is on course to pass two measures Wednesday, one designed to protect women from domestic violence, the other to remove the deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.
The latter measure passed by a vote of 222-204. Debate is ongoing with the Violence Against Women Act. Both measures face a more difficult path in an evenly divided Senate.
The White House announced its support earlier Wednesday for reauthorizing the act, which aims to reduce domestic and sexual violence and improve the response to it through a variety of grant programs.
“VAWA reauthorization is more urgent now than ever, especially when the pandemic and economic crisis have only further increased the risks of abuse and the barriers to safety for women in the United States,” the White House said.
President Joe Biden introduced the original Violence Against Women Act in June 1990 when serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. A subsequent version was eventually included in a sweeping crime bill that President Bill Clinton would sign into law four years later. Congress has reauthorized VAWA three times since.
The bill created the Office on Violence Against Women within the Justice Department, which has awarded more than $9 billion in grants to state and local governments, nonprofits and universities over the years. The grants fund crisis intervention programs, transitional housing and legal assistance to victims, among other programs. Supporters said the reauthorization would also boost spending for training law enforcement and the courts.
“This bill leaves no victim behind,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.
The legislation also would prohibit persons previously convicted of misdemeanor stalking from possessing firearms, a provision that generated opposition from the National Rifle Association and resulted in most Republicans voting against the measure in the last Congress.
The other measure the House took up Wednesday would remove the 1982 deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, a decades-long effort to amend the Constitution to expressly prohibit discrimination based on sex. Congress initially required the states to ratify it by 1979, a deadline it later extended to 1982.
The Justice Department under President Donald Trump said that Congress cannot revive a proposed constitutional amendment after the deadline for its ratification has expired. Supporters would have to start over and follow Article V of the Constitution, which requires support from two-thirds of each chamber of Congress and ratification from three-quarters of the states before an amendment is added to the Constitution.
The fight over the Equal Rights Amendment began almost a century ago. The amendment finally passed with the requisite majority in each chamber when President Richard Nixon was serving his first term.
Shortly after Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the amendment last year, the archivist of the United States declared he would take no action to certify the amendment’s adoption, citing the Justice Department opinion.
Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by three Democratic state attorneys general that had sought to force the federal government to recognize Virginia’s vote last year.
Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., noted that a champion of the amendment, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, had also said it was time to start anew.
“This measure is brazenly unconstitutional,” McClintock said. “If the majority were serious, they would reintroduce the ERA and debate it openly and constitutionally as Ginsburg suggests.”
The ERA faces bitter opposition from conservatives, who say it could be used as a legal tool to fight state efforts to curb abortion.
“If ratified, the ERA would be used to codify the right to abortion, undoing pro-life protections and forcing taxpayers to fund abortions,” warned Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the Constitution places no deadlines on the process of ratifying constitutional amendments and that Congress clearly has the authority to extend or remove any deadlines it chose to set previously.
“We are on the brink of making history and no deadline should stand in the way,” Nadler said.
Dingell provision in Violence Against Women Act again draws NRA ire
Detroit News
March 17, 2021
Washington — The U.S. House voted 244-172 Wednesday to reauthorize the expired Violence Against Women Act with a gun-reform provision by Michigan U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell that has drawn the ire of the National Rifle Association.
Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat, spoke passionately Wednesday about the need to renew the broader law, which enhances federal domestic and sexual violence protections for women.
Dingell has openly discussed growing up in a household where she lived with domestic violence, noting statistics that 1 in 15 children also witness domestic violence.
"We don't forget about hiding in closets. Or our father taking locks off of doors. Or my grabbing a gun from my father, so he wouldn't kill my mother, and being convinced that we would die," Dingell said of her early life with her siblings.
"It is time that this bill be reauthorized. Constant volatile situations are dangerous and have devastating consequences."
Dingell’s measure, which she first introduced as a separate bill in 2015, would not have applied to her family's situation growing up.
It aims to close the so-called "boyfriend" loophole by amending federal law to prohibit convicted abusers of current or former dating partners from purchasing or owning firearms.
Currently, those convicted of domestic abuse can lose their weapons only if their victim is their current or former spouse, or they have a child with the victim.
Dingell's provision also would prohibit firearm ownership by people convicted of misdemeanor stalking.
The NRA opposes the legislation over the provision, arguing there are no “loopholes” for domestic violence or stalking, and that the legal system has sufficient protections to prohibit dangerous individuals from possessing firearms.
The gun owners group has said "former dating partners" is a subjective term that could be abused and noted that some misdemeanor stalking offenses don't include violent or threatening behavior or even personal contact.
The NRA also fought the Dingell provision when the House reauthorized the bill in 2019, when the legislation died in the Republican-led Senate.
"The NRA did not score the legislation until last Congress because it never impacted Second Amendment rights," said Jason Ouimet, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.
"However, Speaker Pelosi and anti-gun lawmakers chose to insert gun control provisions into this bill in 2019 to pit pro-gun lawmakers against it so that they can falsely and maliciously claim these lawmakers don’t care about women," Ouimet added.
"This is Washington at its filthiest. It’s proof that anti-gun lawmakers care more about smearing opponents than passing meaningful legislation.”
Dingell, who co-founded the bipartisan Working Group to End Domestic Violence, has rejected the idea that her measure "poisons" the legislation, which previously was reauthorized with bipartisan support.
"I’m not trying to take guns away from responsible gun owners,"Dingell said. "I’m trying to keep men and women from dying."
The legislation, sponsored by Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee,faces an uncertain fate in the divided Senate.
Dingell noted that in the early months of the pandemic, calls to the national domestic violence hotline were up 9%, but said the calls don't reflect the total number of people affected.
"We are working very hard on the Senate. It’s time. This pandemic has endangered many women and children," Dingell said.
"I talked to my sister last night. We do not want anyone to go through what we did as children."
Texas Democratic Party: Texas Republicans Are a Rising Threat to Public Safety
Targeted News Service (USA)
March 20, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
AUSTIN, Texas, March 20 -- The Texas Democratic Party issued the following news on March 19, 2021:
In recent months, Republicans in Texas and beyond have become a rising threat to public safety. Despite Republican claims to being the party of security, Texas Republicans have repeatedly shown that in a crisis, their primary instinct is to throw Texans in the way of danger and abdicate all responsibility to keep Texans safe.
Here are just a few examples of recent Republican threats to public safety:
The day following the domestic terrorist attacks in Atlanta, 172 Congressional Republicans voted against renewing the Violence Against Women Act, a critical piece of legislation in the fight to end domestic violence and sexual assault and keep women and nonbinary people safe.
Dunn: 'Prioritize women's safety, not a radical agenda'
Washington County News (FL)
March 20, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Washington and Holmes counties' Congressional representative spoke out earlier this week following the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The House passed the bill 244-172 Wednesday, March 17, with 29 Republicans joining Democrats in supporting the legislation.
Congressman Neal Dunn (Florida-02) voted against the measure, releasing a statement criticizing the bill as "politicized" and for inserting "radical policies" based on gender that would "hinder the fight against domestic violence and sexual abuse."
Congressman Dunn said the bill reallocates resources away from combating violent crimes, disregards the wellbeing of women by promoting unproven methods that could force a victim to confront her abuser, and prohibits religious organizations from running shelters and legal aid centers based on their conscience and sincerely held beliefs thus forcing centers to close.
The original bill created the Office on Violence Against Women within the Justice Department, which has awarded more than $9 billion in grants to state and local governments, nonprofits and universities over the years. The grants fund crisis intervention programs, transitional housing and legal assistance to victims, among other programs. Supporters said the reauthorization would also boost spending for training law enforcement and the courts.
The basis of the reauthorized bill had support among both Democrats and Republicans, but portions of the legislation were sticking points for House Republicans, including measures relating to transgender persons and others that expand gun ownership restrictions. Previously, the restrictions applied to individuals who had felony domestic violence convictions. The reauthorization expands those restrictions to include those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence or stalking.
"House Democrats have made clear that their priority is not ensuring the safety of our wives, sisters, and daughters; their priority is pushing their radical agenda," said Congressman Dunn. "I support reauthorizing programs and life-saving resources to help women fight back. However, I cannot support measures that put their wellbeing at risk."
Dunn represents Florida's District 2, the state's largest Congressional District, which includes Holmes and Washington counties.
U.S. Congress votes on major issues during the legislative week ending March 19
Erie Times-News (PA)
March 21, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Renewing Violence Against Women Act: Voting 244-172, the House on March 17 approved a five-year extension of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which uses federal grants and laws to reduce crimes directed primarily at women. In part, the bill (HR 1620) would prohibit persons convicted of domestic abuse, misdemeanor stalking or dating violence from possessing firearms; ensure that those losing work because of domestic violence qualify for unemployment benefits; require shelters to admit transgender individuals in their acquired sex; and strengthen tribal jurisdiction over outsiders charged with committing crimes on reservations. A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate. Kelly: No. Thompson: No.
Mass Shooters Often Have A History Of Violence Against Women
Weekend All Things Considered [NPR] (USA)
March 21, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
MICHEL MARTIN: We're going to go back now to a major story many of us have been following in the wake of the killings at several Atlanta area massage businesses last week - the national and, many say, long overdue outcry against the violence and other abuse directed at Asian Americans. But now we want to focus on something else most of the victims had in common, that they were women. Seven of the eight victims were women - one white and six of Asian descent. And that's not just a national problem; it is a global problem.
Earlier this month, the World Health Organization released the startling statistic that 1 in 3 women around the world experiences sexual or physical violence in her lifetime. That's roughly 736 million women. And the WHO says it is a problem that's devastatingly pervasive. What's more, in the U.S., increasingly, research is showing a link between those who commit violence against women and those who commit mass shootings. Bloomberg News, for example, analyzed 749 mass shootings between 2014 and 2019 and found that, quote, "about 60% were either domestic violence attacks or committed by men with histories of domestic violence," unquote.
We wanted to hear more about this, so we called Deborah Epstein, who spent decades researching and working on issues related to violence against women. She's director of the Domestic Violence Clinic at Georgetown Law, where she's also a professor. Professor Epstein, thank you so much for joining us.
DEBORAH EPSTEIN: Thank you so much for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN: I just wanted to start by getting your reaction to the devastating shooting in Atlanta last week. As we mentioned, eight people were killed, but seven were women, and six of those were of Asian descent. So what did that bring up for you?
DEBORAH EPSTEIN: Yeah, the way this incident unfolded gives us real insight into how differently we perceive hate and violence based on race versus hate and violence based on gender. We have this 21-year-old white male shooter who murdered seven women, six of whom were Asian. And when he was arrested, he made two statements, and they're both important. First, he denied that racial hatred played a motivating role. And this immediately led the Atlanta Sheriff's Department to state that they could not yet conclude it was a hate crime, right?
Soon afterwards, evidence came to light about anti-Asian postings on the sheriff's spokesperson's Facebook page, and the media very appropriately began to cover this incident, as you said, as a race-based hate crime. And that's a critically important lens through which to understand this horrific incident. It is a race-based hate crime.
But here's the thing. The second thing that the shooter said from the outset was that he was a sex addict and that he killed these women out of a deep sense of frustration and an attempt to reduce the temptation that he experienced. That's a clear admission of a gender-based hate crime.
The conversation is locked into the racial aspect of the crime to the exclusion of gender rather than being about both. There is, unfortunately, plenty of room for multiple forms of hate and hate-inspired violence. This man targeted his victims because they were Asian, and he targeted his victims because they were women. And we have to shed the blinders that limit us to seeing the race piece, but not the gender piece of hate.
MICHEL MARTIN: So it's interesting. You know, is it that what he told authorities, that somehow these women were responsible for his problem, whatever the problem was, or that controlling them was the key to saving himself - do you know what I mean? Like, what does that mean when you hear that? Like, how do you understand what that says?
DEBORAH EPSTEIN: Yeah. That takes us right back to the nexus between domestic violence and mass shootings, right? It makes sense when you consider what motivates most perpetrators of domestic violence who are using violence in their home as a strategy to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation and to control the women in their lives, right? Mass shooters like this one in Atlanta are doing the same thing on a much larger scale. They are subjecting a large group of people they've targeted to this same sense of terror that the motivation is parallel. It's this need to dominate, intimidate and control other people. And he essentially admitted that that was his motive.
MICHEL MARTIN: Activists have used the term femicide in recent years to describe this phenomenon of people being murdered - women being murdered because they are women. In some countries, it's considered a crime. I don't think this is a very commonly used term in the United States. And I wonder why you think that might be, and what - is that framing useful?
DEBORAH EPSTEIN: Absolutely. It's crucial. The language we use to describe social phenomena is important. And you're right. In other countries, when a woman is murdered on the basis of her sex, they call it femicide. In the U.S., that term seems like it's just too political for us to stomach. And so we use the generic term of murder. And I think this failure to name violence against women as women contributes to our failure to recognize it and to understand it. And I think if we started to use the language that more clearly describes the problem of gender-based violence, we might be able to gain greater insight into it and advance our efforts to end it.
MICHEL MARTIN: Professor Epstein, before we let you go, I understand that you feel that some of the sort of social shifts that are necessary go beyond legislation. But there is renewed interest in reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. And I'd like to ask if you think that would be helpful, and if so, why?
DEBORAH EPSTEIN: It's absolutely helpful for two reasons. One is that the Violence Against Women Act is the primary source of funding for so many programs that support victims and survivors of domestic violence across the United States. It's the primary - a major source of funding for shelters and for free legal services.
The second thing that's really important about the Violence Against Women Act is that in its initial incarnation, it included a civil rights remedy that would help the federal government intervene when gender-based violence is a hate crime that isn't really being recognized at the state level or enforced at the state level. I very much hope that now there will be a renewed effort to draft that piece of legislation in a way that can survive constitutional scrutiny because the rates of domestic violence since the Violence Against Women Act was passed in 1994 have not decreased the way that you would think in a 25-year period. It is still very much a serious social problem. And we need to not only continue to fund services, but find new and creative ways to intervene and end it.
MICHEL MARTIN: That was Deborah Epstein, professor of law at Georgetown University, where she also directs the Domestic Violence Clinic. Professor Epstein, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us.
DEBORAH EPSTEIN: Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Letters To The Editor: Guns
Richfield Reaper, The (UT)
Author: Sara Straw, Aurora
March 26, 2021
President Joe Biden introduced the original Violence Against Women Act in June 1990, when serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The White House announced its support earlier Wednesday for reauthorizing VAWA, which aims to reduce domestic and sexual violence and improve the response to it through a variety of grant programs. The federal law protecting women from violence was set to expire in 2018, yet neither the house nor the senate made renewing it a priority.
And so it was not renewed. When the VAWA was brought to a vote in the house two days ago, 172 Republicans voted against it. Makes you wonder what goes on in the heads of Republican men in the house, including your congressman. Surely they have women and girls in their families that they love and care about, why would they vote against a law that protects them against violence?
Oh…there are Gun Restrictions in it…well…by all means…why prevent abusive angry boyfriends and husbands from their second amendment right to own guns? Maybe ask the thousands of women murdered with guns by their boyfriends and husbands. Federal statistics show, on average, about 3.2 women are killed per day by an intimate partner in the United States. According to the FBI, the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the United States is homicide, by the father of that unborn child. Not any medical issues... HOMICIDE. So why not let that man have his guns?
I don’t understand anyone thinking a man who has demonstrated his predilection to harm his wife or girlfriend, having the RIGHT to own a gun. A man was arrested, March 17, and detained by members of the U.S. Secret Service for carrying a shotgun and ammunition near Naval Observatory, which happens to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ place.
But don’t abridge his right to own weapons. And to top it off, ANOTHER mass shooting of women, who were also Asian, by ANOTHER white young man, who was taken alive, and then given an EXCUSE by the police, that “he was having a bad day.” To paraphrase Shakespear, Something is rotten in the state of America.
And it’s killing a lot of women. For those who cry that this is a slippery slope to taking away all guns... you’ve been playing that song for 50 years…when is it going to happen?
Sara Straw, Aurora
Bill O'Keefe column: A lack of shame and decency
Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)
March 29, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
VAWA VOTES
During the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1953, the Army's attorney, Joseph Welch, scornfully rebuked U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., with the now famous line, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" That line easily could be addressed to the 172 Republican members of Congress, four of whom are from Virginia, who voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
Most if not all used the "boyfriend loophole" as the reason for their vote. More likely, that just was a ruse to avoid offending the National Rifle Association. The NRA has made its opposition clear and apparently these 172 are afraid to offend them by doing the right thing.
The "boyfriend loophole" would prevent dating partners and stalkers convicted of domestic violence or abuse from purchasing and owning firearms. The bill already prevents spouses convicted of domestic violence or abuse from obtaining firearms. Owning a firearm is a serious responsibility. Firearms only should be owned by people who are mature, mentally balanced and routinely exercise good judgment.
The 172 members need to explain why a boyfriend convicted of abuse and violence is more mature and mentally balanced than a husband. People who engage in domestic abuse, violence and stalking are not mentally mature and well-balanced. They have serious psychological problems and should not be able to purchase a firearm independent of whether they abused their spouse or girlfriend. This has nothing to do with Second Amendment rights and everything to do with whether someone is a responsible adult.
I am a member of the Community Health Advisory Committee organized by Bon Secours St. Mary's Hospital in Richmond. Our role is to provide advice and support to the Bon Secours Richmond forensic nursing program that deals daily with victims of domestic violence sexual abuse, strangulation and human trafficking. This past year, the forensic nurses handled more than 2,400 patients who almost equally were divided between sexual and physical abuse, including strangulation. Of these patients, more than 500 were children.
The physical effects of violence can be treated and wounds can be healed. But the psychological harm can be lifelong in spite of the best treatment. This especially is true for children where trauma has been shown not just to emotionally harm them, but also to harm their developing brains. I recently listened to the tape of a 911 call where a 6-year-old girl was calling for help because her stepfather was beating and strangling her mother in her presence. There can be no doubt that this child will have deep emotional scars that might never heal.
There are many other 911 calls available on YouTube. These 172 members of Congress should listen to some and then stand on the floor of the House and explain why a boyfriend convicted of domestic abuse and violence still should be able to purchase firearms but spouses shouldn't. Shockingly, even U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, herself a victim of sexual abuse, has said, "some stripping away of people's constitutional rights is not something that we should be doing." This is a mind-boggling statement and Ernst should explain how these abusers have the maturity and mental capacity to own a firearm but not the self-restraint to keep from abusing women and children.
Being a member of Congress is an honor. There only are 100 U.S. senators and 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Being a member also is a serious responsibility, and the obligations of office should be discharged seriously. To those 172, I ask: Where is your sense of decency? They clearly never would earn a place in an update of "Profiles in Courage."
Bill O'Keefe is founder of Solutions Consulting and a member of the Community Health Advisory Committee organized by Bon Secours St. Mary's Hospital in Richmond. He is the former CEO of the George C. Marshall Institute and the former EVP/COO of the American Petroleum Institute.
Michigan seeing surge in domestic violence cases amid pandemic
Detroit News
April 03, 2021
Lansing – Michigan is facing another public health threat on top of COVID-19: soaring domestic violence cases.
The Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, which represents 73 shelters across the state, has seen an outpouring of need from victims of domestic and sexual violence, Executive Director Sarah Prout Rennie said.
“It’s all real desperate,” she said. “Where we’re at is we need massive investment in domestic violence shelters and sexual assault shelters to be able to prep ourselves for what we know is coming.”
In the year leading up to October, the coalition received 1,300 calls on its helpline. In the next two months it received 1,250 calls and then in January, it had 1,000 calls for domestic and sexual violence assistance.
The biggest surge hasn’t arrived yet, Prout Rennie believes. An inability to fundraise during COVID-19, having limited shelter space available and a statewide effort to limit incarcerations because of COVID have created a perfect storm of need and danger for victims.
Leaders in domestic and sexual violence programs all over the country predicted a year ago that victims would be in greater danger as states entered lockdown and people were shut in with their abusers. Once the states started to reopen and vaccines rolled out, calls for help were expected to go up as victims could escape abusers, able to gather up their children or important documents.
During the pandemic Michigan focused on releasing vulnerable incarcerated people from prison and limiting pretrial incarceration. Between March and June last year, the state Department of Corrections reported a 1,958 prisoner population drop, about 5% of the state’s prison population, the result of efforts to allow eligible individuals to receive early release or parole to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“As a social justice agency we’re in this weird position because we believe in reducing incarceration, but it’s definitely going to be a scalpel and not a chainsaw in these sort of sweeping reforms,” Prout Rennie said.
Kent County Prosecutor Christopher Becker echoed those concerns.
“There is a rush right now and there’s a lot of criminal justice reform and I’m supportive of that, but we’ve got to be careful,” Becker said. “Our victims, they’ve got to deal with these consequences that can be very dire.”
Becker said he’s seen an increase in complaints from victims of defendants who are re-contacted by defendants. He’s got four or five cases where people accused of domestic violence, while out on bond, got charged again.
Shelters are overwhelmed with a backlog of victims reaching out for help, Becker said. And subsequently his office will be put under more strain in terms of resources to respond.
In Kent County, Grand Rapids residents came to the rescue of victims, said Charrise Mitchell, CEO of YWCA West Central Michigan, where funding was limited and social distancing reduced available shelter beds.
The YWCA has partnered with another domestic violence shelter and a homeless shelter during the pandemic, and received community grants to temporarily house victims in hotels and provide other help.
“Philanthropy at the community level is the most immediate, flexible, nimble source of support because they see the need and they respond immediately,” Mitchell said. “It doesn’t have to take a two-year grant cycle to meet the needs of the community.”
In rural Northern Michigan, the Women’s Resource Center in Traverse City is at capacity, down from 22 beds to about a dozen, Director of Advocacy Kristi Boettcher said. It is the only domestic violence shelter serving four counties.
Besides the isolation many victims experience in rural areas, Boettcher said, she’s read reports of students “going missing” during the pandemic, not attending any form of school, and is worried about victims no one has seen in a while.
“How many survivors have also kind of fallen off the map that way, and there’s no one to notice it?” Boettcher asked. “That’s one of the things that has kept me up a few nights, because if someone has lost their job and their children are not in school, and they’re probably already isolated from their family and friends because abusers really love to isolate their victims, who is going to notice if something happens to this person?”
The local sheriff’s offices in the counties WCA serves have all reported increases in domestic violence calls, Boettcher said. But she thinks abuse will get worse when things open more. In 2008, she said she saw calls for help drop during the Great Recession and pick back up in 2009 and 2010.
Even with this expected wave, Michigan doesn’t have major changes related to domestic violence funding in the 2022 executive budget recommendation, said Kurt Weiss, state budget office spokesman. It does include a $500,000 allocation to create a victim confidentiality program to help survivors of abuse keep their personal information safe.
At the federal level, the U.S. House voted in March to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which aims to reduce domestic and sexual violence and improve the response to it through a variety of grant programs. It now is waiting for the U.S. Senate’s vote.
Every year the Violence Policy Center, based in Washington, D.C., releases a “When Men Murder Women” report, which tracks the rates men murder women to provide a “stark reminder that domestic violence and guns make a deadly combination.”
Michigan ranked 28th in men murdering women using data from 2017, down from making the top 10 in 2013. But in the most recent report, Michigan rose to 21st.
“I think in Michigan one of the things that I’m seeing is there’s more of an idea that we have a good handle on domestic violence here and I think what we’re seeing in the field is, ‘No we don’t.’ We still need to make some more progress to help protect these victims,” Boettcher said.
FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Initial Actions to Address the Gun Violence Public Health Epidemic
The White House
April 07, 2021
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing six initial actions to address the gun violence public health epidemic. The recent high-profile mass shootings in Boulder – taking the lives of 10 individuals – and Atlanta – taking the lives of eight individuals, including six Asian American women – underscored the relentlessness of this epidemic. Gun violence takes lives and leaves a lasting legacy of trauma in communities every single day in this country, even when it is not on the nightly news. In fact, cities across the country are in the midst of a historic spike in homicides, violence that disproportionately impacts Black and brown Americans. The President is committed to taking action to reduce all forms of gun violence – community violence, mass shootings, domestic violence, and suicide by firearm.
President Biden is reiterating his call for Congress to pass legislation to reduce gun violence. Last month, a bipartisan coalition in the House passed two bills to close loopholes in the gun background check system. Congress should close those loopholes and go further, including by closing “boyfriend” and stalking loopholes that currently allow people found by the courts to be abusers to possess firearms, banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines, repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability, and investing in evidence-based community violence interventions. Congress should also pass an appropriate national “red flag” law, as well as legislation incentivizing states to pass “red flag” laws of their own.
But this Administration will not wait for Congress to act to take its own steps – fully within the Administration’s authority and the Second Amendment – to save lives. Today, the Administration is announcing the following six initial actions:
The Justice Department, within 30 days, will issue a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of “ghost guns.” We are experiencing a growing problem: criminals are buying kits containing nearly all of the components and directions for finishing a firearm within as little as 30 minutes and using these firearms to commit crimes. When these firearms turn up at crime scenes, they often cannot be traced by law enforcement due to the lack of a serial number. The Justice Department will issue a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of these firearms.
The Justice Department, within 60 days, will issue a proposed rule to make clear when a device marketed as a stabilizing brace effectively turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle subject to the requirements of the National Firearms Act. The alleged shooter in the Boulder tragedy last month appears to have used a pistol with an arm brace, which can make a firearm more stable and accurate while still being concealable.
The Justice Department, within 60 days, will publish model “red flag” legislation for states. Red flag laws allow family members or law enforcement to petition for a court order temporarily barring people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others. The President urges Congress to pass an appropriate national “red flag” law, as well as legislation incentivizing states to pass “red flag” laws of their own. In the interim, the Justice Department’s published model legislation will make it easier for states that want to adopt red flag laws to do so.
The Administration is investing in evidence-based community violence interventions. Community violence interventions are proven strategies for reducing gun violence in urban communities through tools other than incarceration. Because cities across the country are experiencing a historic spike in homicides, the Biden-Harris Administration is taking a number of steps to prioritize investment in community violence interventions.
⦁ The American Jobs Plan proposes a $5 billion investment over eight years to support community violence intervention programs. A key part of community violence intervention strategies is to help connect individuals to job training and job opportunities.
⦁ The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is organizing a webinar and toolkit to educate states on how they can use Medicaid to reimburse certain community violence intervention programs, like Hospital-Based Violence Interventions.
⦁ Five federal agencies are making changes to 26 different programs to direct vital support to community violence intervention programs as quickly as possible. These changes mean we can start increasing investments in community violence interventions as we wait on Congress to appropriate additional funds. Read more about these agency actions here.
⦁ The Justice Department will issue an annual report on firearms trafficking. In 2000, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) issued a report summarizing information regarding its investigations into firearms trafficking, which is one way firearms are diverted into the illegal market where they can easily end up in the hands of dangerous individuals. Since the report’s publication, states, local, and federal policymakers have relied on its data to better thwart the common channels of firearms trafficking. But there is good reason to believe that firearms trafficking channels have changed since 2000, for example due to the emergence of online sales and proliferation of “ghost guns.” The Justice Department will issue a new, comprehensive report on firearms trafficking and annual updates necessary to give policymakers the information they need to help address firearms trafficking today.
The President will nominate David Chipman to serve as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. ATF is the key agency enforcing our gun laws, and it needs a confirmed director in order to do the job to the best of its ability. But ATF has not had a confirmed director since 2015. Chipman served at ATF for 25 years and now works to advance commonsense gun safety laws.
Biden tightens some gun controls, says much more needed
Albert Lea Tribune (MN)
April 8, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden, in his first gun control measures since taking office, announced a half-dozen executive actions Thursday aimed at addressing a proliferation of gun violence across the nation that he called an "epidemic and an international embarrassment."
"The idea that we have so many people dying ever single day from gun violence in America is a blemish on our character as a nation," Biden said during remarks at the White House.
Family members whose children were killed at the Sandy Hook, Connecticut, school massacre in 2012 and the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 attended the hearing, and Biden thanked them for attending, saying he understood it would remind them of the awful days when they got the calls.
He assured them, "We're absolutely determined to make change."
Biden's Thursday announcement delivers on a pledge the president made last month to take what he termed immediate "common-sense steps" to address gun violence, after a series of mass shootings drew renewed attention to the issue. His announcement came the same day as yet another, this one in South Carolina, where five people were killed.
Biden emphasized the scope of the problem: Between the mass killings in Atlanta massage businesses and the Colorado grocery store shooting last month, there were more than 850 additional shootings that killed 250 and injured 500 in the U.S., he said.
But Thursday's announcement underscores the limitations of Biden's executive power to act on guns. His orders tighten regulations on homemade guns and provide more resources for gun-violence prevention but fall far short of the sweeping gun-control agenda he laid out on the campaign trail.
Indeed, on Thursday Biden reiterated his urge Congress to act, calling on the Senate to take up House-passed measures closing background check loopholes. He also said Congress should pass the Violence Against Women Act, eliminate legal exemptions for gun manufacturers and ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Biden said
"This is not a partisan issue among the American people," Biden insisted.
While Biden asserted that he's "willing to work with anyone to get it done," gun control measures face slim prospects in an evenly divided Senate, where Republicans remain near-unified against most proposals.
Biden was joined at the event by Vice President Kamala Harris and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Most of the actions he announced will go through the Justice Department.
Biden is tightening regulations of buyers of "ghost guns" — homemade firearms that usually are assembled from parts and milled with a metal-cutting machine and often lack serial numbers used to trace them. It's legal to build a gun in a home or a workshop and there is no federal requirement for a background check.
The Justice Department will issue a proposed rule requiring such gun kits be treated as firearms under the Gun Control Act, which would require that the parts be made with serial numbers and that buyers receive background checks.
A second proposed rule, expected within 60 days, will tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces, like the one used by the Boulder, Colorado, shooter in a rampage last month that left 10 dead. The rule will designate pistols used with stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles, which require a federal license to own and are subject to a more thorough application process and a $200 tax.
The department also is publishing model legislation within 60 days that is intended to make it easier for states to adopt their own "red flag" laws. Such laws allow for individuals to petition a court to allow the police to confiscate weapons from a person deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
The department also will begin to provide more data on firearms trafficking, starting with a new comprehensive report on the issue. The administration says that hasn't been done in more than two decades.
The Biden administration will also make investments in community violence intervention programs, which are aimed at reducing gun violence in urban communities, across five federal agencies.
Biden argued that gun violence was also a massive economic strain, citing the costs from hospital visits, legal fees, and the cost of keeping people in prison and providing therapy to victims and others. A majority of firearm deaths are from suicides.
Biden is also nominating David Chipman, a former federal agent and adviser at the gun control group Giffords, to be director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The ATF is currently run by an acting director, Regina Lombardo. Gun-control advocates have emphasized the significance of this position in enforcing gun laws, and Chipman is certain to win praise from this group. During his time as a senior policy adviser with Giffords, he spent considerable effort pushing for greater regulation and enforcement on ghost guns, changes to the background check system and measures to reduce the trafficking of illegal firearms.
Chipman spent 25 years as an agent at the ATF, where he worked on stopping a trafficking ring that sent illegal firearms from Virginia to New York, and served on the ATF's SWAT team. Chipman is a gun owner.
He is an explosives expert and was among the team involved in investigating the Oklahoma City bombing and the first World Trade Center bombing. He also was involved in investigating a series of church bombings in Alabama in the 1990s. He retired from the ATF in 2012.
The White House fact sheet said Chipman has worked "to advance common-sense gun safety laws."
During his campaign, Biden promised to prioritize new gun control measures as president, including enacting universal background check legislation, banning online sales of firearms and the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. But gun-control advocates have said that while they were heartened by signs from the White House that they took the issue seriously, they've been disappointed by the lack of early action.
With the announcement of the new measures, advocates did laud Biden's first moves.
"Each of these executive actions will start to address the epidemic of gun violence that has raged throughout the pandemic, and begin to make good on President Biden's promise to be the strongest gun safety president in history," said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.
Feinblatt in particular praised the move to regulate ghost guns, which he said "will undoubtedly save countless lives," and he lauded Chipman as an "invaluable point person" in the fight against illegal gun trafficking.
For years, federal officials have been sounding the alarm about an increasing black market for homemade, military-style semi-automatic rifles and handguns. Ghost guns have increasingly turned up at crime scenes and in recent years have been turning up more and more when federal agents are purchasing guns in undercover operations from gang members and other criminals.
A gunman who killed his wife and four others in Northern California in 2017 had been prohibited from owning firearms, but he built his own to skirt the court order before his rampage. And in 2019, a teenager used a homemade handgun to fatally shoot two classmates and wound three others at a school in suburban Los Angeles.
Following Letter Led by Sen. Klobuchar, President Biden Requests Historic Level of Funding for Violence Against Women Act Programs
Targeted News Service (USA)
April 9, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, April 9 -- Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, issued the following news release:
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) announced that President Biden has asked for $1 billion to support Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) programs at the Department of Justice as part of his Fiscal Year 2022 budget, a $487 million or 95 percent increase over the 2021 enacted level. This follows a letter Klobuchar led last month, joined by 27 of her Senate colleagues, urging President Biden to prioritize funding for VAWA programs, particularly after increased reports of domestic violence during the pandemic.
"For years, I have made protecting victims of domestic violence one of my top priorities," said Klobuchar. "I applaud the President's support for programs that provide critical resources for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault - and I will work with my Senate colleagues to pass a budget that provides the services and care victims need. We should also pass the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which includes several provisions based on my bills to protect survivors from gun violence and improve law enforcement's response to sexual assault crimes. It is past time to pass this legislation to protect women, children, and families."
* * *
March 5, 2021
To: The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President,
We write to urge you to include strong support and funding for programs at the Department of Justice that provide services for victims and survivors of gender-based violence as you work to develop and transmit the President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2022.
As the original author of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), you know that the programs authorized by VAWA are essential to helping people who experience domestic violence and sexual assault. Since the passage of VAWA in 1994, rates of intimate partner violence have decreased by 60 percent. The country has seen a decline in both the number of victims of intimate partner violence and the number of intimate partner homicides. Additionally, every state has now enacted laws making stalking a crime. VAWA represents a turning point in our country's response to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking.
Nevertheless, we are very concerned that, as a result of the pandemic, cases of domestic violence and sexual assault have increased in communities across the country. Local law enforcement report more domestic violence-related calls and rape crisis centers are seeing increased need for services. The pandemic has also made it more difficult for service providers to respond to the increased need for crisis intervention, legal services, and transitional housing. A recent survey found that 89 percent of survivor-serving programs need emergency funding to respond to current requests from survivors for support and assistance. Like many of the consequences of this pandemic, the continued shortage of resources disproportionately impacts Black and Latino communities, rural communities, and Alaskan Native and American Indian communities.
Although the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the relief package that passed with the Consolidated Appropriations Act last December included supplemental funding for programs authorized by the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, no additional funding has been provided for VAWA programs at the Department of Justice. While the absence of supplemental funding has been challenging for all Department of Justice grantees, survivors of sexual assault and those from communities of color are in particular need. The Department provides the primary source of sexual assault supportive services through the Sexual Assault Service Program and currently funds the only grant program for community based organizations that provide services primarily focused on culturally specific communities.
Therefore, we respectfully request that you make funding these programs a priority. In particular, we urge you to include strong funding for the Sexual Assault Service Program, STOP Formula Grant Program (with added flexibility to fund victim service providers), Grants to Enhance Culturally Specific Services, Grants for Outreach and Services to Underserved Populations, the Legal Assistance to Victims Program, and the Transitional Housing Program. We additionally request that the federal government fulfill its trust responsibility to Indian Tribes by providing equitable resources to American Indian and Alaska Native communities to address gender-based violence.
Thank you for your leadership on these critical issues and your consideration of this request.
Biden orders gun control actions — but they show his limits
Breitbart
April 11, 2021
President Joe Biden is ordering a half-dozen executive actions aimed at addressing what he calls an “epidemic and an international embarrassment” of gun violence in America
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden put on a modest White House ceremony Thursday to announce a half-dozen executive actions to combat what he called an “epidemic and an international embarrassment” of gun violence in America.
But he said much more is needed. And while Biden had proposed the most ambitious gun-control agenda of any modern presidential candidate, his moves underscored his limited power to act alone on guns with difficult politics impeding legislative action on Capitol Hill.
Biden’s new steps include a move to crack down on “ghost guns,” homemade firearms that lack serial numbers used to trace them and are often purchased without a background check. He’s also moving to tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces like the one used in Boulder, Colorado, in a shooting last month that left 10 dead.
The president’s actions delivered on a pledge he made last month to take what he termed immediate “common-sense steps” to address gun violence, after a series of mass shootings drew renewed attention to the issue. His announcement came the day after yet another episode, this one in South Carolina, where five people were killed.
But his orders stop well short of some of his biggest campaign-trail proposals, including his promise to ban the importation of assault weapons, his embrace of a voluntary gun buyback program and a pledge to provide resources for the Justice Department and FBI to better enforce the nation’s current gun laws and track firearms.
And while gun control advocates lauded Thursday’s moves as a strong first step in combating gun violence, they, too, acknowledged that action from lawmakers on Capitol Hill is needed to make lasting change.
“Some of the other big-ticket items are legislative,” said Josh Horowitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “And that’s going to be very difficult.”
Biden mentioned a formidable list of priorities he’d like to see Congress tackle, including passing the Violence Against Women Act, eliminating lawsuit exemptions for gun manufacturers and banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. He also called on the Senate to take up House-passed measures to close background check loopholes.
But with an evenly-divided Senate — and any gun control legislation requiring 60 votes to pass — Democrats would have to keep every member of their narrow majority on board while somehow adding 10 Republicans.
Horowitz said “it’s hard to think” who those Republicans would be, and though that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to move on gun control “we’re going to have to change some of the people who are in the Senate.”
Gun control advocates say the National Rifle Association’s legal and financial issues have greatly weakened the once mighty pro-gun lobby and helped turn the public tide in favor of some restrictions on gun ownership. They say a shift in public perception will eventually trickle down to Republicans on Capitol Hill.
But so far that hasn’t materialized in votes. The House passed two bills in March largely along party lines that would expand and strengthen background checks for gun sales and transfers, a move that has broad public support. But most Republicans argue that strengthened checks could take guns away from law-abiding gun owners.
A small, bipartisan group of senators is trying to find compromise based on a 2013 deal that would have expanded background checks to gun shows and internet sales but was rejected then by five votes. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said at a rally in his state last week that he is talking to his colleagues every day to come a deal, and that he believes the public is more supportive than ever of changes.
Murphy acknowledged last weekend on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the background check bill that passed the House isn’t likely to succeed in the Senate, but he suggested a more narrowly tailored bill might, and said he was working to build on that legislation to win over Republican support.
“You are going to have to make some reasonable accommodations if you want 10 Republican votes. And I am already talking to Republicans who are not unwilling to sit down at the table,” he said.
Even some of the limited moves Biden took Thursday had already been making their way through the bureaucracy.
The federal government has been working on a proposed rule that would change the definition of a firearm to include lower receivers, the essential piece of a semiautomatic rifle, in an effort to combat the proliferation of “ghost guns” and stave off losing court battles on the issue.
The process started in the waning months of the Trump administration, according to four people familiar with the matter. Justice Department leaders and officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had been working on language for a proposed rule since at least summer 2020, they said.
The proposal had gone through several layers of review by agency attorneys by last fall, and ATF officials have met with gun manufacturers and others to discuss the possibility of expanding the definition of a firearm, the people said.
They could not publicly discuss the details of the process and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
While Biden said the moves he took Thursday were just the beginning of his administration’s actions on guns, it’s not known what further steps he’ll be willing — or able — to take.
With Biden already focused on passing his $2.3 trillion infrastructure package, after delivering a massive COVID-19 relief bill, it’s unclear how much political capital he has to spend to get any gun-control bills across the finish line. Asked last month if he felt he had the political sway to pass new gun laws, Biden told reporters: “I don’t know. I haven’t done any counting yet.”
Some activists, while they praised Biden for his executive actions Thursday, said they wanted to see him more actively involved in the fight on Capitol Hill.
“I think he needs to engage directly and I think he needs to be counting the votes. I’m not sure what he’s waiting for,” said Igor Volsky, executive director of Guns Down America.
Volsky said his group would like to see Biden lay out a comprehensive package of reforms focused on gun violence, similar to what the administration has done on immigration. And he said Biden “could do more in using the presidential bully pulpit” to communicate with the public about the need for gun control measures and to pressure Congress to act.
“As he pointed out on the campaign trail, repeatedly, there’s no time to wait to act on this issue. So my view is that this should be a priority for him,” Volsky said.
Closing a loophole to protect women
Blade, The (Toledo, OH)
Author/Byline: The Editorial Board
April 14, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The Violence Against Women Act, which uses federal funding to assist victims of sexual assault and stalking and aims to reduce those crimes, has enjoyed broad support. Since its enactment in 1994, it has been reauthorized and expanded with bipartisan backing several times, lapsing in 2018.
Since then, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have been working to add new provisions relating to gun control, and some Republicans have balked.
In March, the House mustered passage of the bill with some bipartisan support.
Now, the Senate should follow suit, recognizing the bill's language does not — as some complain — infringe on Second Amendment rights.
Republicans and the National Rifle Association have objected to the fact that the updated law would close the "boyfriend loophole," preventing those convicted of domestic abuse or stalking from purchasing a firearm.
The loophole allows those convicted of domestic violence and those who are under a restraining order to purchase a firearm if their crime did not involve the use of or attempted use of force as long as the perpetrator doesn't live with the victim and if the perpetrator is not married to and doesn't have a child with the victim.
But the term domestic violence shouldn't be limited to its literal sense, wherein only those who share a domicile or have a child together can be a significant threat. Anecdotal evidence proves otherwise. And closing this loophole is overdue.
Just as there are carefully tailored exceptions to the free speech principles of the First Amendment, there are scenarios where limiting the right to own a firearm is prudent. This is one of those scenarios.
Under the updated language of the Violence Against Women Act, not everyone convicted of stalking or domestic violence will be barred from purchasing a firearm. Only those who used or who have attempted to use force on their victims will be prevented from purchasing a firearm. This is a crucial distinction.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) has said she will introduce a variant of the Violence Against Women Act in the Senate, but this is an unnecessary capitulation to the NRA. Congress has continued to fund programs related to the Violence Against Women Act even without authorization, but there's no convincing argument for delaying passage in the Senate.
Democrats' Violence Against Women Act fails victims
Savannah Morning News (GA)
Author: Iowa Senator Joni Ernst
April 14, 2021
Thirty years ago, before the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) became law, domestic violence was viewed as a behind-closed-doors, private matter between husband and wife. Victims were often told to just deal with it -- weathering the emotional and physical impacts of abuse alone -- sometimes even being blamed for causing the strife. Resources and services were scarce, and women had nowhere to turn.
Since its inception, VAWA has strengthened local, state, tribal, and federal responses to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Because of this important legislation, women now have places to turn for support.
Fortunately, Congress has continued to fund the VAWA programs year after year despite their "unauthorized" status because of folks like myself and others who recognize the need to ensure survivors are supported. But the fight over getting the bill reauthorized and modernized has become all too polarizing. My Democratic colleagues continue to read from the same script, year after year, attempting to hijack a bill for their own agenda on everything from gun control to sexual orientation. And admittedly some of my Republican colleagues have their own routine concerns with VAWA.
In March, the House of Representatives passed the mostly partisan Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2021. That bill has been sold by Democrats as a simple reauthorization of VAWA, but it is far from that. Just read the section of the bill on "Restorative Practice." This practice shockingly funds programs that allow an abuser to negotiate with their victim in the name of "collectively seeking accountability from the accused." While there might be decent intention behind this, it puts the responsibility of stopping abuse on the survivor.
Instead of going to jail, a wife-beater could sit across the table from their victim and discuss a settlement. Yes, you read that right; abuser and survivor in the same room, forced to negotiate. The bill states restorative practice would be "on a voluntary basis," but given the way a victim has suffered, it won't feel voluntary. Nothing about these crimes is voluntary.
While this approach might work for middle school conflicts or neighborly disputes about flowerbeds, it's coercive, re-traumatizing, and could even be deadly when applied to survivors of domestic violence. Democrats want this radical approach to apply not just to survivors of domestic violence, but also sexual assault. This framework holds a victim responsible as an essentially equal partner in preventing future violence. This reminds me of how women were treated decades ago, when they were asked what they did to deserve it and this kind of social experimentation has no place in VAWA.
As a survivor of both domestic violence and sexual assault, I'm appalled at the lack of understanding regarding the complexities of the relationships between survivor and abuser, especially a long term abuser. Untangling a web of abuse is a daunting task. The coercion and community pressure can be overwhelming. Under the Democrats' bill, the victim would be responsible for publicly stating to her community whether her abuser should face consequences or not.
I am committed to reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. It's why I introduced a modernized version last Congress and intend to do so again -- one that holds predators accountable and supports survivors in all communities, rural and urban. I stand ready to negotiate with my friends across the aisle. But the reality of a 50-50 Senate is that Democrats need to be willing to find consensus.
I will work with anyone on a bipartisan bill that increases funding for needed programs and makes appropriate, and necessary, updates to the law. But ideas like restorative practice have no place in a bill called the Violence Against Women Act. Women have fought too long to not be held responsible for the actions of their abusers. I cannot support legislation that would return us to the past.
Joni Ernst, a Republican, is a combat veteran and the junior U.S. senator from Iowa.
Your Turn
Joni Ernst - Guest columnist
When It's Up to the Cops if You Get Your Visa
U visas were created to help immigrants report crimes, but the cops often don't uphold their end of the bargain
Slate (USA)
Author/Byline: Yilun Cheng
April 14, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
On a winter day in 2016, Carolina Roman stepped into the Consulate of Mexico in Chicago, ready to head back to her hometown in Morelos, Mexico, after seven years of living in the country without documentation. It was a difficult decision for the 33-year-old mother of three. Roman had moved to the U.S. in 2009 and worked a series of minimum wage jobs in hopes of creating more opportunities for her children. She was reluctant to throw away the life she had built for her family in Harvey, Illinois, but she felt she had no other choice.
In 2015, Roman had discovered that her daughter, a minor, had been raped by the father of her two younger sons. Despite her shock, Roman said, she reported the crime to the Harvey Police Department right away. She then remained helpful to law enforcement throughout the investigation and prosecution process, and ultimately, after a few months, her former partner was sent to prison for the crime. It was, to say the least, a stressful time for Roman and her kids, and their anxieties had been further exacerbated by the fear and uncertainties of living without documentation. By the winter of 2016, Roman had decided to move back to Mexico, away from the place where her daughter had suffered such a trauma and where they could face arrest and deportation any day. She was going to the consulate to get a vehicle permit so that she could drive her family from Illinois to Mexico.
When Roman conveyed her situation, a consulate employee informed her that she should be entitled to a form of temporary legal residency called a U visa. It is a special kind of immigration relief offered to undocumented immigrants who have cooperated with law enforcement. Her actions after her daughter was assaulted qualified her, the consulate employee told her. And the visa could eventually lead to a green card.
Their bid for relief and security can turn into a nightmare of anxiety and bureaucracy.
Roman was intrigued. Obtaining legal resident status, she thought, might offer her and her children some much-needed stability and peace of mind. To start off her application, Roman would need to get a signature from the Harvey Police Department to prove that she had been helpful to the officers.
She submitted the certification request in early 2016. But for more than a year, Roman said, she could not get a signature from the police, who ignored her pleas for help after she and her attorney repeatedly visited, called, and emailed the department. "The police gave me the runaround," Roman said.
Roman is not alone. Tens of thousands of immigrants seek U visas after being victims of or witnesses to crimes. But their bid for relief and security can turn into a nightmare of anxiety and bureaucracy, due to the unwillingness or inability of local law enforcement officers to comply with their role in the process.
The U visa category was born out of lawmakers' concerns for those going through the exact same predicament as Roman and her family. In 1994, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act, the first comprehensive legislation in the U.S. that sought to address domestic violence and other crimes against women. Over the next few years, lawmakers realized that the original legislation did not offer enough protection for immigrant women, who would need to leave the country, sometimes without their children, if they reported being victims of gender-based violence. The passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 further exacerbated the risk by making it easier to deport undocumented immigrations. As then–Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy noted in a 2000 congressional hearing, "Thousands of battered immigrants are again being forced to remain in abusive relationships, out of fear of being deported or losing their children."
To close the gap, Congress created the U visa in 2000, which ensured that victims or witnesses of domestic violence, sexual assault, felonious assault, and a number of other qualifying crimes would not be deported if they work with law enforcement to solve the crimes. The first step of the U visa application process includes getting a certification from an agency––a police department, a prosecutor's office, a court, or another governmental department––that speaks to the applicant's involvement in the investigation or prosecution process. This supposedly straightforward requirement, however, brings out another challenge that the federal regulation fails to address till this day.
Under the official guidance set forward by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, local agencies have complete discretion in deciding whether they want to sign a U visa form. They can enact internal policies to deny any request at will. In response to these lax rules, 15 states have enacted their own laws in an attempt to set a common standard across jurisdictions.
In Illinois, where Roman lives, the 2019 Voices of Immigrant Communities Empowering Survivors Act now requires local agencies to approve all eligible U visa certifications within 90 days. Officials can only deny a request if there is no evidence that an applicant has been a victim or witness of a qualifying crime. If they do deny the request, they must provide a written notice to the requester outlining why the person does not qualify. Certifiers could be subject to civil and criminal liability if they fail to act in accordance with the state law.
"There are still a lot of places where law enforcement doesn't know about the certification process," said Leslye Orloff, the director of the National Immigrant Women's Advocacy Project at American University, who contributed to the initial drafting of the 2000 U visa law. "And there are places that just won't do it. They want to stay away from immigration law and they may be anti-immigrant."
Over the past decade, Orloff's team has trained more than 7,300 law enforcement officers and prosecutors in 33 states on the role of local agencies in a U visa application. But even today, she said, she continues to walk into rooms of officers who either do not know the visa category or do not like the idea of helping immigrants obtain legal status, even though the 21-year-old rule exists to incentivize undocumented immigrants to come forward and assist cops. "If they want to fight crime in their communities, then excluding a whole class of people from protection is going to be unsafe to everyone," Orloff said.
"I would hear them say 'I'm not racist, but I'm not going to help you stay in the country because you came illegally.' " — Austin Kocher
Antonio Flores, for example, has been an officer at the San Francisco Police Department for nearly four decades. He was resistant to the idea of certifying U visa applications when he first attended a mandated training with Orloff's team in early 2000s, an NIWAP report shows. But then he saw their utility firsthand. According to the report, an undocumented young woman had fallen in love with a violent gang member who raped her, gave her drugs, and trafficked her. Fearing deportation, the woman was reluctant to come forward to the police. What finally got the case rolling was the encouragement from her mother, who previously received a U visa certification from local law enforcement based on a domestic violence case. The mother told her daughter to trust the police, and the daughter's decision to share her story proved to be crucial to the investigation. With her help, the report said, Flores' department was able to arrest the criminal and uproot a sex trafficking operation involving minors. Suspicious of the visa category at first, Flores eventually came around and said that such a policy that combines police work and victims' services could lead to a win for everyone.
Despite the visa's proven benefits to law enforcement—the NIWAP found that immigrants who have received a certification and filed a U visa application are 73 percent more likely to participate in the criminal case and 50 percent more likely to file police reports if they experience future crimes—many agencies still decline to offer assistance. A 2018 report by the NIWAP shows that only 35 percent of law enforcement agencies, 68 percent of prosecutors' offices, and 18 percent of courts said they sign U visa certifications. According to another survey by the project, the reasons officers often cite for not signing the form include that the criminal was not prosecuted, the crime happened too long ago, or the victim did not suffer enough injuries. A number of certifiers also expressed that they would refuse to provide a signature simply because the federal law gives them the authority to deny any request as they see fit. Unless a state law exists to provide more rigorous regulations, certifiers are under no obligation to cooperate with petitioners.
Austin Kocher, a faculty fellow at Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, carried out his own survey, interviewing sheriffs, police officers, and prosecutors about their opinions on U visas. He concluded that some officers are resistant to the process because of their anti-immigrant sentiments. "I would hear them say 'I'm not racist, but I'm not going to help you stay in the country because you came illegally,' " Kocher said. "A lot of people who are in law enforcement just assume that immigrants are always lying and always trying to take advantage of the system."
Even states that have passed legislation specifically intended to mitigate this kind of anti-immigrant attitude have had issues enforcing those laws. An analysis of documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests for this report shows that out of 16 Illinois agencies––police departments, sheriff's offices, and prosecutors' offices––that serve sizable immigrant populations, at least nine of them appeared to have violated the state law by either failing to provide timely responses to U Visa certification requests or imposing arbitrary internal policies to deny signatures to immigrants who have helped law enforcement.
The Mount Prospect Police Department, for example, rejected seven out of 10 requests that it received in 2019 and 2020 because it has an internal policy to only assist petitioners who are "currently needed to facilitate the prosecution of an active criminal case," according to records from FOIA requests. Among the immigrant victims who bore the consequences of Mount Prospect's capricious rule are a woman who suffered a miscarriage due to domestic violence, a woman who was raped in her sleep and had to receive treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, and the mother of a minor child who was sexually abused. In the last case, the Mount Prospect police refused to sign a second certification request even after the petitioner's attorney pointed out that its reason for denial was contrary to the law. The department did not return calls for comment.
"We've had this issue for years," said Rocio Becerril, a Chicago-based immigration attorney whose client could not get a signature from Mount Prospect police. "It's very, very arbitrary. When this happens, I just wait for these people to retire and get a new chief of police to maybe try again in the future."
Becerril has also been trying to attain a certification from the Oak Park Police Department for another client who is also a survivor of domestic abuse. She has not gotten a response since she first submitted the request in August 2019. According to Becerril, the police repeatedly told her "I'll get to it if I get to it." Becerril has felt stuck as to whether she should send the department a confrontational email about the 90-day limit under the VOICES Act. Even with the law on her side, upsetting the police will likely only make her client's process more difficult. Shatonya Johnson, the deputy chief of the Oak Park Police Department, responded to my request for comment on these cases: She told me that it should not take this long for someone to hear back before noting that the department was going through a transitional period and processing requests more slowly than usual.
Other Illinois agencies also have policies that are contrary to the VOICES Act, records show. The Naperville Police Department denied 15 out of 19 requests and follows a written policy that largely disqualifies crimes that happened more than five years ago, even though the guidance says that there should be no time limit. The Elgin Police Department had the same protocol, resulting in 17 unjustified denials in the past two years, although it amended its policy in November to follow the law. In Boone County, State's Attorney Tricia Smith said she would not provide certification if the case in question is still pending. The DeKalb County Sheriff's Office would not sign the form if the case is closed.
"That's a Catch 22––you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't," said immigration attorney Richard Gellersted. "If it was currently pending, they would deny it because he hasn't fully cooperated, yet when the case concludes and he's no longer needed, then they deny it for that."
A few days later, the police contacted Roman's lawyer and sent over the signed form that they could have easily provided months ago.
The list of violations goes on. The McHenry County State's Attorney's Office cited petitioners' own criminal records, the age of the crimes, and the absence of prosecution as reasons for denials. In Rock Island County, the State's Attorney's Office declined to sign the form of a victim of armed robbery 120 days after the initial request because of a misspelled name in the police report. Records from the Will County State's Attorney's Office and the Champaign County Sheriff's Office indicate the lack of any response to certain certification requests. Neither office provided clarification for the situations after repeated attempts to contact them.
"It's the leadership that sets the tone and the procedure even after the VOICES Act," said Bethany Hoffmann, a lawyer involved in the drafting of the state legislation. "I think possibly some offices don't want to do the extra work for the victims."
If an agency violates state law on U visas, the pathways for the immigrant victim to rectify the situation is very limited, said Paulina Vera, a law professor at the George Washington University. The person could theoretically sue the agency, Vera said, but a lengthy lawsuit would be a big financial and emotional toll on the immigrant, who already has to pay for costly attorney fees for the visa and often risks retaliation from their abusers for reporting them to the police in the first place. Even under the VOICES Act, certifying agencies that violate the law would still have immunity from civil lawsuits or criminal prosecutions unless the petitioners can demonstrate willful or wanton misconduct on the officers' part.
About a year after Roman first requested a certification from the Harvey police, she still had not heard back from the department. In March 2017, Roman learned of a community meeting where a local alderman was going to give a statement about the city's commitment to protecting its immigrant population.
Running out of options, Roman stood up and called out the speaker in front of about 100 attendees. "If you uphold supporting us as a community, how come I've been waiting for a year in order to get my certification signed?" she asked the alderman.
"I was so nervous because I thought the police was going to come arrest me and deport me," Roman said. "But the only way that they would listen to me was if I probed them in public." After the meeting, a police officer approached her and took down her number. A few days later, the police contacted Roman's lawyer and sent over the signed form that it could have easily provided months ago. The department did not return calls for comment.
With the certification, Roman was finally able to send her U visa application to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. But even with the necessary local certification in place, her application still needs to be processed by the federal bureaucracy. Right now, there is a backlog of 142,000 U visa applications waiting for final approval, and even though Joe Biden has proposed raising the annual cap on U visas from 10,000 a year to 30,000 a year, the USCIS is currently handling applications submitted in 2016, according to multiple attorneys. It could easily take more than five years for Roman's application to get approved.
Roman is currently earning her living as a factory worker at a candy warehouse. She said getting a U visa would greatly expand her opportunities to make a better living. "When I get the U visa, I am going to educate myself so I can get a better job and take care of my family the way I should be," she said.
Florida House to Congress: Don't take our gun rights
Associated Press State Wire: Florida (FL)
Author/Byline: By BRENDAN FARRINGTON
April 22, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida House voted Thursday to send a message to Congress that it doesn't want the president to take away gun rights.
Supporters said President Joe Biden has made it clear that he wants to restrict gun rights and Congress needs to know Florida will fight any such effort.
“The president during his campaign and subsequently has made comments that several of us feel are alarming and indicate that he may be predisposed to taking an unconstitutional action regarding the Second Amendment,” said Republican Rep. Spencer Roach.
The message, called a memorial, reads in part, “The Florida Legislature, on behalf of the State of Florida and residents of this state, intends to use all of its lawful authority and power to resist or overturn any federal gun-control measure that violates the right of Florida residents to keep and bear arms.”
Debate on the issue was divided along party lines, with Democrats arguing there haven't been any unconstitutional proposals made by the Biden administration and it was unnecessary.
“It makes me feel like this memorial is more about scaring Floridians than it is engaging in an honest constitutional debate,” said Democratic Rep. Ben Diamond. “There have been no actions that the bill sponsor can point to that restrict our important rights under the Second Amendment, but there have been multiple mass shootings.”
Earlier this month, Biden unveiled a series of executive actions to combat gun violence, including a move to crack down on “ghost guns,” homemade firearms that lack serial numbers used to trace them and are often purchased without a background check. He’s also moving to tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces like the one used in Boulder, Colorado, in a shooting last month that left 10 dead.
The Democratic president has also urged Congress to pass the Violence Against Women Act, eliminate lawsuit exemptions for gun manufacturers and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. He also has called on the Senate to take up House-passed measures to close background check loopholes.
Idaho bill aims to stop Biden executive actions on gun laws
Associated Press State Wire: Idaho (ID)
April 26, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A House panel on Monday approved legislation intended to head off a half-dozen executive actions from President Joe Biden to combat what he called an “epidemic and an international embarrassment” of gun violence in America.
The House State Affairs Committee sent to the House the measure that prohibits Idaho government entities from upholding the executive actions announced earlier this month. The measure has already passed the Senate.
Idaho already has in place legislation from 2014 stating that Idaho government cannot enforce federal actions that infringe upon Second Amendment rights. The additions to that law now being proposed with the new legislation seek to prevent Biden's executive actions from being enforced in Idaho.
Biden’s orders include a move to crack down on “ghost guns,” homemade firearms that lack serial numbers used to trace them and are often purchased without a background check.
Biden also moved to tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces like the one used in Boulder, Colorado, in a shooting last month that left 10 dead. The braces for handguns allow them to be fired from a shoulder, like a rifle.
Biden is also seeking “red flag laws” allowing family members or law enforcement to, with a court order, temporarily bar people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others.
Republican Rep. Judy Boyle, one of the bill’s sponsors, said the legislation had been in the works for several months, but lawmakers were waiting to see what kind of actions Biden took.
The legislation, if it becomes law, is retroactive to Jan. 20 and prevents all government entities from enforcing any executive order, federal law, treaty, agency order, or rule of the U.S. government involving firearms, firearm components, firearm accessories or ammunition that conflicts with the Idaho Constitution.
Boyle also said the legislation prevents gun and ammunition manufacturers from being held responsible should their products be used in a crime.
“This also will protect our many manufacturers that we have here in Idaho who make firearms and ammunition,” Boyle told lawmakers.
Brian Lovell, president of the Idaho Fraternal Order of Police, said his group supported the new legislation as it supported the 2014 legislation.
“We did not want to be enforcing unconstitutional gun grabs from law abiding-citizens,” Lovell told lawmakers.
Democratic Rep. Chris Mathias, who voted against the measure, questioned whether Idaho could become a place for criminals to buy ghost gun kits to make untraceable weapons used in crimes.
Among the other concerns was that Idaho could be passing legislation that conflicts with federal laws and could mean the state will lose federal dollars.
Backers have acknowledged the possibility of losing federal funding, but Boyle said Monday Idaho had not lost any federal dollars so far after passing the 2014 law.
Besides the executive actions, Biden has said that among his priorities for Congress are passing the Violence Against Women Act, eliminating lawsuit exemptions for gun manufacturers and banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. He's also called on the Senate to take up House-passed measures to close background check loopholes.
But with an evenly-divided Senate — and any gun control legislation requiring 60 votes to pass — Democrats would have to keep every member of their narrow majority on board while somehow adding 10 Republicans.
A decade of abuse: SC police have an issue with violence against women
What can fix it?
State, The: Web Edition Articles (Columbia, SC)
April 27, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The sound of fists hitting flesh echoed in the bedroom. A woman’s voice tried to stop the fists. The voice faded.
Leah Ross said she remembered thinking: “This is how I’m going to die.”
Her boyfriend pinned her to the floor, choking her and nearly making her pass out. He poured water into her nose and mouth, and she felt like she was drowning, Leah said.
It was 2010 and the first time he abused her, she said. It wouldn’t be the last.
Leah survived the ordeal but spent the next eight years living through violent jolts from the man she later married, according to her own account and court documents.
Through the entire eight years, her husband, Donald Douglas Ross Jr., was a police officer with the Greenville Police Department, airport police and the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office.
The State contacted Ross’ lawyer, who said they would not be commenting.
Ross isn’t alone. In the last decade, dozens of South Carolina officers were charged with domestic violence — an offense that Gov. Henry McMaster called “a scourge in our state” after a sheriff was charged in 2019.
“It’s disappointing to see so many of our elected officials, particularly law enforcement officers, get in trouble,” McMaster said.
The crime has garnered a name — officer-involved domestic violence.
When all the arrests of South Carolina officers accused of off-duty violence from 2010 to 2020 were totaled and averaged, a disturbing statistic emerged. Nearly nine law enforcement employees were charged each year with violence. And that number is likely too low, according to policing and domestic violence experts.
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The vast majority of those arrested were men, and the brutality isn’t confined to charges of domestic violence.
The number of arrests show that an alarming number of South Carolina officers tasked with protecting the public are themselves the perpetrators of violence, especially when they are off duty.
South Carolina has consistently been one of the deadliest states for women attacked by men, ranking for years in the top 10 until slipping to No. 11 in 2018, the latest year of a Violence Policy Center report. Nearly 46% of South Carolina women reported being victims of sexual violence or coercion other than rape, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Could police departments and sheriff’s offices in South Carolina do more to stop violence by their own ranks? Police policy experts said yes, adding that agencies shouldn’t wait to take action.
Looking back on nearly a decade of abuse by her officer partner, Leah now sees police policies that could have helped end the abuse.
“I felt trapped many, many years,” she said.
ABOVE AND BEYOND
Cases examined by The State from the last decade detail accusations of attacks with fists, guns and other weapons.
Two of the first arrests were made on January 27, 2010, when police accused two South Carolina officers of violence against women. The Horry County Police Department charged its own officer with domestic violence after alleging that he drunkenly argued with his wife, smashed furniture and pulled out a gun, threatening himself and his wife. A Richland County deputy was accused of striking a woman in the face, which sent her to the hospital with visible injuries. He was charged with domestic violence, and Sheriff Leon Lott fired the deputy the next day.
At the end of the decade, the issue of abusive officers hadn’t slowed.
On Dec. 27, 2020, former Fort Mill Police Department officer Stephen Cleary “forcibly assaulted” his wife and threatened to kill her while their 6-year-old daughter was in the room, according to warrants. During the assault, Cleary knocked their daughter backwards, causing her to strike her head against a wall. He took his wife’s phone to stop her from calling for help and held her against her will for more than an hour. All the while, Cleary had a gun laying on the bedroom floor “in a threatening manner,” the warrants said. Cleary’s wife escaped the house and called 911, police said.
Cleary fled before police arrived and didn’t show up for duty the next day, according to police records. The department fired him. Police arrested him near Tampa on Dec. 29 and sent him back to South Carolina, where state police charged him with aggravated domestic violence, kidnapping and child neglect. Those charges are pending.
“Without getting into the facts of his case, he was a police officer for less than two years,” said Ben Hasty, Cleary’s lawyer. “He doesn’t consider his identity tied up as a police officer.”
From the start of 2010 to the end of 2020, at least 96 people tied to law enforcement agencies were accused of violence against current or former spouses and partners or other relatives. Three officers were charged more than once in the decade for a total of 99 cases.
Most of the 96 people were police officers when they were charged and then fired. Others were fired or resigned days, weeks or months prior to being charged. Three had not been officers for a year or more when charged or accused.
Determining the actual number of violent accusations against officers from 2010 to 2020 is difficult. While The State documented 99, many more were likely committed, according to abuse survivor advocates and police policy experts.
Information about those 99 cases, all but two of which resulted in criminal charges, were found in press reports, state police documents and other sources. But these sources had limitations. News accounts from early in the decade were spotty. Plus, when The State started compiling reports of violence by officers in August 2018, the archive of South Carolina Law Enforcement Division news releases only went back to 2015.
Domestic violence overall is under-reported, said Sara Barber, director of the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.
Eight of the 96 officers were women accused of attacking their current or former domestic partners. The remaining 88 were men.
The range of offenses shows the terror victims experience. In the last decade, officers were accused of homicide, attempted murder, sexually assaulting teenage girls, battery, kidnapping, arson, neglecting children while abusing their partners, stalking and making gun threats.
But the charge that stands out is domestic violence, which police define as a person threatening or abusing a current or former partner, married or not.
While the issue of violence in police families has been studied in the past 25 years, data is inconsistent because of varying ways states track the problem — if states track it at all.
In the general population, one in four women report facing violence by a partner, according to studies. Abuse within police families is likely happening at least as often, and some research suggests more often. Research has concluded that between 20 to 40 percent of families with a police officer experience domestic violence committed by the officer.
When Mark Wynn speaks to police organizations and asks if officers know of a colleague who had committed domestic violence, hands are always raised.
Wynn, a retired officer and survivor of abuse from his childhood who now advises agencies on violence in officers’ homes, said If a police leader hasn’t found a case of domestic violence in their agency, something is probably wrong with their detection method.
Of the 99 South Carolina cases from 2010 to 2020, 87 involved a domestic violence charge. Four other cases were charged as assault and battery that appear to be partner abuse.
Most of the 99 cases were filed against officers who patrolled the streets. A few were jail guards who worked for sheriff’s departments. Others were investigators or supervising officers with desk duty.
Officer violence in South Carolina doesn’t heed to chain of command. Leaders of police agencies also failed to uphold their oaths.
A woman claimed former Greenville County Sheriff Will Lewis drugged and sexually assaulted her in March 2017 while he was in office. The woman sued Lewis, who denied the claims. They settled the lawsuit with her being given nearly $200,000 in 2018. Although Lewis never faced state charges for sexual assault, state agents charged him with criminal misconduct of a public officer and he was found guilty after prosecutors argued he abused his office and used public money to pursue the woman.
In November 2019, state agents charged then Colleton County Sheriff R.A. Strickland Jr. with domestic violence against his girlfriend, authorities said. In October 2020, he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault and battery.
Former Florence County Sheriff Kenney Boone was charged with domestic violence against his wife in February 2020, about 10 months after he left office for other offenses. He pleaded guilty to domestic violence in December 2020.
Arrests of officers for violence off the job spiked in 2019. That year, 21 former or current officers were charged with 28 offenses. Nearly all the incidents involved domestic violence. The two cases that weren’t charged as domestic partner abuse appear to involve people in dissolving relationships.
In one burglary case, a Summerville officer broke into the house of a woman who had told him to stay away, according to an arrest warrant. She was so terrified she hid in a closet with her child and a gun. In the other case, which resulted in a gun charge, a Mauldin officer threatened a woman with a pistol during an argument at their house, the police department’s chief said in his firing report. Leah eventually overcame her fear of reporting her deputy husband — but it took nearly a decade.
“Almost like an addict who gets to their lowest low and then I finally just snapped,” she said.
A COMPLEX STRUGGLE
In 2010, Leah hadn’t reached that point.
The assault that year by her then boyfriend left her bruised on her neck, arm and back, according to her and Fox Carolina news station, which quoted warrants. She later compared his pouring water in her nose and mouth to waterboard torture.
She had called a friend who worked with Greenville police in bewilderment of the abuse. The friend informed a supervisor. But Leah wasn’t ready to go beyond police writing reports and arresting her boyfriend on a domestic violence charge.
She said she was “uncooperative” with police as they took steps to gather evidence. She didn’t want the charges to be pressed. Her boyfriend had manipulated her into believing she had started the abuse, she said — a process that’s now called gaslighting. He had told her she was drunk and started the fight, said Leah, who now realizes that was a lie.
Ross resigned from the Greenville Police Department days after his arrest, his officer record showed. The next year they were married and he was back on patrol as a police officer with the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. His abuse continued, according to Leah and arrest warrants.
In February 2011, Leah was pregnant with their first child. In a bout of anger, Ross picked up his wife and slammed her to the floor, causing pain and cramping, according to a warrant.
Over the next eight years, through marriage, having children and separation, Leah said her husband continued to use his position as a police officer to manipulate her.
“He would say it up until the bitter end,” she remembered. “He would say ‘nobody’s going to believe you.’”
After they separated, Ross would say, “How am I going to pay child support if I don’t have a job because you reported me?” according to Leah.
Fear of further abuse keeps wives and girlfriends from dialing 911, advocates said. Mothers with shaking hands stop writing reports to the police out of concern about taking care of children without a partner’s income. Threats of being falsely cast as an emotionally unstable liar silence victims’ voices when speaking to prosecutors. While that fear exists with all domestic violence victims, it is strengthened when the abuser is a police officer, advocates said.
“They feel like the consequences of reporting may be greater than the benefit,” said Nancy Barton, director of Sistercare, a South Carolina organization that helps people dealing with domestic violence.
What to do if you think a friend might be a victim of domestic violence
Vicki Bourus, executive director of the Family Justice Center of Georgetown and Horry Counties, gives some advice for those wondering what to do if a loved one might be a domestic violence victim.
Domestic violence victims of officers deal with a complex struggle.Knowing that their abusers will lose their jobs often stops victims from reporting or from moving forward with charges.Victims of officer-involved domestic violence may not call police or press charges because of concern for their children. Like Leah dealt with, officer partners use their income and child care to coerce their victims, Barton said.The victim believing that she will be blamed, and that blame likely turning into violence, is sometimes an insurmountable barrier to reporting.
“You can’t underestimate the impact of that for a survivor wanting to go forward,” Barton said.
Victims understand officers’ loyalty to one another and “wonder will they be treated fairly,” she said.
Too often, Barton has found that the answer is no, she said. When a woman wants to stop the abuse of her police officer partner but fears the risk of reporting him, authorities lose leverage to convict the abuser.
Victims who do speak up tell shocking stories
In May 2012, former Orangeburg deputy Kenneth Winningham attacked his wife in the middle of the night, punching and kicking her, a police report said. He pulled out a gun and pistol whipped her. He fired twice around her. He threatened to shoot her in the feet to disable her and to slit her throat, she told police. Winningham told police the next day that his wife was the aggressor and he tried to protect himself but had no visible injuries and admitted to firing the gun, the report said.
Police charged Winningham with aggravated domestic violence, a felony, and the Orangeburg sheriff fired him. The next year he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault, a far lesser crime than the original charge. The state police licensing agency stripped Winningham of his certification.
In a June 2015 case, Kershaw County 911 operators answered a call and heard a woman screaming. Elgin police officer Douglas Barton had taken his girlfriend’s phone and smashed it with a hammer, The State reported after the then Kershaw County sheriff released a statement. She tried to leave the house but he stopped her, assaulted her and threw her to the ground, the former sheriff said in The State’s report. Barton smothered her screams with a pillow, choked her and struck her in the face, she told police. She escaped to a neighbor’s house and called 911.
Deputies charged Barton with second degree domestic violence and kidnapping, a felony. He resigned from the Elgin Police Department a few days after his arrest, records showed. The next year he pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge of assault and battery.
In 2019, Michael Scott Valdario, who had been an officer in Greenville County for eight years, slammed his wife against a refrigerator after she said he was playing too rough with their daughter, a police report said. She tried to walk away but he followed. Afraid of what he would do next, she got a gun and held it by her side until he walked away. During an argument about two weeks later, he elbowed her, causing her to fall and to hit her face on a bed frame. Her lip was busted and some teeth broken, the report said. After she got him to leave, she gathered up all the guns to stop him from getting one. His wife told police she was “constantly in fear of what he will do.”
Police charged Valdario with second degree domestic violence and the Greenville sheriff’s office fired him.
In her statement to police, his wife said she didn’t know at first if she wanted to report him. She didn’t want him to get in trouble. “I just want it to stop,” she wrote. She reported him because she didn’t want her children to be casualties of his anger.
The next year, Valdario was accused of requesting sexual explicit pictures from a teenage girl and raping her, police reports showed. Lexington deputies charged him with five sexual offenses and kidnapping. Those charges and the domestic violence charge are pending.
The State reached out to Valdario’s lawyer for comment.
As to why South Carolina police officers are arrested in high numbers for domestic violence, the explanations are mixed.
In the general population, men are nearly always the attackers in domestic violence cases, and most South Carolina police officers are men.
Some studies connect work factors faced by police to domestic violence, but those factors don’t connect to crimes like sexual assault, stalking or harassment.
Leah recognized that the stress of being a police officer factored in her husband’s abuse. When he had easier jobs, he was less violent, she said. Being an officer emphasized him controlling people he encountered and that was difficult to turn off, she said.
A 2013 study described this as police “training in authoritarian styles and the regular exercise of coercive force” and that spills into the home.
“Sometimes officers who haven’t developed a healthy outlet for stress management may self-medicate with alcohol,” said Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and University of South Carolina law professor, noting that rates of alcohol abuse are higher among officers than in the general population. “Sometimes they take it out on their family members. Sometimes both.”
Substance use, notably alcohol, is part of at least 18 of the reports of South Carolina officer arrests from 2010 to 2020 and alcohol use is cited in other studies as being a factor in domestic violence.
Others explained that the decision to act violently lies solely in the hands of the abuser. Mental health issues and stressors shouldn’t explain away that abusers assault women to assert control and power.
“The offenders know what they’re doing,” said Wynn, the former officer and adviser on domestic violence among police. “It’s not a mental disorder. It’s a choice.”
‘He’ll find me’
When an officer is an abuser, the threat of a gun is guaranteed.
But officers can use other equipment, training, and resources to terrorize their victims. Even a uniform can be used for intimidation.
In one incident, Leah’s then-husband showed up at their home while on duty and blocked her in with his patrol car to intimidate her, she said.
“He was harassing me,” she said. He didn’t touch her in that instance, he scared her.
Wynn said that abusers are empowered by police equipment and training.
“When you teach someone all those tactics and they’re a domestic violence offender you’ve just supercharged [the abuser],” he said.
In December 2012, Horry County Police Department officer Charles McLendon followed his estranged wife in his patrol car after an argument and used the patrol car’s speakers and lights to pull her over, according to a police report and The Sun News. He approached her car with his service gun drawn. He told her he had one bullet “to do what he needed to do” before driving off. Later, McLendon broke into her home where he pinned her to the ground and put her into a chokehold, reports said. She survived, and police charged McLendon with domestic violence and misconduct in office. Prosecutors dropped the domestic violence charge and he pleaded guilty to misconduct.
SLED agents began investigating one of their own, Agent Rodney Bostick, in 2016 and found that he used his connection to another police officer to look up information on a girlfriend the previous November, The State reported using arrest documents. That same month, after the girlfriend, a Midlands prosecutor, told him to move out, he choked her, saying “the only way out was death.” Two months later, he choked another girlfriend, a fellow SLED agent, during an argument, according to The State and the arrest report.
Police charged him with three counts of domestic violence, kidnapping and misconduct in office for using police resources for reasons beyond law enforcement. In a deal, a judge accepted Bostick’s guilty plea to misdemeanor assault and battery after he spent more than a year in jail.
In March 2018, police charged Chester County Deputy James Darby with domestic violence and child neglect after they said he threw his wife by her hair into a dog kennel, then pulled out his service gun, cocked it and made threats, The Herald of Rock Hill reported from warrants. Their children were nearby. The charges are pending.
“Jim [Darby] maintains his innocence and is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” Everett Stubbs, Darby’s lawyer, said. “Jim’s family situation is in a good place.”
One of the most dangerous assets an officer-abuser has is knowledge of domestic violence investigations and where victims might go.
Women abused by law enforcement officers will say, “He tells me ‘I can’t hide and I can’t run.’ He’ll find me,” Barton said.
STOPPING THE ABUSE
In December 2018, Leah went to the police about the violence that left her bruised and fearful over the decade. She reported her husband slamming her while pregnant in 2011, according to warrants. She also told police about abuse from 2016 to 2018. He had punched her, splitting her lip, and had slammed her to the ground so hard she couldn’t breathe, warrants said. Their child was in the room during one of those attacks.
State police charged Ross with two second-degree and two third-degree counts of domestic violence seven months later. The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office fired him for misconduct. In January 2020, he pleaded guilty to one count of third degree domestic violence and gave up any ability to be a police officer again.
Leah now sees solutions that could have helped prevent the abuse by her former husband.
If an officer is accused of domestic violence, service weapons should be taken and desk duty given immediately, she said. Counseling for officers should be required. Officers should also be required to do yearly training on how to deal with family life and job stress. Officers should also go through a yearly psychological examination like the kind of examination they go through before they’re hired.
Preventive measures such as pre-screenings are the first steps to stop empowering abusers with a badge, Wynn said. Another way to prevent abuse is teaching officers about what happens if they’re accused of domestic violence.
Police training agencies should offer classes for domestic partners that talk about how to report violence and how to cooperate with prosecutors as well as training other officers how to report colleagues’ abuse. Confidential counseling should be available to officers’ domestic partners.
State law does not require most of these steps, although some have been taken by larger South Carolina police agencies. Psychological testing for all would-be officers in South Carolina is now required. The exams requirement began about two years ago, said Mike Crenshaw, Oconee County sheriff and president of the South Carolina Sheriff’s Association.
The tests show if a candidate has a tendency towards violence against women. It directly asks “have you ever hit a woman?”
Since the start of these exams, more than 100 officer applicants have been rejected, Crenshaw said.
Now police organizations are discussing if psychological exams should be required routinely, including for veteran officers. Crenshaw supports routine exams.
“The person you hire today might not be the same person three years, five years from now,” he said.
Counseling is also available to officers and their families through the South Carolina Law Enforcement Assistance Program but it’s not required. Abuse survivors and their advocates also said that officers at risk of becoming abusive will refuse counseling by claiming it will get them fired. Counseling is too late by the time abuse is reported.
Police are also required to do yearly training on knowing and responding to domestic violence committed by the citizens.
While some advances have weeded out bad applicants and helped those dealing with family issues, South Carolina police agencies aren’t required to have policies or standards.
A statewide policy for officer-involved domestic violence could reduce the violence against women, according to policing experts.
New Jersey and North Dakota have policies for officer-involved domestic violence. Police leaders, scholars and survivor advocates developed a policy in Florida. Washington requires its police agencies to have such policies, as does Oregon’s police accreditation group.
South Carolina does not have a specific policy that provides guidance if an officer is an abuser. It’s up to each of the more than 300 police agencies in the state to create their own policies.
Of the 46 county sheriff’s offices in South Carolina, only the departments in Richland and Clarendon reported policies for how to respond if an officer is accused of domestic abuse, according to a survey by The State. Twenty-three county sheriff’s departments did not respond to the survey.
Richland County’s policy requires simultaneous internal and criminal investigations, punishment for officers who cover up abuse allegations or interfere in investigations and protections for victims. The department has also implemented a mental wellness program to help deputies and their families with the stressors of the job, Sheriff Leon Lott said.
Clarendon County’s policy also stipulates internal and criminal probes but brings the sheriff or an appointee more into the investigation. Among other stipulations, the policy includes immediately creating a safety plan for the victim.
At least four other sheriff’s offices — Horry, Greenville, Lancaster and Lexington — have quasi policies. Those policies require an officer to possess a gun. They also mention that under the federal Violence Against Women Act, anybody convicted of domestic violence cannot possess a gun.
However, that act expired in 2019 and has not been reauthorized. Still, state law prohibits anyone with a restraining order from possessing a gun.
Otherwise, those four departments treat a domestic violence arrest of an officer like any other arrest.
At least 17 sheriffs’ offices treat domestic violence by officers like any other crime.
The Columbia Police Department and West Columbia Police Department’s policies also mention the gun restrictions that can result in firing but treat a domestic violence arrest of an officer like any other offense. The Cayce Department of Public Safety also doesn’t have a specific policy.
The Town of Lexington Police Department has a 10 page policy on officer-involved domestic violence. Enacted in 2009, the policy addresses procedures for helping to ensure no abusers are hired, reporting standards for officers and punishment for not reporting, immediate and separate administrative and criminal investigations as well as victim support and protections.
Forest Acres Police Department didn’t respond to questions about their policies.
The Columbia Police Department had seven officers accused of domestic violence from 2010 to 2020, according to The State’s research. West Columbia, Cayce and Lexington’s police departments had none.
In the same years, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department had six deputies accused of domestic violence and another who pled guilty to assaulting a woman off duty after she rebuffed his advances at a bar. Lott fired the deputy about a week after the assault and recommended the officer’s certification be stripped.
“Our profession is made of humans and they will make human mistakes, but when they cross the line and violate the law, we will take action,” Lott said.
The Lexington County Sheriff’s Department had four deputies accused of domestic violence, including one jail guard.
The number of officers charged with domestic violence in South Carolina from 2010 to 2020 shows that the offense isn’t like any other crime in its frequency.
Like rigorous pre-hire screenings, creating a specific policy for officer-involved domestic violence is a first step to slowing down the abuse, according to Stoughton, the former officer and USC law professor who studies policing.
A policy ends “informal enforcement,” such as officers trying to work it out with other officers or departments trying to manage an abuser internally, Stoughton said.
For years, officers informally enforced DUI offenses when they pulled over other officers, according to Stoughton. Then agencies began putting policies into place that required charges if an officer pulled another over for driving drunk. It worked, he said. The same shift would likely happen with officer-involved domestic violence.
But just having a policy isn’t enough. Training and enforcing that policy determines its effectiveness, Stoughton said.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police created an officer-involved domestic violence policy for any agency to adopt in 2003. Lexington Police Department’s policy mirrors this model.
“If you leave [a domestic violence arrest] to officer discretion it won’t be dealt with correctly,” Wynn said.
Reforming the “warrior mentality” of police culture may go hand-in-hand with new policies, according to Stoughton.
The view police have of themselves as warriors in constant battle for their lives must change, Stoughton has written. It “can pit officers against everyone else, which means that police culture is very protective,” he said.
The warrior mentality can result in an investigating officer trusting another officer over an abuse victim, Stoughton said. Officers will protect others through what’s been called “blue walls of silence” and not report violence or minimize it.
Women’s activists say these cover-ups are without a doubt occurring.
Police leaders should make it known that they won’t tolerate any officer being an abuser, Wynn said.
Already in 2021, SLED has charged four officers with violence against women. An officer was accused of raping a “mentally incapacitated” woman, a warrant said. Another officer was said to have sexually assaulted a woman while in uniform and with his service weapon on him, according to a warrant. The other two officers were charged with domestic violence. All four were fired.
It took time, but Leah spoke out and she hopes that will help others facing abuse.
“I want to help people not feel the way I felt,” she said. “Or feel the way he felt. And help people in law enforcement better deal with situations like I lived in for so long.”
If you’re dealing with violence contact Sistercare through sistercare.org. A list of organizations that can help can be found through sccadvasa.org/get-help/. Officers dealing with mental health and family issues can get help through SLED’s SCLEAP .
This story is part of an ongoing series by The State, “Black and Blue,” that is highlighting untold stories about police officers in South Carolina and their interactions with women. Our reporters working on this project would love to hear from you. For stories about domestic abuse and SC law enforcement, you can reach Travis Bland at tbland@thestate.com or 803-771-8342. If you have a story to share about an interaction between an SC officer and a Black woman, you can reach Chiara Eisner at ceisner@thestate.com or 803-814-4464
Biden’s agenda: What can pass and what faces steep odds
Breitbart
April 29, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden laid out a long list of policy priorities in his speech to Congress — and some are more politically plausible than others.
The two parties are working together in some areas, including on changes to policing and confronting the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans. But Republicans are likely to block other Democratic initiatives on immigration and voting rights.
On some of Biden’s top priorities, Democrats may choose to find ways to cut out Republicans entirely. The president told lawmakers that “doing nothing is not an option” when it comes to his two massive infrastructure proposals, which would cost $4.1 trillion.
A look at what’s possible, and what’s unlikely, when it comes to action in Congress:
GO IT ALONE?
Biden won an early victory in March when he signed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package into law. Democrats passed that bill over unanimous Republican opposition, using special budget rules that bypass the Senate filibuster.
While they can’t use that tactic on every piece of legislation, Democrats might return to the same procedure for Biden’s two signature proposals — his $2.3 trillion infrastructure jobs plan, which would rebuild roads and bridges, boost broadband access and make other improvements; and his $1.8 trillion families plan, which would expand preschool and college opportunities, create a national family and medical leave program, distribute child care subsidies and make other similar investments.
Republicans have proposed a much smaller $568 billion infrastructure package, and both sides have shown a willingness to negotiate. But their differences are broad — including on how they would pay for the plans and whether to raise taxes — and Democrats are intent on passing a major infrastructure boost this year, with or without GOP support.
“We’ve talked about it long enough — Democrats and Republicans,” Biden said in his speech. “Let’s get it done this year.”
GO IT TOGETHER?
Democrats and Republicans have fallen out of the habit of working together, as President Donald Trump’s tenure was mostly dominated by partisan division. But they have edged a bit closer to bipartisanship on some topics since Biden took office, including on police reform, gun control and efforts to reduce violence against women.
All of those bills are still heavy lifts in the evenly divided, 50-50 Senate. But negotiations are underway, and members of both parties have signaled that they want legislation passed.
Both parties say they were encouraged last week by the Senate approval of a bill to combat the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The legislation passed 94-1 after Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii worked with Republicans to reach a compromise. In his speech, Biden thanked the Senate and urged the House “to do the same and send that legislation to my desk as soon as possible.”
Compromise on the other bills, such as the policing overhaul, will not come as easily. Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is negotiating with Democrats to change some of the nation’s policing laws following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year and the conviction this month of the officer who killed him. A Democratic bill passed by the House would allow police officers to be sued, would ban chokeholds and would create national databases of police misconduct. Scott’s GOP proposal doesn’t go as far but does have some similar provisions.
Democrats have pushed to finish the negotiations by the anniversary of Floyd’s death at the end of May, and Biden endorsed that timeline in Wednesday night’s speech. But Scott has not made a similar commitment.
Changes to gun laws — long one of the most divisive issues in Congress — could be even more difficult, even though there’s widespread public support for some measures. Democrats hope to expand background checks, especially in the wake of several mass shootings in recent weeks. Many Republicans would back an expansion of background checks, as well, but would not go as far as Democratic legislation passed in the House in March. Bipartisan Senate talks have so far failed to yield a compromise.
Senators in both parties have also expressed interest in finding agreement on a House-passed bill that aims to reduce domestic and sexual violence against women, but they have disagreed on provisions in the legislation that could keep guns out of the hands of abusers, among other matters.
Biden introduced the original Violence Against Women Act in June 1990 when serving as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the legislation has since been passed four times. “It’s estimated that more than 50 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner every month in America,” Biden said Wednesday. “Pass it and save lives.”
GOING NOWHERE?
The list of long-shot bills on Biden’s agenda is much longer.
At the top of that list is Democrats’ wide-ranging effort to overhaul U.S. elections, legislation that would create automatic voter registration nationwide, promote early voting, require more disclosure from political donors and restrict partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, among other changes. Senate Republicans are unanimously opposed to the measure, which has already passed the House, arguing it is designed to help Democrats win elections.
Democrats’ eagerness to pass the legislation — which Biden said in his speech would “restore the soul of America” by protecting the sacred right to vote — could eventually prompt them to change filibuster rules in the Senate. But the party is not yet united on such a move, and a decision isn’t expected soon.
Immigration is another intractable matter.
The Democratic-led House approved a pair of bills creating a pathway to citizenship for young “Dreamers” in the U.S. since childhood, immigrants who fled wars or natural disasters, and migrant farm workers. Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have introduced legislation giving “Dreamers” a chance for citizenship, and there have been some bipartisan talks among senators.
But Republicans have latched onto the huge numbers of migrants seeking to cross the southwest border as a fertile campaign issue. And many in the GOP are demanding tough border security restrictions as their price for cooperation.
Several other policy priorities appear stalled, for now, including legislation to enshrine LGBTQ protections in the nation’s labor and civil rights laws and bills to protect unions and raise the minimum wage.
Sen. Shaheen Joins Letter Calling for Protection of Survivors of Domestic Gun Violence Through Full Enforcement of 'Lautenberg Amendment'
Targeted News Service (USA)
May 4, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, May 4 -- Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, issued the following news release:
U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) joined a letter led by Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take additional steps to ensure federal law enforcement agencies fully comply with the Lautenberg Amendment. The Lautenberg Amendment makes it a felony for anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence to ship, transport, receive or possess firearms without exceptions for law enforcement officers. Since its enactment as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968, murders of intimate female partners have dropped by 17%, according to a 2017 Stanford University study.
"We are writing to urge the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take additional steps to ensure federal law enforcement agencies are in full compliance with the Lautenberg Amendment," said the Senators. "In light of the recent sharp uptick in mass shootings and the escalating gun violence crisis in underserved communities, it is more critical than ever that federal agencies fully enforce all relevant existing laws to keep guns out of the wrong hands."
They continued: "We look forward to working with you to ensure DHS is doing everything required under current law to keep guns out of the hands of individuals who pose an unacceptable risk. Thank you for your efforts to date and your prompt attention to this timely matter."
Last year, the DHS Inspector General (IG) reported that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) failed to screen their agents for domestic abusers through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) databases. The IG investigation also revealed these agencies, along with the Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration (TSA), failed to provide required domestic violence awareness training to law enforcement officers. Following these serious revelations, the new administration has already taken critical steps to ensure law enforcement agencies are complying with the life-saving Lautenberg Amendment; however, questions remain.
Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Ed Markey (D-MA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) also signed onto the letter.
Throughout the pandemic, Senator Shaheen has worked to provide more resources and services to domestic violence survivors nationwide. She helped lead calls to Congressional leadership to include additional funding to support the victims of child abuse, domestic violence and dating violence in COVID-19 response legislation. Shaheen helped introduce legislation with Senator Klobuchar (D-MN) that would close what is referred to as the "boyfriend loophole" to prevent people who have abused dating partners from buying or owning firearms and stop convicted stalkers from possessing guns. She also recently helped introduce the Lori Jackson Domestic Violence Survivor Protection Act, which is narrowly crafted to close loopholes that allow domestic abusers to legally obtain weapons.
Shaheen is a leader in Congress on efforts to combat domestic and sexual violence, and to bolster resources to help survivors stay safe, recover and seek justice. Last year, she visited the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence (NHCADSV) in Concord where she met with NHCADSV's leadership and representatives from crisis centers to hear more about the impact COVID-19 has had on survivors and the state's crisis centers.
Senator Shaheen has led efforts in the Senate to establish basic rights and protections for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Her bill, the Survivors' Bill of Rights Act, was signed into law in 2016 and created the first federally codified rights specifically for sexual assault survivors and for the first time allowed survivors the opportunity to enforce those rights in federal court. In 2019, Shaheen introduced the bipartisan, bicameral Survivors' Bill of Rights in the States Act to build on the Survivors' Bill of Rights Act by incentivizing states to pass legislation that guarantees the survivors rights included in the federal legislation. Senator Shaheen - through her leadership on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) - once again successfully added the highest funding amount ever for Violence Against Women Act programs in the fiscal year (FY) 2021 government funding.
* * *
Dear Secretary Mayorkas,
We are writing to urge the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take additional steps to ensure federal law enforcement agencies are in full compliance with the Lautenberg Amendment. While we appreciate the actions your agency's representative described in her response to our February 5, 2021 letter, we believe DHS can do more to prevent domestic abusers from accessing and possessing firearms. In light of the recent sharp uptick in mass shootings and the escalating gun violence crisis in underserved communities, it is more critical than ever that federal agencies fully enforce all existing laws to keep guns out of the wrong hands.
The Lautenberg Amendment prohibits individuals convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes from possessing firearms. There is no exception for law enforcement officers. In November 2020, the DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the United States Secret Service (USSS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) were not fully complying with DHS's Lautenberg Amendment implementation guidelines.
We commend DHS for taking action in response to the OIG's findings and our previous letter, including the reinstatement of the central office tasked with ensuring DHS-wide compliance with the Lautenberg Amendment. Despite this important progress, we believe there may still be gaps in compliance. For example, the OIG's report stated that none of the DHS law enforcement agencies provided the required annual domestic violence prevention trainings. While your office's March 26, 2021 response letter indicated that the agencies updated their official policies to require such trainings, it is unclear if and when agencies implemented the trainings.
Additionally, the OIG's report found that CBP and ICE were not using FBI's databases to monitor the arrests and convictions of law enforcement officers. These systems flag domestic abuse convictions and are helpful for ensuring compliance with the Lautenberg Amendment. Your agency's response letter noted that ICE is on track to implement an alternative database by the end of 2021, but provided no information regarding CBP's progress in this area.
In light of these concerns, we would appreciate responses to the following questions no later than May 14, 2021:
* Your agency's response letter stated that DHS's Law Enforcement Policy team will "ensure DHS-wide compliance with relevant domestic violence trainings." What is the status of such trainings at CBP, USSS, TSA, and ICE? Please provide any available statistics regarding the implementation of the required domestic violence prevention trainings at each of the four listed agencies.* Your agency's response letter stated that ICE is in the process of implementing a database to monitor the arrests and convictions of its law enforcement officers. TSA and USSS already have such systems in place. Is CBP implementing a similar database to flag domestic abuse convictions? If so, please provide a brief description and an implementation timeline for both ICE and CBP.* The OIG's November 2020 report found that CBP and USSS were not requiring their law enforcement officers to complete the required annual Lautenberg Amendment certification stating they have no domestic violence misdemeanor convictions. In the case of USSS, the OIG specifically stated the annual statement of compliance the contents of the Secret Service Law Enforcement Manual was insufficient. Have CBP and USSS implemented the compliant Lautenberg Amendment certification processes? If so, please provide a brief description and implementation timelines for the certification processes at CBP and USSS.
Finally, we respectfully reiterate our request that your agency report back to Congress within six months of receipt of our initial February 5, 2021 letter regarding its progress towards achieving full compliance with the Lautenberg Amendment.
We look forward to working with you to ensure DHS is doing everything required under current law to keep guns out of the hands of individuals who pose an unacceptable risk. Thank you for your efforts to date and your prompt attention to this timely matter.
Idaho governor signs bill to halt Biden moves on gun laws
Breitbart
May 11, 2021
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho Gov. Brad Little has signed legislation aimed at thwarting a half-dozen executive actions by President Joe Biden to combat gun violence.
The new law came less than a week after a shooting at an eastern Idaho middle school injured two students and a custodian.
The Republican governor signed the measure Monday. It passed the Idaho House and Senate with veto-proof majorities and carried an emergency notice, meaning it went into effect with Little’s signature.
The new law is retroactive to Jan. 20, the day Biden was sworn in as president. It prevents all Idaho government entities from enforcing executive orders, federal laws, treaties, agency orders and rules of the U.S. government involving firearms, firearm components and accessories, or ammunition that conflict with the Idaho Constitution.
The signing followed Thursday’s shooting in Rigby, where police have said a sixth-grade girl pulled a handgun from her backpack and fired multiple rounds inside and outside Rigby Middle School, about 95 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of Yellowstone National Park.
All three victims were shot in the extremities and none had life-threatening injuries, authorities have said. The girl was disarmed by a teacher.
Idaho already has a law passed in 2014 stating that the state’s government cannot enforce federal actions that infringe upon Second Amendment rights.
Biden’s orders include a move to crack down on “ghost guns” — homemade firearms put together from purchased gun parts that lack serial numbers to trace them and are often acquired without background checks.
Biden also moved to tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces like the one used in the Boulder, Colorado, supermarket shooting last month that left 10 dead, including a police officer. The braces for handguns allow them to be fired from a shoulder, like a rifle.
Biden is also seeking so-called “red flag laws” allowing family members or law enforcement to seek court orders that temporarily bar people in crisis from accessing firearms if they pose a danger to themselves or others.
Backers of the legislation signed by Little also said it prevents Idaho gun and ammunition manufacturers from being held responsible if their products are used in crimes.
Opponents said creating legislation that conflicts with federal laws could mean the state will lose federal funding. Backers have acknowledged that possibility but said Idaho lost no federal funding after the 2014 law was approved.
Biden has said his priorities for Congress include passing the Violence Against Women Act that would prohibit people previously convicted of misdemeanor stalking from possessing firearms; eliminating lawsuit exemptions for gun manufacturers; and banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. He’s also called on the Senate to take up House-passed measures to close loopholes in background checks for gun purchases.
But with an evenly divided Senate and any gun control legislation requiring 60 votes to pass, Democrats would have to keep every member of their narrow majority while somehow getting votes from 10 Republicans.
Violence Against Women Act up for reauthorization
Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
May 31, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
In the eyes of proponents, reauthorizing the federal Violence Against Women Act should be a no-brainer.
Congress typically appropriates about $550 million annually, but expanding protections requires legislators to reauthorize VAWA, which was first implemented in 1994.
The latest version of the measure, introduced in early March, was approved by the House. The Senate is expected to vote on its reauthorization this year.
The 2021 act is a wide-reaching bipartisan measure that maintains established enforcement provisions, such as enhanced sentencing of repeat federal sex offenders, and guarantees protections for all victims, regardless of gender.
Because advocacy groups have found that domestic violence is a top driver of homelessness for women, the reauthorization would enable victims in federally assisted housing to get relocation vouchers, keep their housing after a perpetrator leaves or terminate a lease early.
Noting that the Department of Justice found that Indigenous women are slain at more than 10 times the national average, the reauthorization reaffirms Tribal Nations' authority to prosecute non-Indigenous offenders.
The reauthorization also seeks to close the "boyfriend loophole." Currently, federal law prohibits people who've been convicted of domestic violence from owning or purchasing firearms. However, this applies only to those who have been married to, lived with or have a child with the victim. The 2021 version expands the prohibition to current and former dating partners, as well as those convicted of misdemeanor stalking.
Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who drafted the provision, says it's an urgent matter of life and death.
She cites the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which signals that when an abusive partner has access to a gun, a domestic violence victim is five times more likely to be killed.
Lori Jackson-Nicolette Elias Domestic Violence Survivor Protection Act - S.2169
S.2169 - 117th Congress (2021-2022)
June 22, 2021 - Introduced in Senate
"Section 921(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended—
(1) by inserting before paragraph (32) the following:
‘‘(31) The term ‘covered domestic violence court order’ means a court order—
‘‘(A) that was issued—
‘‘(ii) in the case of an ex parte order, relative to which notice and opportunity to be heard are provided—"
Lori Jackson-Nicolette Elias Domestic Violence Survivor Protection Act - H.R. 4139
H.R.4139 — 117th Congress (2021-2022)
June 24, 2021 - Introduced in Congress
"Section 921(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended—
(1) by inserting before paragraph (32) the following:
‘‘(31) The term ‘covered domestic violence court order’ means a court order—
‘‘(A) that was issued—
‘‘(ii) in the case of an ex parte order, relative to which notice and opportunity to be heard are provided—"
What you need to do if your hub won't go to green card interview
New York Daily News (NY)
Author/Byline: ALLAN WERNICK - attorney and director of the City University of New York's Citizenship Now! project
June 28, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
My husband, a U.S. citizen, petitioned for a green card for me, but now won't go to my interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. What are my options?
Dora,
To qualify for a green card without your husband's help, you will need to qualify under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). A green card petitioner like your husband has the right to withdraw a petition or refuse to cooperate in a green card case for any reason. VAWA created an exception to discourage spousal abuse.
To get your green card under VAWA, you will need to prove that you married your husband in good faith and that you are now the victim of spousal abuse (or that he was abusive to your child). Abuse can be mental or physical. If your husband has been mentally abusive, you will need to get an evaluation from a mental health professional. Get expert legal help.
Does Rep. Walberg show up for democracy?
Monroe News, The (MI)
Columnist Linda Lauer - a member of Stronger Together Huddle, a group engaged in supporting and promoting the common good of all
July 4, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Do these "no" votes from your congressman reflect your values? Do you want your vote protected and honored? Do you want women, unions and children protected? Is Rep. Walberg getting the help to Michigan families they desperately need?
The billboard at 205 Telegraph Road in Monroe points out that Republican Rep.Tim Walberg does not support democracy. This is substantiated in his statements, voting record and behaviors.
When you think of democracy, what comes to mind? Do you think of equality, fairness, justice and equal participation in the democratic process? Webster's dictionary defines democratic as "relating to or appealing to the common people." There is no mention of choosing who you will relate to or about appealing to corporations. It's a government OF the people and FOR the people, not for politicians who are influenced by big money from campaign donors.
Walberg sends private letters to his SUPPORTERS, inviting them in advance to his events. No other constituents are given this information, even if they call his office directly and ask for the information. At his town halls, there is usually no open democratic discussion. He shuts down conversation rather than listening to his constituents' needs and concerns. Usually you are directed to write your question on a card and turn it in. If he does hear your question and respond, you are not usually allowed a rebuttal or allowed to ask for clarification. He could be repeating disinformation and, as his constituent, you have no recourse.
Town halls are a time-honored democratic tradition where our representatives should be listening, understanding and helping their constituents. This is just one of the many examples of how Rep. Walberg does not support democracy.
Here is a list of many of Rep. Walberg's important votes:
Dec. 10, 2020: Walberg signed on to the amicus brief for the Texas AG's lawsuit that would nullify our Michigan votes as well as Wisconsin's, Pennsylvania's and Georgia's votes.Jan. 1, 2021: Walberg was rated a low 12% by the Animal Welfare Institute.Jan. 6, 2021: He voted against certifying the electors for Arizona and Pennsylvania. This would nullify Americans' votes. Our most sacred democratic privilege!Feb. 25, 2021: He voted NO on the Equality Act.Feb. 27, 2021: He voted NO on the American Rescue Plan. He didn't feel his constituents should get a $1,400 stimulus check, no food assistance for children, and no minimum wage increases!March 3, 2021: He voted NO on the For the People Act. Why not make voting more accessible?March 3, 2021: He voted NO on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.March 9, 2021: He voted NO on Protecting the Right to Organize. Hey, UNION guys, he said negative remarks about union folks at his town hall in Eaton County on June 11.March 11, 2021: He voted NO on bills to require background checks for purchasing a gun.March 17, 2021: He voted NO on the Violence Against Women Act.March 18, 2021: He voted NO on the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.May 20, 2021: Walberg was given a low rating of 4% from the League of Conservation Voters.June 6, 2021: He voted NO on LBGTQ Business Equal Credit Enforcement Act.
This information was provided by votesmart.org, a nonpartisan, national volunteer organization.
Do these "no" votes from your congressman reflect your values? Do you want your vote protected and honored? Do you want women, unions and children protected? Is Rep. Walberg getting the help to Michigan families they desperately need? He disappointingly voted against bills that would have given us the much-needed relief we needed during this pandemic.
Additionally, Tim Walberg has and continues to undermine confidence in our 2020 election. An oversight committee led by Republican Michigan state senators filed a report stating their investigation found NO fraud in our Michigan November election. They cautioned that no one should be encouraging the false narrative that so many have been repeating. We need a congressman that strengthens our democracy and works for the benefit of all his constituents.
Act now to support your right to vote, to protect your community's vulnerable and most of all, your democracy. Together we can enjoy a stable democracy and a prosperous future!
Linda Lauer lives in Monroe and is a member of Stronger Together Huddle, a group engaged in supporting and promoting the common good of all. lindaloupt@gmail.com.
Do these "no" votes from your congressman reflect your values? Do you want your vote protected and honored? Do you want women, unions and children protected? Is Rep. Walberg getting the help to Michigan families they desperately need?
Linda Lauer, Columnist
Former bookkeeper of federally funded Washington court house DV shelter pleads guilty to misusing shelter funds for personal expenses
US Fed News (USA)
July 13, 2021
CINCINNATI, July 13 -- The U.S. Department of Justice's U.S. Attorney's office for Southern District of Ohio issued the following press release:
The former bookkeeper of My Sister's House, a now-shuttered domestic violence shelter in Washington Court House, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court today to two counts related to stealing funds from the federally funded shelter.
Jaime Cardinal, 45, of Washington Court House, was arrested in July 2020, along with Crystal Chrisman, 53, of Columbus, the former executive director of the shelter.
Cardinal admitted that she and Chrisman spent tens of thousands of dollars intended for the operation of the shelter on personal expenses, including food, a trip to Disney World and Universal Studios for the defendants' daughters, and thousands of dollars in purchases from Avon, Thirty-One and iTunes.
Cardinal's plea details that, between January 2014 and October 2016, she misused debit cards connected to the shelter's bank accounts to make hundreds of personal purchases at restaurants, auctions, craft stores and bowling alleys, among other places - including purchases made when few, if any, victims were living at the shelter. For example, in March and April 2016, when no victims were in the shelter, Cardinal and Chrisman charged more than $6,000 to the shelter's debit cards for food at restaurants and grocery stores, car repair and fuel for personal cars, weight-loss supplements, and other personal expenses.
Due to the thefts, which totaled more than $50,000, My Sister's House fell behind on payroll and on paying taxes. In November 2016, the shelter's board placed all employees on administrative leave pending investigation. The domestic violence shelter never reopened.
Cardinal faces a prison sentence of up to five years in prison for conspiring to commit theft and up to 10 years in prison for committing theft concerning programs receiving federal funds. Sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the Court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. Under the plea agreement, Cardinal has agreed to pay $25,000 in restitution.
My Sister's House received more than $10,000 annually in federal grant funds, including grants under the Violence Against Women Act, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act and the Victims of Crime Act. The grants are intended to be used to pay for salaries and benefits of staff and for shelter operations, including supplies and shelter maintenance.
Vipal J. Patel, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, and the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General announced the plea entered into today before U.S. District Judge Matthew W. McFarland. Assistant United States Attorney Julie D. Garcia is representing the United States in this case.
Undocumented immigrant arrested for lying about being kidnapped, drugged and raped
WCJB News - Gainsville, Florida
July 19, 2021
OCALA, Fla. (WCJB) - The search is over for Marion County Sheriff’s deputies.
A shocking turn of events has landed the victim of an alleged kidnapping rape case in jail.
Back in March, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office was looking for what they believed to be a rapist who kidnapped, drugged and raped a woman and then dumped her body a few hours later.
Now four months later, it turns out, it was all a lie.
That woman is 52-year-old Alma Duran, and the reason for her false claim was her hopes of gaining U.S. citizenship.
She is in the country illegally and wanted to find a loophole in the process known as ‘U-Visa’, to obtain citizenship papers due to being a victim of a violent crime.
“It’s a lot of late nights, a lot of time away from their families trying to investigate this because it’s a concern, and for good reason, we have our own families here in this community so if somebody is running around kidnapping people, drugging them, raping them, we need to find that person and quick,” MCSO Public Relations Director, Sgt. Paul Bloom said.
She was first reported missing when a co-worker could not find her during her shift at the Baseline Golf Course.
She was later found naked laying on the side of highway 314 near Sharpes Ferry.
Officials said through multiple search warrants, they were able to learn that she was on the phone with a man named Luis Guerrero during the time of her alleged abduction.
She had been having an affair with him for the past five years.
He didn’t want participate, but she convinced him to help her with her plan, and had consensual sexual relations with her.
After being asked about the more than 100 phone calls to Guerrero and their relationship, she admitted that she had not been kidnapped.
Detectives on the case say, it was exhausting.
“I know Sheriff Woods has said, illegal immigration does affect us here in Marion County and this is one example that he’s pointed out that it has and we want to see folks coming to our country the right way and living in our community abiding by the laws, not lying, not causing a big fiasco like this and a big mess like this,” Bloom added.
Duran was arrest for making a false report of a crime.
She was taken to the Marion County jail on a one thousand dollar bond.
She has since bonded out of jail.
And now it’s up to the courts to decide on what her punishment will be, whether that’s ordering her to pay back funds lost during the investigation, or she could potentially be deported back to Mexico.
Police: Illegal Alien Faked Being Kidnapped, Raped to Secure U Visa
Breitbart
July 20, 2021
An illegal alien allegedly faked being kidnapped and raped in order to secure a U visa, a program allowing foreign nationals to stay in the United States if they claim to have been a crime victim.
Alma Duran, a 52-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, was arrested and charged with falsifying crimes after she allegedly admitted to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office that she actually had not been kidnapped, drugged, and raped as she previously claimed.
n March, Duran told police that a man had kidnapped and drugged her before raping her and leaving her stranded, naked, on the side of a highway. At the time of her reported kidnapping, police found that she had been on the phone with Luis Guerrero, with whom she has had an affair over the last five years.
Police say Guerrero was convinced by Duran to help her fake the kidnapping and rape so that she should secure a U visa and eventually a green card that would make her eligible for naturalized American citizenship in five years.
After police grilled Guerrero about the incident, Duran allegedly admitted that she had faked the entirety of the reported kidnapping and rape to obtain a U visa.
Duran was able to get a $1,000 bond and has already bailed out of the Marion County Jail.
In 2019, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) detailed potential widespread abuse of the U visa program spurred by a provision in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in which more than 2,200 cases of potential fraud by foreign nationals have been detected since 2013, Breitbart News reported.
In Fiscal Year 2014, there were fewer than 200 cases of potential fraud in the U visa program. By Fiscal Year 2019, the number of potential fraud cases had increased to more than 800 — a 305 percent jump in six years.
Biden signs bill to increase funding to Crime Victims Fund
Breitbart
July 22, 2021
July 22 (UPI) — President Joe Biden on Thursday signed a bill to increase funding to support victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and other crimes.
In a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Biden signed the VOCA Fix to Sustain the Crime Victims Fund Act of 2021, which requires that funds collected from deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements be deposited into the Crime Victims Fund.
“This bill is going to allow us to make sure that all of the fines and penalties that are from federal cases go to the victims, the Crime Victims Fund, to rebuild this fund, because it’s badly needed,” Biden said during the ceremony. “This is going to enable us to provide more help and support victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, trafficking and other crimes all across America.”
Biden co-sponsored the 1984 bill that established the Crime Victims Fund, but said it has become depleted in recent years, leading to cuts in victims services.
He said the new stream of revenue introduced by this latest measure would help to restore support to victims.
“When someone commits a crime it’s not enough to bring the predator to justice. We also need to support the victims,” he said.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sens. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., along with Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas attended the ceremony.
Biden called on the lawmakers present to push for Congress to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.
“It’s long past time to reauthorize and strengthen the protections through the Violence Against Women Act — please, please,” he said. “We know from experience you all can come together in a bipartisan, bicameral way to pass this bill. We need to do the same thing to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act without further delay.”
Myths of the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence: Summary Report
CEDV - Coalition To End Domestic Violence
August 01, 2021
Sens. Shaheen, Klobuchar Lead Colleagues in Calling for Funding for Violence Against Women Act Programs in Reconciliation Package
Targeted News Service (USA)
August 4, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 -- Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, issued the following news release:
U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Amy Klobuchar led nine of their Senate colleagues in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) urging him to include funding for Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) programs in the upcoming reconciliation package. The senators highlighted the importance of this funding in light of increased reports of domestic violence during the pandemic, particularly as VAWA programs have not received supplemental funding since the pandemic began, making it more difficult for service providers to respond to the increased need for crisis intervention, legal services, and transitional housing.
"As the country reopens, more evidence has emerged that the pandemic caused the rates and severity of incidents of domestic violence to increase across the country. Social isolation, economic uncertainty, and general anxiety about the virus added layers of stress for many families and increased the risk of intimate partner violence," the senators wrote.
They continued: "Through the Department of Justice, the federal government provides critical support for programs that are particularly needed at this time, including support for sexual assault service providers, law enforcement, and transitional housing programs, as well as for organizations that address the needs of communities of color and underserved populations."
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Mazie Hirono, (D-HI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Tina Smith (D-MN), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) signed the letter.
The letter is supported by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, National Network to End Domestic Violence, Jewish Women International, National Domestic Violence Hotline, Tahirih Justice Center, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, Black Women's Blueprint, and Casa de Esperanza: National Latin@ Network.
* * *
July 30, 2021
To: The Honorable Charles Schumer, Senate Majority Leader, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510
Dear Leader Schumer:
We write to urge you to include funding in the upcoming reconciliation package to support programs at the Department of Justice that provide services for victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. At a time when incidents of domestic violence and sexual assault have sharply increased, additional funding for these programs is critical.
As the country reopens, more evidence has emerged that the pandemic caused the rates and severity of incidents of domestic violence to increase across the country. Social isolation, economic uncertainty, and general anxiety about the virus added layers of stress for many families and increased the risk of intimate partner violence. During the pandemic, reports suggested that abusers were using COVID-19 to isolate their victims, withhold financial resources, and refuse medical aid. Service providers struggled to meet the need for services including crisis intervention, shelter and transitional housing, and legal assistance.
Like many of the consequences of the pandemic, this strain on resources has disproportionately impacted traditionally underserved populations, such as Black and Latino communities, rural communities, and Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian, and American Indian communities.
Through the Department of Justice, the federal government provides critical support for programs that are particularly needed at this time, including support for sexual assault service providers, law enforcement, and transitional housing programs, as well as for organizations that address the needs of communities of color and underserved populations.
Since the pandemic began, however, Congress has yet to provide supplemental funding to programs at the Department of Justice. Although the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the relief package that passed with the Consolidated Appropriations Act last December provided funding for programs authorized by the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, neither included funding for sexual assault or domestic violence-related programs at the Justice Department. The American Rescue Plan Act also did not include funds for Justice Department programs.
Therefore, we respectfully request that the upcoming reconciliation package include the following:
* At least $100 million for the Sexual Assault Service Program;* At least $100 million for VAWA STOP Grants for victim service providers, with at least 20 percent of the funding for eligible entities under 34 U.S.C. Sec. 20124(c) and equitable distribution of funding between services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault;* $15 million for grants to support families in the justice system;* $15 million to support the Disability Grant Program;* $20 million for rural domestic violence and child abuse enforcement assistance grants;* $25 million for culturally specific services for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking;* $50 million for Victims of Child Abuse Act grants;* $50 million for grants to Tribal governments, Tribal coalitions, Tribal non-profit organizations, and Tribal organizations that serve Native victims;* At least $25 million for Grants for Outreach and Services to Underserved Populations; and,* At least $40 million to VAWA Transitional Housing Assistance Grants.
Thank you for your attention to this critical matter and your consideration of this request.
‘Screams of hypocrisy’
Tara Reade on Biden calling for Cuomo to resign
RT
August 05, 2021
Should New York Governor Andrew Cuomo fail to resign after being accused of sexual harassment, there will be a ‘case’ waiting for him, prepared by his Democrat colleagues. Even Biden suggested Cuomo ‘should go’, though the President was previously alleged of similar misconduct.
Cornyn amendment would require deportation of illegal immigrants convicted of domestic violence
US Fed News (USA)
August 10, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 -- The office of Sen. John Cornyn issued the following news release:
U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) today introduced an amendment to the Democrats' $3.5 trillion Budget Resolution that would fund the mandatory removal of illegal immigrants convicted of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, or stalking as defined under the Violence Against Women Act:
"There is a domestic violence epidemic in the United States, and immigrant women experience abuse at an even higher rate than those born in the U.S.," said Sen. Cornyn. "We owe it to survivors, victims, and the American people to get dangerous attackers off our streets, and this amendment would ensure these criminals will be detained and deported before they can do further harm."
Background:
This amendment would create funding for legislation to:
- Remove illegal immigrants convicted of crimes of violence, sexual assault, dating violence, or stalking, as defined in the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.
- Detain illegal immigrants charged with such offenses.
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, more than 10 million adults experience domestic violence in the United States each year. Sixty percent of individuals convicted of domestic violence are rearrested within two years, and 67 percent of those are rearrested for another domestic violence offense, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
A study in New York City found that 51 percent of intimate partner homicide victims were born outside the United States, while 45 percent were U.S.-born. According to the National Organization for Women, abuse rates among immigrant women are as high as 49.8 percent.
Thousands of illegal immigrants removed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have committed domestic violence offenses. In Fiscal Year 2020, illegal immigrants administratively arrested by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations had the following convictions and charges related to domestic violence:
Sexual assault: 3,051 convictions, 1,334 chargesSex offenses generally: 4,184 convictions, 1,733 chargesFamily offenses: 2,336 convictions, 1,880 charges
Justice Department announces expansion of firearms technical assistance project to strengthen community response to domestic violence incidents involving firearms
US Fed News (USA)
August 12, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 -- The U.S. Department of Justice issued the following press release:
Today, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) announced the expansion of its Firearms Technical Assistance Project (FTAP) to help communities across the country reduce domestic violence homicides and injuries committed with firearms. OVW will award an estimated $6 million for up to 12 sites and $4 million for training and technical assistance on firearms and domestic violence.
"Enforcing gun laws and keeping firearms from the hands of perpetrators of domestic violence is crucial to keeping victims safe," said OVW Acting Director Allison Randall. "The FTAP expansion is another example of the department's commitment in its efforts to reduce violent crime. The funding will help our grantees develop and implement community-based and culturally specific strategies to enforce firearms laws and is an important part of preventing homicides."
In 2019, OVW and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges launched FTAP, which was designed to help communities implement policies, protocols and promising practices to prevent abusers from having access to firearms in domestic violence cases. As part of the announcement, OVW released a solicitation to fund six new FTAP sites in addition to the six existing FTAP sites, which include: Birmingham, Alabama; Muscogee (Creek) Nation; Columbus, Ohio; Brooklyn, New York; the state of Vermont; and Spokane, Washington. The deadline for applications in Grants.Gov is Sept. 20, 2021, and the JustGrants deadline is Sept. 22, 2021. Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit a non-binding Letter of Intent by Sept. 7, 2021.
The FTAP expansion will provide direct financial support for all sites, as well as new technical assistance designed to help each site incorporate community partners, particularly partner organizations that center underserved populations, into their efforts to implement effective responses to firearms and domestic violence. Training and technical assistance projects will include $2 million to help the sites implement an effective firearms response. Of particular importance will be an additional $2 million to train and support the sites on the cultural context of domestic violence in underserved communities. Additionally, OVW will award $750,000 to continue a domestic violence and firearms national resource center.
This solicitation supports the Justice Department's comprehensive strategy for reducing violent crime. Under federal law, individuals with domestic violence misdemeanor and felony convictions, as well as individuals subject to domestic violence protective orders, are prohibited from possessing firearms. The data shows that offenders with domestic violence in their past pose a high risk of homicide. In fact, domestic violence abusers with a gun in the home are five times more likely to kill their partners.
About the Office on Violence Against Women
The Office on Violence Against Women provides leadership in developing the nation's capacity to reduce violence through the implementation of the Violence Against Women Act and subsequent legislation. Created in 1995, OVW administers financial and technical assistance to communities across the country that are developing programs, policies and practices aimed at ending domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. In addition to overseeing federal grant programs, OVW undertakes initiatives in response to special needs identified by communities facing acute challenges. Learn more at www.justice.gov/ovw.
Opinion: Biden claims to champion women but abandoned Afghan women To brutal Taliban
Chippewa Herald, The (Chippewa Falls, WI)
Author/Byline: Carrie Sheffield InsideSources.com
August 21, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Joe Biden's failure to prevent the catastrophic, lightning-speed collapse of Afghanistan into Taliban control now imperils the lives and freedoms of more than 18 million Afghan women and girls.
This tragic outcome is opposite of Biden's rhetoric touting his support for the Violence Against Women Act, saying he "believes women" with #MeToo allegations and touring U.S. college campuses, and speaking out against rape.
Afghan women have a median age of just 19.5 years, according to the CIA—young and vulnerable. Their prospects now range from bleak to horrendous. We have already had reports of women in provinces forced to "marry" Taliban fighters who rape them regularly. CNN reported Tuesday the Taliban demanded a mother of four in a small village in northern Afghanistan cook food for up to 15 fighters.
"My mother told them, 'I am poor, how can I cook for you?'" her daughter reportedly said. "[The Taliban] started beating her. My mother collapsed and they hit her with their guns—AK47s." The brutalized woman reportedly died from the beating."
Biden gave lip service Tuesday during his take-no-questions White House statement, saying, "We'll continue to speak out for the basic rights of the Afghan people, of women and girls" and, "I've been clear that human rights must be the center of our foreign policy, not the periphery."
Yet Biden's actions abandoning Afghanistan's women speak louder than his words. Afghan journalist Nazira Karimi demanded answers on Monday from Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby, who also gave nothing but lip service.
"Everybody is upset, especially women," Karimi said. "Women had a lot of achievement in Afghanistan. I had a lot of achievement. I left from the Taliban like 20 years ago. Now we go back to the first step again."
The Taliban has tried a charm offensive, allowing a female presenter, journalist Beheshta Arghand, to interview a Taliban spokesperson Tuesday on Tolo News. The Taliban spokesman reportedly told Arghand, "I am still astonished that people are afraid of Taliban."
But Karimi and millions of other Afghan women are not fearful without reason—there is compelling evidence about what they can expect. The Taliban brutalized Afghanistan during its rule from 1996 to 2001, leading Amnesty International to report women were oppressed simply for "the 'crime' of being born a girl." Taliban banned women from schooling, working, leaving home without a male chaperone and denied them basic dignities and human rights.
Women were flogged for "showing an inch or two of skin under her full-body burqa, beaten for attempting to study, stoned to death if she was found guilty of adultery," Amnesty International reported. "Women were essentially invisible in public life, imprisoned in their home."
What can we expect in the months ahead in this vacuum of U.S. leadership under Biden? The Taliban is planning to reimpose Islamic law, as they style it. During a Tuesday press conference, a Taliban spokesman reportedly pledged its new government would protect women's rights "within the limits of Islam," according to Sky News and other outlets.
In practice, for many Muslim countries, sharia law for women means forcing women to wear a veil in public, saying that a wife should always obey her husband, having no right to initiate divorce against her husband, and denying sons and daughters equal inheritance rights. The number of so-called "honor killings" in Afghanistan—at least hundreds annually now—will likely rise under Taliban rule. This is the murder of a woman or girl by male family members, due to the perpetrators' belief that the victim has brought dishonor or shame upon the family reputation. Human Rights Watch reports a woman can be targeted by her family for refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce—even from an abusive husband—or committing adultery.
Biden and the left's silence on misogyny in the Muslim world is deafening. Conservatives who do so are often labeled as "Islamophobic." But working against the oppression of women in Afghanistan is not Islamophobic—it's pro-human rights.
The U.S. government has already disbursed more than $787.4 million from 2002 to 2020 for activities primarily intended to support Afghan women and girls. But because hundreds of other U.S. programs and projects included an unquantified gender component, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reported this amount significantly understates the actual level of U.S. support for women and girls. Any future funding to support Afghanistan's women is now unlikely to reach its intended beneficiaries since any funding strategy by the U.S. government would likely be foiled by corruption, endemic in Taliban governance.
Biden squandered our credibility and hard-earned U.S. taxpayer treasure, and now Afghanistan's women will pay the ultimate price.
Court system gathering data on how domestic violence cases are handled
Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer (KY)
August 31, 2021
The court process can be confusing and daunting under the best of circumstances. A criminal case, from beginning to end, can take months or years, and the process is filled with hearings that can be delayed again and again.
Megan Gross, advocacy coordinator for New Beginnings Sexual Assault Support Services in Owensboro, said the clients she works with can be frustrated by both the lengthy process, and by how murky the court system can be.
"Survivors don't understand why there are so many steps and why it's taking so long," Gross said.
If some of survivors are confused by the complexity of the process, Daviess County Attorney Claud Porter also wishes his office could meet more in-person with clients to explain how cases are advancing. But in-person meetings have been hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Hearings on domestic violence cases are also being handled virtually.
"In some ways that's helpful, because you don't have to see each other," so the survivor won't have to face their abuser in court, Porter said. But talking on the phone or through video conference isn't as useful as meeting face to face with survivors, Porter said.
Those kind of issues are ones the Administrative Office of the Courts would like to identify and address.
The AOC launched an online survey last week to gather information from people who have experienced domestic violence, dating violence, stalking or sexual violence. The hope is, from hearing about their experiences with the criminal justice system, court officials will be able to identify where survivors experienced gaps in services.
The survey is just part of the agency's effort to identify areas in need of improvement in handling domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking cases. The AOC is also surveying court staff and agencies that work with survivors and is planning a series of virtual public forums, which have not yet been scheduled.
The link to the survey can be found at: https://kyaoc.formstack.com/forms/vawa_survey_for_survivors.
Among other things, the survey asks survivors what experience they had when dealing with judges, court staff and law enforcement — such as whether they felt judges, court officials and officers had been trained on how to handle cases of intimate partner violence. The survey, which is confidential, also asks if survivors felt safe during the process and whether they felt blamed by the courts, officers or prosecutors.
The survey also asks if the abuser was ordered by the court to get treatment as part of the sentence or plea agreement, and if the process, such as how to file for a protective order, was explained.
Rachel Bingham, the AOC's director of the Office of Statewide programs, said the AOC is doing the work as one of its goals under the federal Violence Against Women Act.
"This year, we wanted to do a needs assessment, not just for court personnel and court officials," Bingham said "We wanted to glean more information from our stakeholders.
"The needs assessment will identify some of those gaps we can build and improve upon."
The survey also asks if people who have experienced domestic violence in same-sex relationships felt court officials knew how to handle their cases.
"The wording is very inclusive, so we are able to get all perspectives," Bingham said. "I hope we get a broad (range) of response."
Some of the questions ask if survivors believe their experience in court was fair and positive. When asked if clients she has worked with felt their case was handled satisfactorily, Gross said opinions among clients are generally split.
"Some are lucky, they go all the way through the process and see the perpetrator or abuser go away for a long time," Gross said. "But some do feel let down by the plea agreement" or if the grand jury doesn't issue an indictment in their case, Gross said.
When a case is delayed, "they feel they are being put on the back burner," Gross said.
The deadline to complete the survey is Sept. 30. Bingham said it was important for AOC officials to hear from survivors as well as court officials when looking for ways to improve the court process.
"If we just look at one area, we know we are never going to get all of the information," Bingham said.
Porter said officials do want to hear from survivors and clients about their experiences.
"We try to make as many contacts as we can (with survivors), and we'd like to know if there are any gaps," Porter said. "We would like to know ... if there are things we can do better."
Thirty-Years of Domestic Violence Half-Truths, Falsehoods, and Lies
CEDV - Coalition To End Domestic Violence
September 01, 2021
http://endtodv.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Thirty-Years-of-DV-Half-Truths-Falsehoods-and-Lies.pdf
Disney’s ‘Eternals’ Star Angelina Jolie Lobbies Congress on Pro-Gun Control Violence Against Women Act
Breitbart
September 15, 2021
Actress Angelina Jolie visited the White House on Wednesday to highlight the importance of reauthorizing the poison pill-filled Violence Against Women Act. The star of the upcoming Marvel film Eternals popped into the press briefing room briefly and took questions from reporters while wearing a mask.
Jolie, who represented UNHCR as a Goodwill Ambassador from 2001 to 2012 and now serves as Special Envoy, removed her mask briefly to get a picture at the White House podium.
“You’re allowed, Psaki does it too,” NBC’s Peter Alexander said as she removed her mask at the podium.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki praised Jolie after her visit.
Jolie said she was not meeting with Biden, but would meet with Justice Department officials.
“I think it’s very important that that’s the case and for these issues because it’s a family — it’s a health crisis, what is happening,” she told reporters.
Jolie was also spotted on Capitol Hill meeting with Democrat leadership about the bill on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the actress met with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) about the issue.
Reauthorization of the act has passed the House of Representatives but not the Senate, as it includes poison-pill measures that are a non-starter for Republicans. Singer superstar Taylor Swift unsuccessfully tried to use Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) opposition to the bill to get her fans to oppose her in 2018.
The bill includes language to require transgender and gender-fluid biological males into women shelters as well as expanding gun-control provisions.
Democrats continue using the bill as a cudgel to accuse Republicans of supporting violence against women.
Anger at DOJ for not prosecuting FBI agents who botched Larry Nassar case
Washington Examiner
September 15, 2021
Senators and victims alike expressed anger Wednesday over the Justice Department’s decision to decline prosecution against the FBI agents who botched the case against now-convicted sexual predator Larry Nassar, as well as the department's refusal to send a representative to testify why it had let officials off the hook.
Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, and other U.S. gymnasts condemned USA Gymnastics, the Olympic committees, and the FBI for ignoring — or helping cover up — sexual abuse allegations about Nassar during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. Maroney specifically called out Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco for not showing up to testify, and she criticized the Justice Department for not charging any FBI agents who botched the case or misled others about it.
FBI supervisory special agent Michael Langeman, who interviewed Maroney in 2015 about her claims that Nassar had abused her, was fired from the FBI ahead of Wednesday’s hearing. Langeman had been a lead agent at the FBI’s Indianapolis field office, and DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz’s July report concluded he and former Indianapolis Field Office Special Agent in Charge W. Jay Abbott lied to the department watchdog.
USA Gymnastics conducted an internal investigation into sexual assault allegations leveled against Nassar, and USA Gymnastics CEO Stephen Penny Jr. alerted the FBI’s Indianapolis Field Office in July 2015. But the FBI did little to follow up.
The DOJ watchdog’s inquiry concluded "Abbott violated FBI policy and exercised extremely poor judgment under federal ethics rules.” Specifically, when Abbott “communicated with Penny about a potential job opportunity with the U.S. Olympic Committee” while continuing to discuss the FBI’s Nassar investigation with Penny.
Abbott retired years ago.
Horowitz said DOJ declined prosecution of Abbott and Langeman last September.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Abbott's actions "reflect violations of the FBI’s long-standing code of conduct and the ethical obligations for all FBI employees” but said he retired in January 2018 “before any review launched.”
"It’s extremely frustrating that we’re left with little disciplinary recourse when people retire before their cases can be adjudicated," he said. “I’m deeply and profoundly sorry to each and every one of you."
Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin told Wray that “this man is on the loose molesting children, and it appears that it’s being lost in the paperwork of the agency.”
“I share your reactions, I share your bewilderment, I share your outrage," Wray replied. "I don’t have a good explanation for you. It is utterly jarring to me.”
Durbin asked Horowitz whether the “deliberate misrepresentations” by Abbott and Langeman reached the level of criminal violations.
"They violated criminal law sufficiently that — what we do at that point is make the referral to prosecutors to assess them because that’s who needs to make the assessment whether or not there will be charges brought," the watchdog said.
Wray said DOJ prosecutors declined prosecution in 2020 and 2021.
Durbin criticized DOJ’s decision and the refusal to send someone to testify on Wednesday, calling it “outrageous."
"I am sorry because I have great faith in this attorney general and his Department of Justice, but we asked them to bring someone in to explain this today, and they refused and said they wouldn’t attend," he said.
The Justice Department’s watchdog found the FBI repeatedly botched its handling of sexual abuse allegations against the former USA gymnastics physician in a damning July report that showed bureau officials didn’t take the claims seriously, failed to alert local authorities, broke FBI rules, covered up their missteps, and lied to investigators.
Wray took over the FBI in 2017 after the firing of James Comey, during whose tenure the FBI botched the Nassar case. Wray testified he didn’t know if Comey was aware of the Nassar case before 2016.
Horowitz and Wray both declined to call upon the DOJ to testify in front of the Senate when Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked Wray why he wasn’t urging DOJ to prosecute.
“I don’t want to get into my discussions with the attorney general ... If there is a way that I can appropriately engage on a prospective decision — which I’m trying to be very careful not to blur my lanes of responsibility — “ Wray said before cutting himself off.
Nassar pleaded guilty in 2017 to federal charges of child pornography and tampering. That, combined with a guilty plea in Michigan state court to counts of sexual assault, sets Nassar to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Gymnasts testify before Congress in Larry Nassar investigation
KHOU 11
September 15, 2021
He said she used him to gain U.S. citizenship
N.Y. court reverses annulment decision anyway
Times Union, The: Web Edition Articles (Albany, NY)
September 16, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
ALBANY – First, he lost his marriage.
Now, he's lost his annulment.
Appellate justices in Albany on Thursday unanimously reversed a lower court ruling that annulled a marriage based on a man's claim that his wife married him just to become a U.S. citizen.
The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court's Third Department determined that the husband, a Cortland County man identified as Travis A., lacked evidence to show that his Filipino wife, identified as Vilma B., fraudulently used him to become a citizen.
The couple met online in February 2018 and became engaged four months later on the first of the man's two visits to the Philippines, the decision explained.
In April 2019, the woman entered the U.S. on a fiancee visa and moved in with her fiance. They were married that June but, according to the ruling, the marriage quickly deteriorated. The wife moved out less than two weeks after the wedding.
In July 2019, the husband sought a legal annulment. He argued his wife married him "with the sole purpose of becoming a U.S. citizen." The wife, who denied any fraud, said her husband engaged in domestic violence and that she left for her safety.
In January 2020, following a nonjury trial in Cortland County, acting Supreme Court Justice Julie Campbell annulled the marriage.
The wife appealed, sending the matter before the Third Department, where it was argued last month.
The husband represented himself.
"I was used as a vessel," the husband told the justices. "Had I known of this prior to the marriage, I never would have been married."
Presiding Justice Elizabeth Garry, who listened to the arguments with justices Christine Clark, John Egan, Stanley Pritzker and John Colangelo, told the husband the legal standard to get an annulment is significantly higher than that for a divorce.
Jonathan D. Lamberti, who represented the wife, said Campbell's ruling was unsupported and erroneous. He said the husband was potentially setting a dangerous precedent in which any immigrant spouse who did not leave the country could be accused of immigrant fraud.
In a 5-0 ruling Thursday, justices reversed the lower court decision.
To obtain an annulment, the ruling said, one spouse must prove the other spouse "knowingly made a material false representation" with the intent to induce the other person into marriage.
"The husband's case of fraud in the inducement was premised upon his claim that the wife induced him to marry through false representations of love and affection for the sole purpose of obtaining an immigration benefit," Clark said in the decision.
Clark said the husband "ultimately failed to demonstrate that the marital break was due to any cause other than the general discontent and incompatibility of the parties."
Clark said Campbell erred by, among other things, taking a negative inference against the wife for purportedly exploring relief under the Violence Against Women Act.
By the husband's own account, his wife had threatened – during their spats – to leave the marriage and return to the Philippines, Clark said. That the woman remained in the country after moving out, she said, is "insufficient to demonstrate that, prior to the marriage, the wife had the intent to induce the husband to marry with the sole objective of obtaining an immigration benefit."
The Supreme Court Ruling That Stopped Larry Nassar's Victims From Getting Justice
Slate (USA)
Author/Byline: Victoria Nourse
September 22, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Simone Biles, Ali Raisman and several other Olympic gymnasts tearfully explained how the FBI ignored their accounts of sexual abuse by Dr. Larry Nassar during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week. In addition to the pain of not being believed, the gymnasts made clear that the FBI's failure to act led to further abuse of young athletes.
During the hearing, several senators expressed their outrage, focusing their future actions on the FBI's failures. Senator Patrick Leahy even supported the gymnasts' calls for prosecuting the FBI agents accused of mishandling the case. But the Senators are avoiding the fundamental legal problem at the heart of the investigation: federal law did not cover Nassar's abuse.
The Office of Inspector General's report found that FBI agents did nothing when first confronted with Olympians' accusations because the federal agents had a legal rationale for not pursuing their claims. Nassar could not be charged with a federal offense based on his assaults. That's accurate—even if it sounds perverse. (His ultimate federal conviction was for possessing kiddie porn, not hundreds of assaults). And it is why the Indianapolis agents claimed that they did not have "federal jurisdiction" to take the case.
To put it simply: The US Olympic Committee had knocked on the wrong prosecutorial door. The survivors should have gone to a different set of Michigan state prosecutors, according to the FBI agents.
Unfortunately, state criminal justice systems have routinely failed survivors of sexual assault. Roughly three decades before Biles, Raisman, Makayla Maroney, and Maggie Nichols testified in Congress, dozens of women appeared before Joe Biden's Senate Judiciary Committee to tell similar stories of supreme indifference to their abuse. From those hearings came the first Violence Against Women Act. For the first time in American history, in 1994, the federal government funded states to change their laws and practices that treated domestic violence and sexual assault as less serious than other offenses. The law included a provision to address state justice system's routine mishandling of sexual assault cases, putting accountability in the hands of survivors by enabling them to seek redress themselves. The law declared it a federal "civil right" to be free from gender-based violence.
For six years, that law allowed individuals to sue their assailants, and provided attorneys with the incentive to take the cases by allowing them to collect fees if successful. The theory was like any other civil rights action: the plaintiff acts as a "private attorney general" suing to pursue values shared by all that are under-enforced by traditional law enforcement. College students sued professors who abused them, young men sued priests who harassed them, children sued fathers who had beaten and killed their mothers. Although the law's opponents claimed it would cover trivial matters and end up miring federal courts in divorce, the number of claims were modest in scope and the abuse serious. In a not insignificant number of cases, state officials were perpetrators of abuse.
That law no longer exists. Blame the Supreme Court. In 2000, the Court declared the Violence Against Women Acts's civil rights remedy unconstitutional precisely because it dealt with sexual abuse crimes. Despite the fact that the law allowed private survivors to seek damages, the court ignored the civil nature of the remedy and declared the underlying fact of sexual abuse had to be considered a crime. In United States v. Morrison, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that crime was something best left to the states to handle. The justices were almost hysterical about the danger: If the federal government could regulate sexual abuse, they said it would "obliterate" the distinction between the federal and state governments. (No state governments disappeared when VAWA's civil rights remedy was alive from 1994-2000).
The Morrison decision has worn poorly over the years. Chief Justice Rehnquist, who wrote the opinion, had lobbied openly and publicly against the law, something that today would be considered with more ethical skepticism than at the time. The decision was supposed to be about federalism, but it led to no legal revolution. In fact, five years later, the Court decided another case, Gonzales v. Raich, allowing the federal government to regulate an individual's marjuana possession, even though that too involved "crime," on the theory that there was a commercial market for marijuana. Many law professors think Gonzales silently overruled Morrison, giving the federal government the power to regulate all sorts of crime, just not sexual assault.
The Olympians' case shows just how the court's message could be read, by American women, that their claims are not important enough for federal law. In 1994, when the law was enacted, opponents said that the law would do nothing because sexual assault was just a "fad" that would go away. But high profile cases involving Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein and many other celebrities have shown the difficulties women face in suing and the need for accountability. The #MeToo movement revealed that the problem of harassment and abuse was widespread, and state legal reform has not stemmed the tide.
The Morrison panel hinted at how to restore federal protections for sexual assault survivors. The civil rights remedy might be redrafted to pass constitutional muster: require a connection to interstate commerce. The truth is that the federal government regulates a lot of regular crime involving more than one state or goods in transit, like guns or marijuana. The constitution provides significant authority for Congress to regulate "commerce." Surely, as the dissent in Morrison said, sexual assault and harassment impairs women's ability to participate in the economy, whether that economy is about movies or sports.
Today, if the law was still in effect, it would have allowed the Olympic survivors to sue anyone responsible for their abuse, without prosecutors' permission. It would have allowed Harvey Weinstein's victims or Jeffrey Epstein's victims to sue them for the costs of therapy, lost jobs and other damages. More importantly, it would have given survivors some measure of accountability when state criminal justice systems fail.
It is long past time for Congress to pass a redrafted civil remedy in the Violence Against Women Act. Disbelief of survivor's accounts of violence is widespread. Deborah Tuerkheimer calls this phenomenon the "credibility discount," in her new book, entitled, Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers. If #MeToo's enormous numbers (19 million tweets from women who had not believed when they claimed harassment or assault) tell us anything, disbelief, which encompasses utter disregard for the suffering of victims, exists on a massive scale.
The Congress needs to do more than just prosecute an FBI agent for what happened in the Olympians case. They need to move beyond giving money to states and NGOs to stop sexual violence, which is essentially what happens under current law. They need to stand up to the Supreme Court and say that women deserve better than law enforcement officials who continue to ignore and disbelieve them.
At the very least, give the power back to survivors and private lawyers to seek their own vindication when law enforcement fails them. And give them the power to find accountability, the sheer power of belief, that the Olympians so desperately want.
Senate Judiciary Committee Sets Oct. 5 Hearing on Renewing and Strengthening Violence Against Women Act
Targeted News Service (USA)
September 28, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 -- The Senate Judiciary Committee issued the following information for a hearing entitled: "Renewing and Strengthening the Violence Against Women Act" at 10 a.m. on Oct. 5, 2021, at 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building:
Witnesses
* The Honorable Lisa O. Monaco, Deputy Attorney General, Department of Justice, Washington D.C.
Nearly 1,800 Women Murdered by Men in One Year, New Violence Policy Center Study Finds
Targeted News Service (USA)
September 29, 2021
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 -- The Violence Policy Center issued the following news release:
Nearly 1,800 women were murdered by men in 2019 and the most common weapon used was a gun, according to the most recent edition of the annual Violence Policy Center (VPC) study When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2019 Homicide Data.
Each year the VPC releases this report in advance of Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October. The study uses 2019 data, the most recent year for which information is available. The study covers homicides involving one female murder victim and one male offender using data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Supplementary Homicide Report.
The study found that nationwide, 91 percent of women killed by men were murdered by someone they knew and that the most common weapon used was a gun.
VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand states, "This annual study consistently shows that women who are victims of homicide are most likely to be murdered by a man they know and that all too often that man is an intimate partner."
This is the 24th edition of When Men Murder Women. From 1996 to 2019, the rate of women murdered by men in single victim/single offender incidents dropped from 1.57 per 100,000 women in 1996 to 1.18 per 100,000 women in 2019, a decrease of 25 percent. Since reaching its low of 1.08 in 2014, the rate has increased, with 2019's rate of 1.18 up nine percent since 2014.
The study also has a separate section focusing on Black females killed by males.
Below is a table of the states with the 10 highest rates of females murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents in 2019.
For each of these 10 states, the study offers a detailed summary including: the number of victims by age group and race; the most common weapons used; the victim to offender relationships; and, the circumstances of the homicides.
National statistics from the study include the following.
* Nationwide, 1,795 females were murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents in 2019, at a rate of 1.18 per 100,000. Of the 1,795 female homicide victims, 1,166 were white, 501 were Black, 53 were Asian or Pacific Islander, 39 were American Indian or Alaskan Native, and in 36 cases the race of the victim was not identified.
* Nine out of 10 victims (91 percent) knew their offenders. Of the victims who knew their offenders, 62 percent were wives or other intimate acquaintances of their killers. Ten times as many females were murdered by a male they knew than were killed by male strangers.
* Black women are disproportionately impacted by lethal domestic violence. In 2019, Black females were murdered by males at a rate of 2.34 per 100,000, more than twice the rate of 0.99 per 100,000 for white women murdered by men.
* Firearms were the weapons most commonly used by males to murder females in 2019. Nationwide, for homicides in which the weapon used could be identified, 58 percent of female victims were shot and killed with a gun. Of the homicides committed with guns, 65 percent were killed with handguns.
* The number of females shot and killed by their husband or intimate acquaintance was more than three and a half times the total number murdered by male strangers using all weapons combined.
* The overwhelming majority of these homicides were not related to any other felony crime, such as rape or robbery. Nationwide, for homicides in which the circumstances could be identified, 85 percent of the homicides were not related to the commission of another felony. Most often, females were killed by males in the course of an argument between the victim and the offender.
The study calculates the rate of women murdered by men by dividing the total number of females murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents by the total female population and multiplying the result by 100,000. This is the standard and accepted method of comparing fatal levels of gun violence.
View table at:https://vpc.org/press/nearly-1800-women-murdered-by-men-in-one-year-new-violence-policy-center-study-finds/
In addition to supporting reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, the study urges that state legislators adopt laws that enhance enforcement of federal legislation and ensure that guns are surrendered by or removed from the presence of abusers.
When Men Murder Women
An Analysis of 2019 Homicide Data
Violence Center
September 29, 2021
Violence Policy Center
Wikipedia
September 29, 2021
The Violence Policy Center (VPC) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control.
Organizational background
According to Josh Sugarmann, its founder, the VPC approaches violence, and firearms violence in particular, as a public health issue affecting the whole population, rather than solely a criminal matter. The VPC is known mainly for its in-depth research on the firearms industry, the causes and effects of gun violence, and the advocacy of regulatory policies to reduce gun violence. The VPC advocates for gun control legislation and policy.
The VPC relies on donations from the public and foundation support. The primary foundation donor to the VPC is the Joyce Foundation. The VPC publicizes its research through the news media and through coalitions with other advocacy organizations.
Activities
Annual reports on impact of gun violence
Using data from federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the VPC publishes annual state-by-state reports on the effects of gun violence. It has examined the effects of gun violence on specific populations:
Females murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents, published to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October;
Black homicide victimization;Hispanic homicide victimization.
Concealed carry
The VPC maintains a "Concealed Carry Killers" database of fatal non-self defense killings involving private citizens who are legally allowed to carry concealed handguns in public.[9][10] The VPC also highlights mass shootings involving persons legally allowed to carry concealed handguns in public.
The database was criticized by Clayton Cramer, who claimed that the statistics were inaccurate. John Lott's Crime Prevention Research Center website posted an article questioning the numbers presented on the Concealed Carry Killers database. According to the article, suicides, which may or may not have involved a firearm, and motor vehicle homicides caused by intoxication, are included in the statistics.
Gun industry donations
The VPC has issued reports that document the gun industry's financial contributions to the National Rifle Association (NRA). In 2013, the VPC said that the firearms industry has donated between $19.3 million and $60.2 million to the NRA since 2005.
50-caliber rifles
The VPC has long advocated for a ban on 50-caliber rifles. In 2001, the VPC issued a study that detailed "the 50 caliber's threat as an ideal tool for assassination and terrorism, including its ability to attack and cripple key elements of the nation's critical infrastructure—including aircraft and other transportation, electrical power grids, pipeline networks, chemical plants, and other hazardous industrial facilities".
In January 2005, the VPC was featured on the CBS news and current affairs program 60 Minutes, which ran a segment on 50-caliber rifles and their alleged threat to public safety. It drew from VPC reports on the .50 BMG cartridge. Interviews were featured with both Ronnie Barrett of Barrett Firearms and Tom Diaz of the VPC.
The NRA objected, alleging that the story was biased in the VPC's favor; it claimed that no 50-caliber rifle has ever been used in the commission of a crime. In response, the VPC issued a backgrounder detailing criminal use and possession of 50-caliber rifles, including examples of murders by criminals using this weapon. The list does not clarify whether the weapons seized were possessed legally or not, and makes no distinction between use of a .50 caliber rifle in a crime and possession of a .50 caliber rifle by a person committing an unrelated crime.
In September 2004, California passed a law to ban 50 caliber rifles, the only states to do so.
Firearms imports
CBS reported that numerous firearms are sold in the United States that were illegally trafficked into Mexico and legally imported into the United States, where they are sold to "straw purchasers" and other illegal traffickers. In testimony to Congress and in reports, the VPC has stated that the U.S. government is not enforcing the "sporting purposes" test, which bans the import of firearms that lack a sporting purpose.
In 1989, ATF officials in the administration of President George H. W. Bush used their powers to prohibit the import of firearms that are not "generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes." Despite this prohibition, gun manufacturers skirted the ban by making cosmetic changes to their weapons to comply with the law. The Clinton administration reviewed the case, and as a result banned certain weapons from import.
The VPC argues that today the import ban has for the most part been abandoned, and foreign-made assault weapons—whole and in parts—are being freely imported into the United States. In response, the VPC has asked the ATF to enforce a ban on the import of foreign-made assault weapons.
Eddie Eagle study
In November, 1997 the Violence Policy Center published a study of the NRA's Eddie Eagle program, entitled Joe Camel With Feathers. Key findings included:
The primary goal of the National Rifle Association's Eddie Eagle program is not to safeguard children, but to protect the interests of the NRA and the firearms industry by making guns more acceptable to children and youth. The Eddie Eagle program employs strategies similar to those utilized by America's tobacco industry—from youth "educational" programs that are in fact marketing tools to the use of appealing cartoon characters that aim to put a friendly face on a hazardous product.
Other key findings included that "the NRA uses the Eddie Eagle as a lobbying tool" in its opposition to child access prevention laws and mandatory trigger lock laws; that "Rather than recognizing the inherent danger firearms in the home pose to children, and the often irresponsible firearms storage behavior of adults, the Eddie Eagle program places the onus of safety and responsibility on the children themselves"; and that "Public health researchers have found that 'gun safety' programs like Eddie Eagle are ineffective in preventing unintentional death and injury from firearms."
The study's key findings were summarized in major newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune as well as regional newspapers including The Philadelphia Inquirer, Newsday, The Times-Picayune, and others, and in the book Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law edited by Gregg Lee Carter, professor of history at Bryant University in an article on Eddie Eagle by Robert J. Spitzer. The NRA called the study "ludicrous" and threaten to sue the VPC.
Reception
The VPC distributes its published research and analysis to members of Congress and their staffs. Numerous US gun control organizations have used VPC reports and terminology to advance local and national gun control initiatives. VPC research results and policy positions have been cited by major news organizations including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, CNN, the Associated Press, and Reuters.
Violence Policy Center (VPC)
Influence Watch
September 29, 2021
Website: vpc.org
Location: WASHINGTON, DC
Tax ID: 52-1571442
Tax-Exempt Status: 501(c)(3)
Budget (2016):
Revenue: $833,038
Expenses: $794,598
Assets: $690,505
Formation: 1988
Type: Gun Control Advocacy Group
Founder: Josh Sugarmann
The Violence Policy Center (VPC) is a left-of-center organization that advocates for gun control policies. Josh Sugarmann, former communications director for the National Coalition to Ban Handguns (now the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence), formed the VPC in 1988.
The organization makes most of its money from contributions and received $4,044,630 between 2011 and 2015. It received a total of $6.3 million from the Joyce Foundation, a leading funder of gun control organizations, between 1998 and 2013.
Violence Policy Center continues to face criticism for misrepresenting facts and inflating numbers to further its position on gun crime.
Background and Founding
The Violence Policy Center (VPC) is a left-of-center organization that focuses on gun control. It was founded in 1988 by Josh Sugarmann, a former press officer for the United States office of Amnesty International. Sugarmann also worked as the communications director for the National Coalition to Ban Handguns (now the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence) and has written two books attacking the National Rifle Association and calling for a ban on pistols.
Misleading Claims
Violence Policy Center has been accused of misrepresenting facts by multiple individuals and organizations.
The National Rifle Association argued that the Violence Policy Center’s analysis of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2016 fatal injury report contained skewed research to prove that gun death rates increased by a large amount from 2008 to 2016. VPC’s report purported to show that the Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms applied to weapons in “common use” for self-defense including pistols, caused a spike in crime; critics noted that the VPC chart’s “axis runs from 10.0 to 12.5,” creating the misleading appearance of a trend. Extending the same chart and using data back to 1990 showed a null trend.
Violence Policy Center used the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) as a definitive source for its 2015 report on whether guns are used to stop crimes or kill criminals. The NCVS approximated in the 1990s that the average number of gun-related self-defense incidents range between 65,000 to 82,000 per year. This estimate has been contradicted by multiple independent surveys that found the average number of incidents of defensive gun usage is well above 700,000 per year.
The Violence Policy Center has a list on its website which lists multiple incidents of “private individuals legally allowed to carry concealed handguns killed private citizens in incidents not ruled self-defense.” Despite calling it the “Concealed Carry Killers” list, multiple incidents are labeled as “Suicide”; some are listed as “Pending,” meaning the verdict of the court cases have not been reached on those individuals; and some are listed as “Unintentional.”
While VPC claims to show the dangers of laws allowing carry of firearms from the list, its list includes a number of suicides and homicide cases unrelated to firearms. Violence Policy Center claims that there is “no reason for assault rifles, assault pistols, and assault shotguns to be sold on the civilian market,” and that there should be a ban on selling these types of weapons to civilians. “Assault weapons” is a term created by the Democrats in the early 1990s to describe certain rifles cosmetically similar to military rifles; true “assault rifles” and similar automatic weapons are regulated strictly as machine guns. Before a 1994-2004 ban on certain rifles, so-called “assault weapons” were responsible for two percent of gun crimes in the United States.
Funding
According to the organization’s 990 tax forms, the Violence Policy Center earned a total of $916,187 in 2013, $705,099 in 2014, $812,988 in 2015, and $833,038 in 2016. The organization makes most of its money from contributions and received $4,044,630 between 2011 and 2015.
Most of the money that goes into the Violence Policy Center is used to pay for salaries, other compensation, and employee benefits. According to the organization’s 2016 990 form, $492,259 out of $833,038 was used to pay for this, and $544,179 out of $812,912 was used in 2015.
The organization receives most of its money from the Joyce Foundation. Violence Policy Center received a total of $6.3 million from the Foundation between 1998 and 2013.
Violence Policy Center received two grants from the Joyce Foundation as part of its “Gun Violence Prevention and Justice Reform,” project. The organization received $175,265 in 2018, $200,000 in 2017, and $250,000 in 2015. George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the California Wellness Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and Craigslist Charitable Fund all made six-figure contributions to VPC.
Leadership
Josh Sugarmann founded and continues to work as executive director of Violence Policy Center. Sugarmann is a career gun-control activist, having previously worked for the National Coalition to Ban Handguns (now the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence).
Despite his gun-control career, Sugarmann reportedly holds a Federal Firearms License (FFL). In 1992, Sugarmann and the VPC lobbied for a ban on issuing FFL licenses to private citizens. Sugarmann called the practice a “public safety scandal created by the very agency charged with enforcing federal firearms laws.”
Despite successfully lobbying for an end to “kitchen counter” FFL’s, Sugarmann applied for what VPC might call a “kitchen counter” license himself. A Freedom of Information Act request shows documentation requesting an FFL, signed by Sugarmann. Initially Sugarmann declared he would not be able to make a profit from the license which led the ATF to reject his application. After the rejected application, Sugarmann amended it, answering “yes” to “Do you intend to make a profit from your business,” and responded by saying he is a “firearms expert in design and manufacture,” who needed the license for “examination and publication of written material.” He also states, “no firearms or ammunition will be sold.”
Joyce Foundation - Gun Control
Wikipedia
September 29, 2021
Named after: The Joyce family
Type: Non-operating private foundation
Focus: Education, environment, employment, culture, democracy, and gun-violence prevention
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Area served: Great Lakes region, U.S.
Method: Grants
Key people: Ellen S. Alberding, president
Endowment: $1.1 billion (2019)
Employees: 31 (2021)
History
The Joyce Foundation was established in 1948 by Beatrice Joyce Kean of Chicago. She was the sole heir of David Joyce, a lumber executive and industrialist from Clinton, Iowa. The family wealth came from the lumber industry, including family-owned timberlands, plywood and saw mills, and wholesale and retail building material distribution facilities located in the Midwest, Louisiana, and Texas. The Foundation was modestly endowed until Kean's death in 1972, when she bequeathed it nearly $100 million.
Charles U. Daly, a former aide to President John F. Kennedy, served as president of the Foundation for eight years. He was succeeded by Craig Kennedy in 1986. Deborah Leff, a trial lawyer for the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, served as president of the organization from 1992 to 1999, and was succeeded by Paula DiPerna, named president in 1999. DiPerna was succeeded in 2002 by Ellen S. Alberding, the organization's seventh president. Former U.S. President Barack Obama served on the foundation's board of directors from 1994 through 2002.
As of 2015, the Joyce Foundation has awarded over $950 million in grants since its establishment.
Programs
The Joyce Foundation describes its mission as "working to improve quality of life, promote community vitality, and achieve a fair society".
The Joyce Foundation's primary focus is on the Great Lakes region, where its funding efforts are focused on "environmental preservation, diverse art, energy efficiency, teacher quality, gun violence prevention, early literacy, and workforce development". Foundation programs invest in public education, economic opportunity, and the environment. Other programs promote voting rights and arts organizations.
The Joyce Foundation is one of the few private foundations that considers gun-related research proposals. Joyce distributes grants designed to prevent gun violence by reducing the easy accessibility of firearms. Since 1993, the Joyce Foundation spent over $54 million on over 100 grants that favor gun control.
Joyce Foundation - Gun Control
Influence Watch
September 29, 2021
Website: www.joycefdn.org
Location: CHICAGO, IL
Tax ID: 36-6079185
Tax-Exempt Status: 501(c)(3)-PF
Budget (2015):
Revenue: $78,822,416Expenses: $50,743,364Assets: $919,082,291
Formation: 1948
President: Ellen Alberding
Chairman of the Board: Jose B. Alvarez
Founder: Beatrice Joyce Kean
The Joyce Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Chicago that finances advocacy for gun control, environmental causes, and liberal education policy; opposition to right-of-center election reforms; and left-of-center nonprofit media outlets.
Beatrice Joyce Kean established the organization in 1948. Before he was elected President of the United States, then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama was a member of the Joyce Foundation board of directors.
Background
The Joyce Foundation is a grantmaking organization funding liberal political and culture projects. It principally operates in the Great Lakes region, focusing on Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The organization distributed $50 million in grants in 2018.
History
JOYCE FAMILY
The organization was incorporated in 1948 in Chicago and founded by Beatrice Joyce Kean, the heiress of the wealthy Joyce family from Clinton, Iowa. The Joyce family was involved in the lumber industry, which included family-owned timberlands, plywood and sawmills, as well as wholesale and retail building material based in the Midwest and in Louisiana.
Although today, the foundation funds mostly left-wing causes, family patriarch and founder of the family lumber business David Joyce was known for being a strong advocate of the free market and a Republican.
CREATION
Beatrice Joyce Kean, born in 1921, was the sole inheritor of the Joyce family fortune at age 21, and established the Joyce Foundation at age 25. She aimed to reduce poverty and violence in the Great Lakes area.
For more than two decades, the foundation distributed smaller grants to the interests of Kean, which largely included conservation, hospitals, and universities. When Kean died in 1972, she left the 90 percent of her estate, more than $120 million, to the foundation.
POST-KEAN
Executives and lawyers from the family lumber business initially ran the foundation continuing to give to Beatrice Joyce Kean’s interests. It wasn’t until 1978 that the organization hired Charles U. Daly, a former White House aide to President John F. Kennedy, as the first executive director. Daly expanded the focus to include education, cultural organizations, and government policies.
The most famous person associated with the Joyce Foundation is President Barack Obama, who served on the Foundation board of directors before winning the presidency. Obama was on the board in Chicago from 1994 to 2002. Before his 2004 U.S. Senate run, Obama reportedly considered leaving politics to become full-time president of the Joyce Foundation.
Obama White House advisor Valerie Jarrett also previously served on the Joyce board of directors.
Programs
The Joyce Foundation focuses grants on five areas of policy research and advocacy; education, environmentalism, gun control, election administration, and culture.
EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC MOBILITY PROGRAM
Joyce Foundation Education and Economic Mobility program grants aim at promoting and recruiting better-trained teachers and principals to work in Chicago, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis.
Another focus of the education program is a pathway to college and career credentialing. The education program calls for “advanced college coursework opportunities in high school, career planning, and more seamless transitions from high school to college.” The foundation backs community colleges and other open-access four-year institutions.
The foundation’s education program notably funded the controversial Chicago Annenberg Challenge that a then-Illinois State Senator and then-Joyce board member Barack Obama ran along with 1970s-era Weather Underground far-left extremist-turned-university professor William Ayers.
It further contributed to the Small Schools Movement, which was also started by Ayers, and to the Erikson Institute in Chicago, a graduate school focused on child development, which once included Ayers’ wife Bernadine Dohrn on the board.
ENVIRONMENTALISM
The Joyce Foundation environmentalist initiative touts three long-term goals: Switching electric power generation to 100 percent renewable, nuclear, and other carbon-free sources, replacing conventional fuel use in every sector of the economy with environmentalist alternatives, Deploy all cost-effective energy efficiency technologies so clean energy won’t be more expensive than necessary.
The Joyce Foundation provided $1.1 million in 2002 for the start of the Chicago Climate Exchange, an attempt at “cap-and-trade” emissions regulation.
GUN CONTROL AND JUSTICE REFORM
Joyce Foundation funds efforts to restrict access to guns, reduce incarceration, and increase trust between the community and police. The organization phased out health related grants in the 1980s, but began a focus on gun control in 1990s.
The foundation financed scholarships for law schools to promote a legal theory that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual’s right to bear arms, claiming the amendment guaranteed a state government’s right to arm an organized militia. The law review article arguments were cited in federal court rulings in 2001 and 2002 that upheld state and local gun control laws. The organization also paid for a book titled Every Handgun is Aimed at You: The Case for Banning Handguns.
In the process, the foundation bankrolled the Second Amendment Research Center at Ohio State University for the purpose of producing research to back up the Second Amendment as a collective rather than individual right.
The foundation has even mockingly said “the ‘gun rights’ drumbeat” has drowned out solutions to violence. After the high court ruling in 2008, the organization began to push gun control as a public health issue. It had already helped promote the National Violent Death Reporting System located at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the 1990s.
Former Joyce Foundation President Deborah Leff, explained the rationale in a 1993 interview with the Chicago Tribune. “So long as one looks at this as solely a criminal problem, one comes up with solely criminal solutions,” Leff said. “But when you have a major cause of death like this, you have to look for prevention solutions. We tried to identify people who were capable of doing that.”
The organization has given millions to liberal think tank Violence Policy Center, the self-described, “most aggressive group in the gun control movement,” that has advocated for a national handgun ban. The policy center in 2000 called for Congress to ban handguns and spend $16.25 billion to compensate owners for the taking of the then-estimated 65 million civilian-owned handguns.
The organization has also poured tens of millions of dollars to fund more than 100 anti-gun grants to researchers at Harvard University, the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Freedom States Alliance, Iowans for the Prevention of Gun Violence, the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, and Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort. In past years, the organization has devoted 10 percent of its outlays to gun control grants.
Joyce Foundation helped finance the Vera Institute of Justice’s Safety and Fairness for Everyone (SAFE) Network, which was established after President Donald Trump’s election to pay for lawyers to represent illegal immigrants at deportation hearings.
BIDEN COMMUNITY VIOLENCE INTERVENTION COLLABORATIVE
In June 2021, the Biden administration announced a program to combat rising gun violence and violent crime using a collaborative composed of government and nonprofit organizations funding community violence intervention (CVI) measures. The Joyce Foundation was reported to be a funder of the collaborative, along with California Endowment, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Kellogg Foundation. Other foundations funding the initiative include the Kresge Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, Arnold Ventures, the Emerson Collective, the Heising-Simons Foundation, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. CVI strategies “act as an alternative to heavy-handed policing” by focusing its efforts on the minority of citizens who are perpetrators or targets of violent crime. CVI treats violence as a communicable disease rather than a violent crime and attempts to stop the “spread” of violence.
JOYCE DEMOCRACY PROGRAM
The Joyce Democracy Program advocates for campaign finance reform to curb donations into political campaigns. The organization also claims voter ID laws “suppress” voting It further advocates for changing the means of redistricting for congressional and state legislative seats to align with methods supported by left-of-center groups.
The organization also funds nonprofit media outlets, arguing that journalism faces numerous challenges as a result of technology altering the media landscape. Stating the “fragile media ecosystem is at risk of further erosion because of circulation and revenue declines, consolidations, and resulting newsroom layoffs,” the foundation says it will use grants to “help build and sustain emerging media that are helping to fill the gap, and in doing so strengthen democracy in the region.” The grants go to left-of-center outlets in the Great Lakes states.
CULTURE
The Culture program’s goal is to expand arts program and arts participation in underserved communities in the Great Lakes region. It has spent $31 million on arts project since beginning the Culture program in 1996.
The foundations provide grants to arts and cultural organizations that reduce the cost or distance of artist participation. Grants are divided into three focuses: Arts access and participation, arts leadership, and creativity and culture production.
The Culture grants are aimed at promoting the “next generation of artists” in “culturally vibrant and sustainable communities.” The grant program focuses on diversity and is particularly interested in focuses on ethnic minority artists.
Leadership
The board of directors has 13 members and two directors emeritus. The chairman of the board is Jose B. Alvarez. The vice chairwoman is Margot M. Rogers. Former executive director Charles Daly continues to serve on the board.
Ellen S. Alberding is the Joyce Foundation president, and is a member of the board of the directors. She became president in 2002, but has been with the foundation since 1989.
Alberding is also a member of the Loyola University board of trustees. Further, she is a member of the Chicago Public Education Fund’s board of directors. She serves on the National Park Foundation’s National Council and was the vice chairwoman of City Colleges of Chicago. She was a former board member of the Economic Club of Chicago.
Open Society Foundations - George Soros Contributions To Joyce Foundation/Gun Control
Wikipedia
September 29, 2021
Open Society Foundations
Founded: April 1993; 28 years agoFounder: George SorosKey people:
George Soros, ChairMark Malloch-Brown, PresidentAlexander Soros, Global Board Deputy Chair
Endowment: $19,590,570,302Website: www.opensocietyfoundations.org
Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially support civil society groups around the world, with a stated aim of advancing justice, education, public health and independent media. The group's name is inspired by Karl Popper's 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies.
The OSF has branches in 37 countries, encompassing a group of country and regional foundations, such as the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa; its headquarters are at 224 West 57th Street in New York City. In 2018, OSF announced it was closing its European office in Budapest and moving to Berlin, in response to legislation passed by the Hungarian government targeting the foundation's activities. Since its establishment in 1993, OSF has reported expenditures in excess of $16 billion mostly in grants towards NGOs, aligned with the organization's mission.
History
On May 28, 1984, Soros signed a contract between the Soros Foundation (New York) and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the founding document of the Soros Foundation Budapest. This was followed by several foundations in the region to help countries move away from Real socialism in the Eastern Bloc.
In 1991, the foundation merged with the Fondation pour une Entraide Intellectuelle Européenne, an affiliate of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, created in 1966 to imbue 'non-conformist' Eastern European scientists with anti-totalitarian and capitalist ideas.
Open Society Institute was created in the United States in 1993 to support the Soros foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia.
In August 2010, it started using the name Open Society Foundations (OSF) to better reflect its role as a benefactor for civil society groups in countries around the world.
Soros believes there can be no absolute answers to political questions because the same principle of reflexivity applies as in financial markets.
In 2012, Christopher Stone joined the OSF as the second president. He replaced Aryeh Neier, who served as president from 1993 to 2012. Stone announced in September 2017 that he was stepping down as president. In January 2018, Patrick Gaspard was appointed president of the Open Society Foundations. He announced in December 2020 that he was stepping down as president. In January 2021, Mark Malloch-Brown was appointed president of the Open Society Foundations.
In 2016, the OSF was reportedly the target of a cyber security breach. Documents and information reportedly belonging to the OSF were published by a website. The cyber security breach has been described as sharing similarities with Russian-linked cyberattacks that targeted other institutions, such as the Democratic National Committee.
In 2017, Soros transferred $18 billion to the Foundation.
Activities
Its $873 million budget in 2013, ranked as the second-largest private philanthropy budget in the United States, after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation budget of $3.9 billion. As of 2020, its budget increased to $1.2 billion.
The foundation reported granting at least $33 million to civil rights and social justice organizations in the United States. This funding included groups such as the Organization for Black Struggle and Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment that supported protests in the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin, the death of Eric Garner, the shooting of Tamir Rice and the shooting of Michael Brown. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the OSF spends much of its resources on democratic causes around the world, and has also contributed to groups such as the Tides Foundation.
OSF has been a major financial supporter of U.S. immigration reform, including establishing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
OSF projects have included the National Security and Human Rights Campaign and the Lindesmith Center, which conducted research on drug reform.
The Library of Congress Soros Foundation Visiting Fellows Program was initiated in 1990.
The OSF became a partner of the National Democratic Institute, a charitable organization which partnered with pro-democracy groups like the Gov2U project run by Scytl.
Reception and influence
In 2007, Nicolas Guilhot (a senior research associate of CNRS) wrote in Critical Sociology that the Open Society Foundations serve to perpetuate institutions that reinforce the existing social order, as the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation have done before them. Guilhot argues that control over the social sciences by moneyed interests has depoliticized this field and reinforced a capitalist view of modernization.
An OSF effort in 2008 in the African Great Lakes region aimed at spreading human rights awareness among prostitutes in Uganda and other nations in the area was not received well by the Ugandan authorities, who considered it an effort to legalize and legitimize prostitution.
Open Society Foundation has been criticized in pro-Israel editorials, Tablet Magazine, Arutz Sheva and Jewish Press, for including funding for the activist groups Adalah and I'lam, which they say are anti-Israel and support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Among the documents released by DCleaks, an OSF report reads "For a variety of reasons, we wanted to construct a diversified portfolio of grants dealing with Israel and Palestine, funding both Israeli Jewish and PCI (Palestinian Citizens of Israel) groups as well as building a portfolio of Palestinian grants and in all cases to maintain a low profile and relative distance—particularly on the advocacy front."
NGO Monitor, an Israeli NGO, produced a report which says, "Soros has been a frequent critic of Israeli government policy, and does not consider himself a Zionist, but there is no evidence that he or his family holds any special hostility or opposition to the existence of the state of Israel. This report will show that their support, and that of the Open Society Foundation, has nevertheless gone to organizations with such agendas." The report says its objective is to inform OSF, claiming: "The evidence demonstrates that Open Society funding contributes significantly to anti-Israel campaigns in three important respects:
Active in the Durban strategy;Funding aimed at weakening United States support for Israel by shifting public opinion regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran;Funding for Israeli political opposition groups on the fringes of Israeli society, which use the rhetoric of human rights to advocate for marginal political goals."
The report concludes, "Yet, to what degree Soros, his family, and the Open Society Foundation are aware of the cumulative impact on Israel and of the political warfare conducted by many of their beneficiaries is an open question."
In 2015, Russia banned the activities of the Open Society Foundations on its territory, declaring "It was found that the activity of the Open Society Foundations and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation represents a threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation and the security of the state".
In 2017, Open Society Foundations and other NGOs that promote open government and help refugees have been targeted for crackdowns by authoritarian and populist governments who have been emboldened by encouraging signals from the Trump Administration. Several politicians in eastern Europe, including Liviu Dragnea in Romania and typically right-wing figures Szilard Nemeth in Hungary, North Macedonia's Nikola Gruevski, who called for a "de-Sorosization" of society, and Poland's Jarosław Kaczyński, who has said that Soros-funded groups want "societies without identity", regard many of the NGO groups to be irritants at best, and threats at worst. Some of those Soros-funded advocacy groups in the region say the renewed attacks are harassment and intimidation, which became more open after the election of Donald Trump in the United States. Stefania Kapronczay of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, which receives half of its funding from Soros-backed foundations, claims that Hungarian officials are "testing the waters" in an effort to see "what they can get away with."
In 2017, the government of Pakistan ordered the Open Society Foundation to cease operations within the country.
In May 2018, Open Society Foundations announced they will move its office from Budapest to Berlin, amid Hungarian government interference.
In November 2018, Open Society Foundations announced they are ceasing operations in Turkey and closing their İstanbul and Ankara offices due to "false accusations and speculations beyond measure", amid pressure from Turkish government and governmental interference through detainment of Turkish intellectuals and liberal academics claimed to be associated with the foundation and related NGOs, associations and programs.
The Open Society and Its Enemies
Inspiration For George Soros' Open Society Foundations
Wikipedia
September 29, 2021
The Open Society and Its Enemies is a work on political philosophy by the philosopher Karl Popper, in which the author presents a "defense of the open society against its enemies", and offers a critique of theories of teleological historicism, according to which history unfolds inexorably according to universal laws. Popper indicts Plato, Hegel, and Marx as totalitarian for relying on historicism to underpin their political philosophies.
Written during World War II, The Open Society and Its Enemies was published in 1945 in London by Routledge in two volumes: "The Spell of Plato" and "The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath". A one-volume edition with a new introduction by Alan Ryan and an essay by E. H. Gombrich was published by Princeton University Press in 2013. The work was listed as one of the Modern Library Board's 100 Best Nonfiction books of the 20th century.
Summary
Popper develops a critique of historicism and a defense of the open society and liberal democracy. The subtitle of his first volume, "The Spell of Plato", makes clear Popper's view—namely, that most Plato interpreters through the ages have been seduced by Plato's greatness and inimitable style. In so doing, Popper argues, they have taken Plato's political philosophy as a benign idyll, without taking into account its dangerous tendencies toward totalitarian ideology.
Contrary to major Plato scholars of his day, Popper divorced Plato's ideas from those of Socrates, claiming that the former in his later years expressed none of the humanitarian and democratic tendencies of his teacher. In particular, Popper accuses Plato of betraying Socrates in the Republic, wherein Plato portrays Socrates sympathizing with totalitarianism (see: Socratic problem).
Popper extols Plato's analysis of social change and discontent, naming him as a great sociologist, yet rejects his solutions. Popper reads the emerging humanitarian ideals of Athenian democracy as the birth pangs of his coveted "open society". Plato's hatred of democracy led him, says Popper, "to defend lying, political miracles, tabooistic superstition, the suppression of truth, and ultimately, brutal violence." Popper feels that Plato's historicist ideas are driven by a fear of the change that liberal democracies bring about. Also, as an aristocrat and a relative of one-time Athenian dictator Critias, Plato according to Popper was sympathetic to the oligarchs of his own day and contemptuous of the common man. Popper also suspects that Plato was the victim of his own vanity, and had wished to become the supreme philosopher king of his vision.
The last chapter of the first volume bears the same title as the book, and conveys Popper's own philosophical explorations on the necessity of direct liberal democracy as the only form of government allowing institutional improvements without violence and bloodshed.
In volume two, "The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath", Popper criticises Hegel and Marx, tracing their ideas to Aristotle, and arguing that they were at the root of 20th century totalitarianism.
Insofar as Hegel is concerned, Popper favorably cites the views of Hegel's compatriot and personal acquaintance, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer,
Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan, who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense. This nonsense has been noisily proclaimed as immortal wisdom by mercenary followers and readily accepted as such by all fools, who thus joined into as perfect a chorus of admiration as had ever been heard before. The extensive field of spiritual influence with which Hegel was furnished by those in power has enabled him to achieve the intellectual corruption of a whole generation.
In the fifth section of his chapter on Hegel he deals with Hegel's influence on 20th century fascism, explicitly focusing on its historicist elements rather than its totalitarianism.
The next principal enemy of the open society, according to Popper, is Karl Marx. Popper concedes that, unlike Hegel, Marx deeply cared about the plight of ordinary people and the injustices that prevailed in his own day in capitalist societies. As well, Marx's writings offer keen economic, sociological, and historical insights. However, even where Popper considers Marx's views to have value, Popper considers Marx's historicism to have led him into overstating his case - for instance the importance of class struggle. Popper rejects outright Marx's perceived historicist, anti-rational, and totalitarian outlook.
Publication history
As Popper wrote in academic obscurity in New Zealand during World War II, several colleagues in philosophy and the social sciences assisted with the book's path to publication. Gombrich was entrusted with the task of finding a publisher, Friedrich Hayek wanted to recruit Popper to the London School of Economics and was enthused by his turn to social philosophy, and Lionel Robbins and Harold Laski reviewed the manuscript. J.N. Findlay suggested the book's title after three others had been discarded. ('A Social Philosophy for Everyman' was the original title of the manuscript; 'Three False Prophets: Plato-Hegel-Marx' and 'A Critique of Political Philosophy' were also considered and rejected.)
The book was not published in Russia until 1992.
In 2019, the book was released in audiobook format for the first time, narrated by Liam Gerrard. The audiobook was produced by arrangement with the University of Klagenfurt/Karl Popper Library, by Tantor Media, a division of Recorded Books
Reception and influence
Popper's book remains one of the most popular defenses of Western liberal values in the post-World War II era. Gilbert Ryle, reviewing Popper's book just two years after its publication and agreeing with him, wrote that Plato "was Socrates' Judas." The Open Society and Its Enemies was praised by the philosophers Bertrand Russell, who called it "a work of first-class importance" and "a vigorous and profound defence of democracy", and Sidney Hook who called it a "subtly argued and passionately written" critique of the "historicist ideas that threaten the love of freedom [and] the existence of an open society". Hook calls Popper's critique of the cardinal beliefs of historicism "undoubtedly sound", noting that historicism "overlooks the presence of genuine alternatives in history, the operation of plural causal processes in the historical pattern, and the role of human ideals in redetermining the future". Nevertheless, Hook argues that Popper "reads Plato too literally when it serves his purposes and is too cocksure about what Plato's 'real' meaning is when the texts are ambiguous", and calls Popper's treatment of Hegel "downright abusive" and "demonstrably false", noting that "there is not a single reference to Hegel in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf".
Some other philosophers were critical. Walter Kaufmann believed that Popper's work has many virtues, including its attack against totalitarianism, and many suggestive ideas. However, he also found it to have serious flaws, writing that Popper's interpretations of Plato were flawed and that Popper had provided a "comprehensive statement" of older myths about Hegel. Kaufmann commented that despite Popper's hatred of totalitarianism, Popper's method was "unfortunately similar to that of totalitarian 'scholars'".
In his The Open Philosophy and the Open Society: A Reply to Dr. Karl Popper's Refutations of Marxism (1968), the Marxist author Maurice Cornforth defended Marxism against Popper's criticisms. Though disagreeing with Popper, Cornforth nevertheless called him "perhaps the most eminent" critic of Marxism. The philosopher Robert C. Solomon writes that Popper directs an "almost wholly unjustified polemic" against Hegel, one which has helped to give Hegel a reputation as a "moral and political reactionary". The Marxist economist Ernest Mandel identifies The Open Society and Its Enemies as part of a literature, beginning with German social democrat Eduard Bernstein, that criticizes the dialectical method Marx borrowed from Hegel as "useless", "metaphysical", or "mystifying." He faults Popper and the other critics for their "positivist narrowness".
The political theorist Rajeev Bhargava argues that Popper "notoriously misreads Hegel and Marx", and that the formulation Popper deployed to defend liberal political values is "motivated by partisan ideological considerations grounded curiously in the most abstract metaphysical premises". In Jon Stewart's anthology The Hegel Myths and Legends (1996), The Open Society and Its Enemies is listed as a work that has propagated "myths" about Hegel. Stephen Houlgate writes that while Popper's accusation that Hegel sought to deceive others by use of dialectic is famous, it is also ignorant, as is Popper's charge that Hegel's account of sound and heat in the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences is "gibberish" although he does not elaborate further what specifically Hegel meant.
The Open Society Foundations, created by investor George Soros, were inspired in name and purpose by Popper's book.
The philosopher Joseph Agassi credits Popper with showing that historicism is a factor common to both fascism and Bolshevism.
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence - CSGV
Wikipedia
September 29, 2021
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (EFSGV or Ed Fund), its sister organization, are two parts of a national, non-profit gun control advocacy organization that is opposed to gun violence. Since 1974, it has supported reduction in American gun violence via education and legislation.
History
In 1974, the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society formed the National Coalition to Ban Handguns, a group of thirty affiliated religious, labor, and nonprofit organizations, with the goal of addressing "the high rates of gun-related crime and death in American society" by requiring licensing of gun owners, registering firearms, and banning private ownership of handguns. "Reasonable limited exceptions" were to be allowed for “police, military, licensed security guards, antique dealers who have guns in unfireable condition, and licensed pistol clubs where firearms are kept on the premises.” In the 1980s and 1990s, the coalition expanded to 44 member groups.
In 1989, following the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in Stockton, California, the National Coalition to Ban Handguns changed its name to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, in part because the group believed that assault weapons as well as handguns, should be outlawed.
Mission
According to CSGV, its mission is: "We believe that all Americans have a right to live in communities free from gun violence. We pursue this goal through policy development, strategic engagement, and effective advocacy." The organization has nine areas of focus, regarding issues and campaigns:
1. Opposition to the National Rifle Association's interpretation of Second Amendment rights.
2. Support for firearm microstamping, a ballistic identification technology intended to allow law enforcement to trace the serial number of a firearm from ejected cartridge cases recovered from crime scenes.3. Ban the private sale of guns by instituting universal background checks.4. Ban concealed carry.5. Opposition to the sale of what it classifies as assault weapons to private citizens.6. Support for "counter-marketing", a strategy intended to force changes in gun industry's marketing and distribution practices.7. Opposition to removing the duty to retreat in self-defense law (i.e., stand your ground laws).8. Support for stricter mental health screening for firearm purchases.9. Support for the repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
Leadership
- Joshua Horwitz is the Executive Director of CSGV/EFSGV. He is an attorney who joined the Education Fund in 1989 as Legal Director.
- Michael K. Beard is the founding President of the CSGV/EFSGV.
Membership
CSGV consisted of 47 organizations in March 2016. Among them are religious organizations, child welfare advocacy groups, public health professionals, social justice, and political action organizations.
The member groups are:
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- American Association of Suicidology
- American Ethical Union
- American Jewish Committee
- American Jewish Congress
- American Psychiatric Association
- American Public Health Association
- Americans for Democratic Action
- Association of Japanese Families of Gun Violence Victims in the U. S. A.
- Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America
- The Bible Holiness Movement, International
- Center for Science in the Public Interest
- Central Conference of American Rabbis
- Children's Defense Fund
- Child Welfare League of America, Inc.
- Church of the Brethren
- The Communitarian Network
- The Council of The Great City Schools
- DC for Democracy
- The DISARM Education Fund
- Fellowship of Reconciliation
- Friends Committee on National Legislation
- Jesuit Conference - Office of Social Ministries
- Jewish Community Center Association
- Jewish Women International
- Loretto Community
- National Association of School Psychologists
- National Association of Social Workers
- National Council of Jewish Women
- National Council of Negro Women
- National Urban League
- North American Federation of Temple Youth
- Pan American Trauma Association
- Peace Action of Washington
- Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
- Union for Reform Judaism
- Unitarian Universalist Association
- UNITE HERE
- United Church of Christ
- United Federation of Teachers
- United Methodist Church Board of Church & Society
- United States Conference of Mayors
- United States Student Association
- United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
- Woman's National Democratic Club
- Women's League for Conservative Judaism
- YWCA of U. S. A.
The FBI mishandled Larry Nassar's case
Now the DOJ is focusing on victim support
NPR: Web Edition Articles
October 1, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
The Justice Department is directing prosecutors to coordinate with state and local authorities in cases where federal charges won't be brought, part of a broad new push to support crime victims.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco outlined the new steps in a pair of memos Friday, days before she's scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. President Biden has called that law one of the most important legislative achievements in his long Senate career, and Monaco worked on the legislation as a young staffer before she attended law school.
"When considering whether to initiate federal criminal charges, we must never forget the people who put their trust in the Department to keep them safe," Monaco wrote. "Preventing violence or harm must be our top priority. Nowhere is this obligation more important than when vulnerable populations — including minors — are at risk."
The memo follows blistering criticism of the FBI for failing to do more to investigate disgraced former physician Larry Nassar, who sexually abused Olympic gymnasts and hundreds of other girls and young women before he was convicted and sentenced to decades behind bars. The Justice Department's Inspector General concluded that Nassar abused at least 70 victims after the FBI first received reports but failed to act promptly or to flag the concerns for local law enforcement authorities in Michigan.
Gymnast McKayla Maroney told senators last month that after she poured her heart out to an FBI interviewer about her abuse by Nassar, including details she had not shared with her parents, the agent replied, "Is that all?"
In a second memo, Monaco announced she would relaunch a working group for crime victims and update attorney general guidelines for victim and witness assistance, which she said have not had a comprehensive overhaul in a decade. She asked for recommendations within 120 days.
"The Department is committed to protecting crime victims' rights and treating victims and witnesses with respect in all of our interactions," Monaco wrote.
Early Friday, Monaco, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta attended a virtual listening session with members of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence.
Violence Against Women Act Will Allow Non-Romantic Relationships to Trigger Red Flag Gun Confiscation
Breitbart
October 05, 2021
The Violence Against Women Act of 2021 (VAWA), which passed the House in the Spring and could now be taken up by the Senate, contains a red flag provision applying even to those involved in non-romantic relationships.
The Los Angeles Times reported the VAWA, which passed the House in March, contained language to expand federal domestic partner laws to include boyfriends and dating partners. The expansion allows the inclusion of gun bans for boyfriends with a domestic violence conviction and also “expands the prohibition to current and former dating partners, as well as those convicted of misdemeanor stalking.”
The prohibitive language was part of a provision drafted by Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), who told the Times, “I’m not trying to take guns away from most people, but if someone’s demonstrated that they could abuse somebody, then we need to do something to prevent violence.”
Dingle pointed to Gabby Giffords’ gun control group as informing her decision to seek to broaden the prohibition. (David Chipman, once nominated by President Joe Biden to head the ATF, is a senior policy adviser at Giffords.)
In addition to expanding federal law to apply domestic partner rules to non-domestic partner relationships, the text of the VAWA makes clear that the prohibitions contained within the Act apply to relationships that are not even romantic in nature.
For example, under the heading “Prohibiting Persons Convicted of Misdemeanor Crimes Against Dating Partners and Subject to Protection Orders,” the Act states:
Nothing in this paragraph may be construed to require that sexual contact between two persons have occurred to establish the existence of any relationship for purposes of this paragraph. For purposes of this paragraph, the term ‘dating partner’ means, with respect to person, a person who is or has been in a social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the person.
It appears that a “social relationship” that may be “intimate” but not “romantic” falls under the purview of the VAWA as well.
On October 5, 2021, Radio Iowa published an interview with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in which he made clear he would support a VAWA that did not contain the gun controls evident in the current bill.
Grassley said, “I supported enactment of the original VAWA in 1994 and have voted to reauthorize and build the program many times.”
“There’s no disagreement on the original Violence Against Women Act. It’s when you try to get guns involved and the Second Amendment issues involved,” he added. “There’s probably four or five things that people want to stick onto this that have some relation against the Violence Against Women Act, but it brings out a lot of partisanship.”
Top DOJ official says decision not to prosecute FBI agents who lied in Nassar case under review
Gazette, The (Colorado Springs, CO)
October 5, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A top Justice Department official told lawmakers Tuesday that the attorney general is reviewing the controversial decision not to prosecute FBI agents accused of botching and lying about the explosive case involving the sexual abuse of the U.S. gymnastics team.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, who was personally criticized last month by victims of convicted sex predator and former team doctor Larry Nassar, said the DOJ is "currently reviewing this matter" after the department was ripped for not holding the FBI agents accountable.
"I do want the committee, and frankly, I want the survivors to understand how exceptionally seriously we take this issue. And we believe that this deserves a thorough and full review," Monaco, the Justice Department's second in command to Attorney General Merrick Garland, told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Monaco was slated to testify about efforts to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, but she was quickly grilled about the department's handling of the case against Nassar. The Justice Department's own watchdog in July found the FBI repeatedly ignored sexual abuse allegations against Nassar. The damning report showed that bureau officials didn't take the claims seriously, failed to alert local authorities, broke FBI rules, covered up their missteps, and lied to investigators.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said last month that DOJ prosecutors declined prosecution against the FBI agents in 2020 and 2021.
Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Monaco he was shocked at the decision not to prosecute the agents.
"What is your response to the criticism over the department's decision not to prosecute these FBI agents?" Durbin asked.
The query prompted Monaco to reveal that the assistant attorney general for the criminal division, Kenneth Polite, is conducting the review. She said it is a top priority.
"I think you could be assured there is a sense of urgency and gravity with the work that needs to be done," Monaco said.
Gymnastic stars Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman condemned USA Gymnastics, the Olympic committees, and the FBI for ignoring, or helping cover up, sexual abuse allegations about Nassar during an emotional Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month. Maroney specifically called out Monaco for not showing up to testify.
"The Department of Justice refused to prosecute these individuals. Why?" Maroney said. "Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco couldn't even bring herself to be here today, and it is the Department of Justice's job to hold them accountable. I am tired of waiting for people to do the right thing — because my abuse was enough, and we deserve justice."
USA Gymnastics conducted an internal investigation into sexual assault allegations leveled against Nassar, and USA Gymnastics CEO Stephen Penny Jr. alerted the FBI's Indianapolis Field Office in July 2015. But the FBI did little to follow up.
Michael Langeman, the FBI supervisory special agent who interviewed Maroney in 2015 about her claims, was fired from the FBI ahead of last month's hearing. Langeman had been a lead agent at the FBI's Indianapolis Field Office, and DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's July report concluded that he and former Indianapolis Field Office Special Agent in Charge W. Jay Abbott lied to the department watchdog.
Durbin asked Horowitz last month whether the "deliberate misrepresentations" by Abbott and Langeman reached the level of criminal violations.
"They violated criminal law sufficiently that — what we do at that point is make the referral to prosecutors to assess them because that's who needs to make the assessment whether or not there will be charges brought," Horowitz said.
On Tuesday, Monaco said she was outraged by the inspector general's report and apologized to the victims.
"I am deeply sorry that, in this case, the victims did not receive the response or the protection they deserved," she said.
Nassar pleaded guilty in 2017 to federal charges of child pornography and tampering. Combined with a guilty plea in Michigan state court to counts of sexual assault, that sets Nassar up to spend the rest of his life in prison.
DURBIN DELIVERS OPENING REMARKS DURING HEARING ON RENEWING AND STRENGTHENING THE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT
October 5, 2021
US Fed News (USA)
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 -- The office of Sen. Dick Durbin issued the following press release:
WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today delivered his opening statement during a hearing entitled "Renewing and Strengthening the Violence Against Women Act." The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which requires legislative renewal every five years, initially expired in late 2018 due to the government shutdown. After a brief reauthorization in the temporary spending bill, it expired again in February 2019. Though funding for critical programs has continued, a bipartisan VAWA reauthorization bill is necessary to strengthen a critical lifeline for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. Durbin is co-leading a bipartisan group of Senators in an effort to renew and strengthen this legislation.
Key quotes:
"And over the past 18 months, many survivors have been forced into the most vulnerable position of all: Isolated at home with an abuser. During this pandemic, nearly four in ten rape crisis centers-and nearly half of YWCA domestic violence programs-have reported an increase in demand for their services. Police departments throughout the country have also reported a spike in arrests and calls related to domestic violence."
"A friend of mine, and vocal advocate for survivors of domestic violence, the late Sheila Wellstone used to say, 'I find it absolutely intolerable to think that a woman's home can be the most violent, most dangerous, and oftentimes most deadly place she can be.' This is the unacceptable reality for far too many women in America. And that's why the Senate must reauthorize, and strengthen, the law that, for nearly 30 years, has transformed the way we address sexual and domestic violence in America: the Violence Against Women Act."
"Like the House-passed bill, our legislation will modernize and improve this vital law-and it won't rollback the progress that we have made. This new version of the Violence Against Women Act will not only provide funding to the organizations and resources that support survivors; it will invest in critical prevention and education efforts; it will improve access to services for survivors in rural areas and those who require culturally specific services; it will enhance protections for Native American women and children; it will help keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of abusers; and it will provide survivors with the support they need by expanding access to legal services and other crucial programs."
LEAHY REMARKS HEARING ON "RENEWING AND STRENGTHENING THE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT"
US Fed News (USA)
October 5, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 -- Sen. Patrick Leahy issued the following press release:
Thank you to Chair Durbin and Ranking Member Grassley for holding this hearing. The Violence Against Women Act has been a bedrock of the Federal Government's response to domestic violence and sexual assault since it was enacted in 1994, and it is certainly one of the most consequential pieces of legislation within this Committee's jurisdiction.
But with our evolving world comes the need to not only reauthorize this law, but to update and strengthen it as well. In 2013, passing a strong, bipartisan Violence Against Women Act reauthorization was a top priority of mine as Chairman of this Committee. I proudly partnered with Senator Crapo and we did just that - our bipartisan bill was cosponsored by a total of 62 Senators and passed the Senate overwhelmingly with 78 votes in favor. And despite efforts by some skeptics to water down that bill to make it easier to pass, we stood by survivors and victim services professionals who called for legislation that would protect all victims-regardless of their immigration status, their sexual orientation, or their membership in an Indian tribe.
Unfortunately, I am far less satisfied with how the Senate has failed to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act since 2013. Nearly two years have already passed since I joined with my friend, Senator Feinstein, in introducing the last reauthorization, which passed the House with a strong, bipartisan vote. I am glad that under new Senate leadership this Congress, we seem to be working in a more diligent, bipartisan manner, and we are set to introduce a broadly-supported Senate VAWA bill very soon.
But this is not about politics. This is about listening to survivors and ensuring that those on the front lines working to prevent domestic and sexual violence have all the tools they need. We must also acknowledge the incredible dangers and stresses that a nearly two-year COVID-19 pandemic has caused. Social distancing pushed many survivors living with their abusers further into isolation. Victim service providers are struggling to meet increasing housing and economic needs. In short, the programs that VAWA supports make a real difference to these survivors and to their families. We owe it to them to work together on this bill and introduce a strong, bipartisan bill without delay.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco Testifies Before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act
Department Of Justice
October 5, 2021
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Grassley, and members of the Committee. I appreciate very much the opportunity to speak to you today. The Violence Against Women Act has had an enormous impact in combatting domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking, and I am here to urge Congress to reauthorize and to strengthen it.
Before we get started though, Mr. Chairman with your indulgence, I would like to recognize several tragedies that the Department of Justice has suffered in recent days. Yesterday in Tucson, Arizona, a DEA agent was shot and killed, and a second DEA agent and a task force officer were shot and wounded. Separately, last Friday, a Deputy U.S. Marshal succumbed to injuries from a vehicle accident that occurred while he was assisting with a law enforcement operation. These sacrifices remind all of us of the risks law enforcement take every day to protect the communities that they serve. My thoughts and prayers are with their families, and the men and women of the DEA and the U.S. Marshals Service.
Now Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Grassley, the original passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994, as you have noted Mr. Chairman, had a major impact on my own life. At the time I was a young staff member on this Committee, working for then-Chairman Biden, and one of my responsibilities included responding to letters from people who wrote to the Committee. Time and again, I read firsthand accounts not only about the violence that too many people — mostly women — suffered at the hands of their intimate partners, but also about the lack of accountability for these crimes.
Statistics the Committee reported during that period painted a very grim picture: 98% of rape victims never saw their attacker caught, tried and imprisoned — meaning almost all perpetrators of rape walked free. Fewer than half of people arrested for rape were convicted, and almost half of convicted rapists could expect to serve a year or less in jail.
My conversations with individual survivors, rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, emergency rooms and police stations put a tragic human face on those statistics. This experience led me to want to go to law school and it led me into public service; it drew me to a career in law enforcement and criminal justice. With the passage of VAWA, I saw how a law could make a real difference in people’s lives and I saw what Congress could accomplish through thoughtful policy, driven by courageous voices, experts and bipartisan leadership.
Congress reauthorized VAWA in 2000, 2005, and 2013 — each time with bipartisan support. Over the years, we have made substantial progress, but the need for VAWA’s programs and protections is as critical as ever. I would like to highlight just a few of the items the department sees as priorities for a reauthorization bill:
First, reauthorizing VAWA’s vitally important grant programs at the $1 billion funding levels included in the President’s FY 2022 request, this will ensure communities can provide critical services to survivors, as well as the right tools and training to make sure that responses to these crimes are survivor-centered and trauma-informed. I am pleased to announce today that the Office of Violence Against Women has issued this year more than $476 million in grants to help state, local and tribal organizations support survivors as they heal, promote victim access to justice and train professionals to respond to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Second, we need to find new ways to reach and improve services for underserved populations, including culturally specific communities.
Third, expanding the ability of tribes to protect their communities from domestic and sexual violence through expanded jurisdiction.
And fourth, reducing homicides through federal firearms laws, including by closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole” that leaves countless victims at risk.
Before I take your questions Mr. Chairman, I want to speak to two recent issues that have received considerable national attention and underscore the continued importance of VAWA.
The tragic murder of Gabby Petito has been at the forefront of many people’s minds. While I will not speak to the ongoing investigation regarding her death, I am struck by two critical lessons we should take away from the publicly-reported information, not just in this case but in the thousands of other cases that don’t receive public attention. First is the importance of the bystander’s 911 call, which prompted law enforcement to respond to reports of violence between Ms. Petito and her boyfriend. The second, as we learned from watching the public video footage of interviews conducted by those officers, is the vital importance of having trained law enforcement who understand the dynamics of domestic violence when responding to such incidents.
But we should not forget that Gabby Petito is not alone — there are more than 89,000 missing person cases in this country, and roughly 45% of them involve people of color, including too many missing and murdered indigenous persons. Gender-based violence is too often a precursor to these cases, and while these cases often don’t receive public attention, the Department of Justice will continue its work to prevent these crimes and to bring perpetrators to justice.
Finally, I want to recognize the many courageous women athletes who have spoken out and testified on behalf of the hundreds of survivors of Larry Nassar’s horrific sexual abuse, most recently the four brave women who came before this Committee last month. I also want to thank this Committee for its work and that of the Inspector General bringing to light a system that inexcusably failed them and the scores of other survivors.
As the Deputy Attorney General, as a lawyer, as a former FBI official – and as a woman – I was outraged by the Inspector General’s findings and horrified at the experiences Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman recounted in their powerful testimony. I am deeply sorry that in this case, the victims did not receive the response or the protection they deserved.
I have discussed with the FBI Director the full scope of changes he is instituting to ensure this never happens again. I have also directed additional measures inside the Department of Justice to ensure that where there is an ongoing threat, violence or abuse especially when involving vulnerable victims, that our prosecutors understand they have a duty to coordinate with our local law enforcement partners to address it. And I have made clear that it is a priority of the Department of Justice to provide to victims and witnesses of crime the support that they need.
My experience working on VAWA for this Committee many years ago taught me a key principle that guides me still today: our government has a moral obligation to protect its citizens. And when it falls short in that effort, we must listen to those who we have let down, to better understand where we can improve. Survivors who come forward to report abuse must be met with competent and compassionate professionals who have the resources, training and institutional support to do their jobs. That is the promise of VAWA, and one the Department of Justice is committed to carrying out in our own organization, and in VAWA-funded programs and work throughout the country.
I appreciate the time and attention of the many members of Congress who have contributed to this important legislation — many for decades. I look forward to continuing that work with this Committee and to answering your questions today.
Thank you.
Anita Hill: Not Acceptable for Biden to Just ‘Apologize for the Past’ — Needs Help Stop Sexual Assault
Breitbart
October 08, 2021
Anita Hill, who once accused Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his confirmation hearings in 1991, said on MSNBC’s “TheReidOut” on Friday that President Joe Biden needed to do more than just apologize for the past.
Hill asserted Biden needs to put together a plan to eliminate sexual harassment.
Hill said, “There has been greater awareness of the problem of sexual harassment and all gender violence over the past 30 years and, you know, that is tremendous. We shouldn’t overlook that. However, when we witness the Kavanaugh hearings, you are correct. It was just like nothing ever happened.”
Anchor Joy Reid said, “If we put back up the list of people on the Judiciary Committee at the time that Clearance Thomas was approved, you can see at the top of the list is a guy named Joe Biden then a senator from Delaware and chairman of the committee. He’s now president of the United States. He, of course, wrote the Violence Against Women Act and the response responsible for that being passed and fought for that act. Have you had and had the opportunity to have conversations with the president either before he was elected for president or since about this very issue, about what can be done to make things actually begin to change? And if you have, can you tell us what he had to say?
Hill said, “Yes, well, I had a brief conversation with him before he announced his presidency or run for the presidency. And he did apologize for the way he managed the hearing in 1991. What I need to hear now and I think what the American public needs to hear given his role in ’91, even given his role with the Violence Against Women Act and the efforts on college campuses to stop sexual assault, all of those put him in the position to be a leader for change, to be a leader that acknowledges the enormity of that problem and I mapped the enormity out and the pervasiveness of it throughout the institutions. Given the reality of today, it’s no longer acceptable just to apologize for the past. What we need to be doing is looking to the future and acknowledging the problem and putting together an agenda to eliminate it.”
Joe Biden Uses Law Enforcement Memorial to Push Gun Control, Police Reform, and Condemn January 6
Breitbart
October 16, 2021
President Joe Biden spoke at the 40th Annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service on Saturday, using the occasion to push gun control, police reform, and the narrative that the January 6 protests were an “insurrection” and a fundamental threat to democracy.
The president spoke on the steps of Capitol Hill, praising the Capitol Police who defended the building during the January 6 protests.
“Here, nine months ago, your brothers and sisters thwarted an unconstitutional and fundamentally un-American attack on our nation’s values and our votes,” Biden said. “Because of you, Democracy survived.”
Biden criticized the public for expecting too much from police officers, being the first to respond to mental health incidents and domestic disputes.
“Being a cop today is one hell of a lot harder than it’s ever been,” he said, noting that 2020 was the deadliest year for law enforcement on record.
Biden vowed to keep pushing for more police reform legislation to give law enforcement officers more tools to police communities better.
“We haven’t got anywhere yet, but we’ll get there,” he promised.
The president said police officers should have the support of mental health workers who could better handle difficult situations on the job.
“You shouldn’t be the one having to talk someone off the edge of the roof,” he said. “You should have professional help with you.”
Biden recalled losing his son Beau to cancer, and the loss of his young daughter in a car wreck, in an effort to express sympathy with the families who lost loved ones in the line of duty.
He also used the remarks to push for more gun control.
“We need to work together to confront the epidemic of gun violence,” Biden said, noting that police officers around the country were “outgunned” in law enforcement issues.
He noted that his Justice Department under Attorney General Garland to keep guns out of the hands of “dangerous individuals” and holding gun companies responsible.
The president pushed for expanding red-flag laws in states to take away guns from people deemed unsafe and also promoted Democrat efforts to expand red-flag provisions in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
“These steps will protect you and protect the people you serve,” he said.
VIDEO - Rep. Debbie Dingell recounts horrific childhood experience with domestic violence
Washington Post Live
October 21, 2021
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich): "You know, it's still really hard for me to talk about my own personal situation, and I never know how I'm going to react as we have the discussion. And as you say to me, "how things have changed," I think for too many of us - for too many, it hasn't changed. They're still -
When I was a child, I grew up in a home with a father that suffered from - you know, now we realize that many people self-medicate, take medicine. He was a drug addict. Probably because he had an underlying problem. And his mood swings, his temperament could result in very angry situations where the presence of a gun in our home was very dangerous.
And there was more than one occasion where we really thought that we would die. The hiding in the closets, my mother running from the house, my getting in between them, trying to grab the gun, trying to keep them from killing each other, the nights he would take the door handles off all of the doors so we couldn't escape. There are a lot of memories.
And I called the police then, and they wouldn't even come because it was our father. It was a family member that everybody knew, and you didn't think things like that could happen. It stayed in our family later as -
That night, the worst night I remember the most horrifically was the night before my youngest sister was supposed to start first grade, and I don't think that she ever got over that night or was ever okay. And, ultimately, she was in a situation that resulted in every bone in her face being broken. She was, like many children who've lived in homes where they've seen this kind of behavior, afraid to fight back. And, ultimately, she too, died of a drug overdose.
But, I talk to a lot of people. I try to help a lot of women. And even today - It's hard for me, and my mother is still alive. It's a very difficult time. We don't talk about it in - I do with my sister. I can't even talk to my brother about it. I think too many women feel that stigma still.
Many women are economically dependent in a situation. The pandemic has made it worse. And while I think we're more willing to acknowledge that it happens, we are - have passed - We need to reauthorize, but they did pass the Violence Against Women Act in the Congress. It needs to be reauthorized. We passed in it the House. It still needs to be acted on by the Senate.
But I still think, for too many, there are a variety of reason that people don't talk about it, won't talk about it, and are trapped in situations they shouldn't be trapped in."
VIDEO - Rep. Debbie Dingell: Zero Tolerance for Domestic Abusers Act [HR 1494] And The NRA
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And we’ve had an awful lot of feedback from audience members who have questions for you both. I’d like to turn first to you, Representative Dingell, with a question that came to us from Mary--I’m going to read it to you--in Maryland. And she asks, "Can you speak to the intersection of guns and intimate partner violence?"
You raised that in your introductory discussion just now. Could you address it for Mary, too?
REP. DINGELL: So, I have a bill that has been incorporated into the Violence Against Women Act and working with Jackie that we would continue to do this that would prevent people who have been convicted of domestic violence from being able to own a gun.
We know that 76 percent of women who have been murdered by a former or current intimate partner reported stalking in the year previously to their murder, and we know--so when my father would lose it or hit one of his moods and that gun was present, we know that the gun’s presence in that kind of volatile situation is extremely dangerous. So, we--that’s why we’re--I’m working with Jackie and some of my other women colleagues to try to keep guns out of the hands of those who have had a previous record, because when--if you’ve lived with someone who has these kinds of mood swings, the letter that Jackie just read is so similar to the stories I know she’s heard her entire life in her career of trying to help women I hear. That presence of a gun, when that behavior snaps, when that anger snaps just leads to very dangerous volatile situations.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Representative Speier, you’ve spent so much time working on these issues in the military, and we know that when women--and it’s not only women but largely women--when women come forward, they’re often not given the protection that they need and ask for. How has your work in the military informed your work on domestic violence elsewhere?
REP. SPEIER: Well, I will tell you not only is it--the issue of sexual assault in the military, where some 20,000 servicemembers are sexually assaulted a year--more women than men but a very large number of men, as well--that so few come forward because the system for so long has been rigged, and so less than 6,000 would report. And of those, maybe 500 would go to a court martial, and then less than 150 would actually serve time in the brig. So, that was initially my effort.
But then we started talking to domestic violence shelters near bases and found out that the way the military was handling domestic violence was really abominable. They would send the violator to cool off for a couple of days in the barracks before they returned home. I was at one base where it wasn’t until they were able to get an ultrasound machine that could detect bruising under the skin that many of these cases had the clarity they deserved, because when you’re being strangled, sometimes there aren’t bruises that you will see visibly on the skin, but with the right kind of ultrasound it can be identified. And the numbers went way up once they were able to employ that particular equipment. So, the military is a microcosm of our country, our ethos, our values, and frankly our morality.
And as Debbie mentioned, the Violence Against Women Act hasn’t been reauthorized for over 900 days, when it used to be a bipartisan measure supported by both Republicans and Democrats. Then Senator Biden was the author of it, and it got renewed every five or six years. It’s been held up now by the National Rifle Association because of the provision that Debbie mentioned about not wanting to have those who have been convicted of domestic violence from owning a gun again. So, this becomes an issue that is far bigger than just violence against women in that it has the overlay of very powerful organizations that have a lot of clout with some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
MI Congresswoman Debbie Dingell - Zero Tolerance For Abusers Act/ H.R. 1494
117th Congress (2021-2022)
Introduced in House (03/02/2021)
Experts discuss efforts to combat rise in domestic violence fueled by pandemic (Full Stream 10/21)
Washington Post Live
October 21, 2021
More than 12 million American men and women a year are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner. As the coronavirus pandemic has forced many families to shelter in place over the last 18 months, the numbers of domestic violence and child abuse cases have skyrocketed at an outsized pace. Join Washington Post Live on Thursday, Oct. 21 for a series of conversations with experts that go in-depth about how the mental health impact of domestic violence influences other facets of survivor’s lives and how the pandemic has renewed efforts to pass legislation to combat abuse.
Washington Post Live is the newsroom’s live journalism platform, featuring interviews with top-level government officials, business leaders, cultural influencers and emerging voices on the most pressing issues driving the news cycle nationally and across the globe. From one-on-one, newsmaker interviews to in-depth multi-segment programs, Washington Post Live brings The Post’s newsroom to life on stage.
Domestic Violence in America with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Margarita Guzmán, Rachel Louise Snyder & Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) - Full Transcript
Washington Post Live
October 21, 2021
More than 12 million American men and women a year are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner. As the coronavirus pandemic has forced many families to shelter in place over the last 18 months, the numbers of domestic violence and child abuse cases have skyrocketed at an outsized pace.
Join Washington Post Live for a series of conversations with experts that go in-depth about how the mental health impact of domestic violence influences other facets of survivor’s lives and how the pandemic has renewed efforts to pass legislation to combat abuse.
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MS. STEAD SELLERS: Hello and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m France Stead Sellers, a senior writer here at The Post. Domestic violence is a terror that affects millions of Americans every year, and the pandemic has exacerbated concerns around it. Here today to talk about legislative action around domestic abuse and intimate partner violence, I’m delighted to welcome Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and Jackie Speier. A very warm welcome to both to Washington Post Live.
REP. DINGELL: Good to be with you and with my colleague, Jackie.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: We are delighted to have you both. Debbie, I had hoped to begin with a question for you, and I’m hoping you can hear us, there. I gather--I watched last night your 2019 account of how domestic violence is a personal issue for you, and I hope you could address the stigmas and how they have changed in the past few years around talking about domestic violence.
REP. DINGELL: So, thank you for that question. You know, it’s still really hard for me to talk about my own personal situation, and I never know what’s going--how I’m going to react as we have that discussion.
And as you say to me, how things have changed, I think for too many of us, for too many it hasn’t changed. There’s still--when I was a child, I grew up in a home with a father that suffered from--you know, now, we realize that many people self-medicate, take medicine. He was a drug addict, probably because he had an underlying problem. And his mood swings, his temperament could result in very angry situations where the presence of a gun in our home was very dangerous. And there was more than one occasion where we really thought that we would die, the hiding in the closets, my mother running from the house, my getting in between them, trying to grab the gun, trying to keep them from killing each other, the nights he would take the door handles of all of the doors so we couldn’t escape. There are a lot of memories.
And I called the police then, and they wouldn’t even come, because it was our father, it was a family that everybody knew, and you didn’t think things like that could happen. It stayed in our family. Later, as we got--that night--the worst night, the night I remember the most horrifically was the night before my youngest sister was supposed to start first grade, and I don’t think she ever got over that night or was ever okay. And ultimately, she was in a situation that resulted in every bone in her face being broken. She was like many children who’ve lived in homes where they’ve seen this kind of behavior, afraid to fight back, and ultimately, she too died of a drug overdose.
But I talk to a lot of people. I try to help a lot of women. And even today, it’s hard for me--and my mother is still alive. It’s a very difficult time. We don’t talk about it in--I do with my sister. I can’t even talk to my brother about it. I think too many women feel that stigma still. Many women are economically dependent in a situation. The pandemic has made it worse. And while I think we’re more willing to acknowledge that it happens, we are--have passed--we need to reauthorize, but they did pass the Violence Against Women Act in the Congress. It needs to be reauthorized. We passed it in the House. It still needs to be acted on by the Senate. But there I still think for too many there are a variety of reasons that people don’t talk about it, won’t talk about it, and feel--and are trapped in situations they shouldn’t be trapped in.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Thank you for telling us about that.
It brings me to a question to you, Representative Speier. Representative Dingell had the courage to bring these issues in such a personal way to this program but also to the House floor. Could you talk to us about the importance of reauthorizing the main federal mechanism we have, the Family Violence Prevention & Services Act and what you’re doing--what it will mean moving ahead? There’s a little bit of a lag on that time. I’m going to move onto a question, an audience question.
REP. SPEIER: Here, you know what? I was muted. I apologize.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: That’s okay.
REP. SPEIER: That particular act is responsible for funding the majority of domestic violence shelters across the country, and for decades, much like Congresswoman Dingell--and by the way, every time I hear Debbie tell that story I cringe, so her courage in doing so is quite powerful.
But for all the years that I’ve worked on this issue area, I’m reminded that we are always coming with a tin cup to provide funding for domestic violence shelters. We spend at one point six--we have six times as many animal shelters as we have domestic violence shelters in this country. I think the pandemic has underscored the atrocity of domestic violence, and the numbers went up, the needs went up, the hotline usage went up.
And if I could, I’d like to just share a letter I received from a constituent in the early part of 2020. She wrote: “I am writing to you as a woman who is living in fear because I have a husband that hurts me and my kids. Since he has to stay home and cannot work because of the virus, he drinks and then screams and then slaps me and my kids. When he’s working, he comes home and drinks with dinner and then falls asleep. Now that he is home all day, he drinks early and gets very mean.” So, the pandemic actually has made matters worse for so many victims of domestic violence.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Yeah, these are really, really troubling questions. And we’ve had an awful lot of feedback from audience members who have questions for you both. I’d like to turn first to you, Representative Dingell, with a question that came to us from Mary--I’m going to read it to you--in Maryland. And she asks, "Can you speak to the intersection of guns and intimate partner violence?"
You raised that in your introductory discussion just now. Could you address it for Mary, too?
REP. DINGELL: So, I have a bill that has been incorporated into the Violence Against Women Act and working with Jackie that we would continue to do this that would prevent people who have been convicted of domestic violence from being able to own a gun.
We know that 76 percent of women who have been murdered by a former or current intimate partner reported stalking in the year previously to their murder, and we know--so when my father would lose it or hit one of his moods and that gun was present, we know that the gun’s presence in that kind of volatile situation is extremely dangerous. So, we--that’s why we’re--I’m working with Jackie and some of my other women colleagues to try to keep guns out of the hands of those who have had a previous record, because when--if you’ve lived with someone who has these kinds of mood swings, the letter that Jackie just read is so similar to the stories I know she’s heard her entire life in her career of trying to help women I hear. That presence of a gun, when that behavior snaps, when that anger snaps just leads to very dangerous volatile situations.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Representative Speier, you’ve spent so much time working on these issues in the military, and we know that when women--and it’s not only women but largely women--when women come forward, they’re often not given the protection that they need and ask for. How has your work in the military informed your work on domestic violence elsewhere?
REP. SPEIER: Well, I will tell you not only is it--the issue of sexual assault in the military, where some 20,000 servicemembers are sexually assaulted a year--more women than men but a very large number of men, as well--that so few come forward because the system for so long has been rigged, and so less than 6,000 would report. And of those, maybe 500 would go to a court martial, and then less than 150 would actually serve time in the brig. So, that was initially my effort.
But then we started talking to domestic violence shelters near bases and found out that the way the military was handling domestic violence was really abominable. They would send the violator to cool off for a couple of days in the barracks before they returned home. I was at one base where it wasn’t until they were able to get an ultrasound machine that could detect bruising under the skin that many of these cases had the clarity they deserved, because when you’re being strangled, sometimes there aren’t bruises that you will see visibly on the skin, but with the right kind of ultrasound it can be identified. And the numbers went way up once they were able to employ that particular equipment. So, the military is a microcosm of our country, our ethos, our values, and frankly our morality.
And as Debbie mentioned, the Violence Against Women Act hasn’t been reauthorized for over 900 days, when it used to be a bipartisan measure supported by both Republicans and Democrats. Then Senator Biden was the author of it, and it got renewed every five or six years. It’s been held up now by the National Rifle Association because of the provision that Debbie mentioned about not wanting to have those who have been convicted of domestic violence from owning a gun again. So, this becomes an issue that is far bigger than just violence against women in that it has the overlay of very powerful organizations that have a lot of clout with some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Well, I have a follow-up question. We’re talking about these incredibly troubling historic processes that keep on and on and you’re both wrestling to overcome. But, Representative Speier, there’s also the issue of some more modern things like revenge porn. And I know you’ve taken action against that. Could you talk to us a little bit about how prevalent it is and what you’re doing to try to stop this form of terror?
REP. SPEIER: So, it is in this age of technology and social media an opportunity for people to do harm to what was at one point an intimate partner.
So, the SHIELD Act, which I authored which took five years in the making, has passed the House and is now in the Senate. And it has the power, really, to create criminal conduct out of those who would take intimate photographs and without the consent of the person who was photographed, share them online. And once they’re shared online, no matter how many times you take them off, they will reappear. And I can’t tell you the number of witnesses who’ve testified on that legislation whose lives have been destroyed, whose careers have been destroyed because these photographs keep cropping up.
We also say that in the military when Marines United was going on and we had soldiers who were taking pictures of other Marines and then posting them online on a private website. And it is--it is conduct that needs to be criminally addressed, and hopefully the Senate will eventually take up this legislation.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, another recent change, of course, is the pandemic, Representative Dingell. It has upturned so much in terms of increasing economic insecurity and forcing people, as we’ve mentioned earlier on, to spend more time at home. But could you talk specifically, Representative Dingell, about what the pandemic has done to exacerbate the problems around managing domestic violence?
REP. DINGELL: Well, it’s already a very bad situation when you’re living in those kind of moments and situations. And I do want to build on what--Jackie’s been such a leader on this, who was doing things on this long before I got to Congress, and I really want to commend her for all that she’s done. And she mentioned that, you know, men also are victims. One in three women and one in four men will during their lifetime experience some kind of physical violence, rape, or something horrific. So, this is a real problem.
And just one more statistic that’s really depressing is that already 1 in 10 high schoolers has experienced this kind of violence. Now you’re living with that kind of mood. You’re living with that kind of person who is volatile, their mood swings are frequently unpredictable. I lived with it, so I guess it’s--I know what it’s like. And you have nowhere to escape.
I mean, when the pandemic first hit, we weren’t--we were all quarantined in our homes. You couldn’t--if you were scared, you were hurt, you couldn’t--the abuser would keep you from using the phone. And then, how many women left the workforce because of fear issues? They didn’t have jobs. They’re very concerned about how they would economically support themselves, support their children. So, they feel trapped. And the abuser is frustrated and in very difficult times, and it’s just a formula that has made the last year a disaster.
I’ve worked with many people in law enforcement over the last year-and-a-half. It’s the worst kind of case someone from law enforcement can respond to. I know one family who an officer was killed responding to one of these calls. It’s been a really hard time for people that are in these kinds of situations, afraid to get help, afraid to talk about the problem. The issues are--it’s really complicated why people feel that they stay in those situations. And we have seen very, very, very significant increases in domestic abuse this last year.
REP. SPEIER: You know--
MS. STEAD SELLERS: A quick follow-up--oh, go ahead.
REP. SPEIER: We also, as a result of the American Rescue Plan, put a $180 million into domestic violence shelters because we recognize there was an issue there, and then there was another $50 million that was provided for culturally specific services for communities of color. So, we did act, and hopefully that money got to the shelters and to the victims and those resources were used appropriately.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And how much of that--maybe one of you could answer--and, Representative Dingell, I had intended to ask you how much of that is going to local organizations that are culturally specifically able to address the different issues that come up in different parts of our very diverse country?
REP. DINGELL: Well, I think Jackie talked about it. We were trying to target those dollars there. And you know, so I mean, it’s also when you do talk about culture, we were trying to get into diverse populations.
But for instance, in my district I have a significant Muslim population as well, where ACCESS, which is an organization that was started--socioeconomic organization that was started to provide healthcare and is engaged in another--a number of other issues, began a domestic abuse program a number of years ago. And this is a very difficult issue in that community, and we--thanks to some--Jackie led on getting that money in the American Rescue Plan with the rest of us supporting her. But you have to go to the imams. You have to go to other people in the community. This is a very complicated issue. And I wish that we had made more progress on it than we have. But to too many, the stigma associated with it is very significant.
Actually, as Jackie talked about, men do suffer from this, too. Imagine being a man whose wife hits him or [audio interference] and the stigma, acknowledging that as well. This is a very complicated subject.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And a quick follow-up for you. How are we addressing the substantial mental health issues that come following these issues for survivors?
REP. DINGELL: I don’t know which one of us--I mean, I would tell you we’re not doing nearly enough for mental health, period, in this country. We haven’t put the resources in it. We don’t treat it like other--and I’ve seen it too often in my own situation.
I believe we do--we have both drug and alcohol abuse problems in this country, but people are self-medicating. They suffer from anxiety. They have--you know, my father may have been bipolar or had more serious issues. We didn’t even talk about it back then. You didn’t--it simply wasn’t acknowledged. We are I think working very hard as communities to try to remove the stigma and get more resources devoted to mental health issues. But it’s still a very, very real problem. And while people like Jackie and myself and my colleagues are trying to get more money devoted to it and trying to remove the stigma, it’s still very real and not nearly enough resources going to it.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: We have another audience question. We’ve had many of them. And this is for Representative Speier, and it comes from Mary in Florida, and Mary says, when can coercive control or emotional abuse be made a crime, like in Ireland, she writes.
REP. SPEIER: Good question. Coercive--I mean, it’s all in the definition. I think we have tried to expand the definition of domestic violence to include not just the violence that happens in the home but the violence that happens after there’s a breakup in a relationship, because, you know, that’s when the stalking occurs. Oftentimes, that’s when the victim is most at risk.
So, I can’t answer your question specifically, but, you know, like everything else, frankly, our country is way behind European countries in terms of dealing with many of these social issues, whether it’s childcare or parental leave. Those programs were embraced in the--as early as 1914 for maternity care and maternity leave in France, and then childcare in the '60s in many other European countries. So, it doesn’t surprise me that Ireland has taken action on the issue of coercive abuse before we have.
For the longest time we had a difficult time having my colleagues recognize that you could have marital rape and that that was indeed a crime as well. So, we are just way behind other countries.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: I have a last question, and maybe you could both answer it just very briefly. And I’ll start with you, Representative, Dingell, if I may. We have a change of administration, a president who has made domestic violence a core concern of his. What do you hope to see from the administration in coming months? First, Representative Dingell, and maybe Representative Speier quickly after that.
REP. DINGELL: Well, as Jackie mentioned, Joe Biden was the original author of the Violence Against Women Act, and he is someone that understands that it’s real. I think that we need to continue to press for more changes in the law. One, we’ve got to get these bills reauthorized, because what Jackie talked about in getting money in the American Rescue Plan to these shelters, they weren’t getting the money from the programs that they needed because we hadn’t reauthorized the bill that needed to get it there.
So, I would look for the White House to help ensure that we are funding programs, taking a lead on mental health issues, and continuing to work with us to raise awareness and to get help to people that need help to escape these situations and try to attack the underlying issues that cause behavior that causes this kind of violence.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Thank you. And, Representative Speier, if you have a word or two to add, I’d love to hear.
REP. SPEIER: Well, I don’t think we’ve had a more compassionate president serve in the White House than Joe Biden. He truly does get it. And I remember at one point at an event during the Obama administration he talked about his first experience of recognizing that violence against women, or that rape in this particular case, that the woman was struggling with identifying what happened to her as rape because she knew the assailant. And he, you know, made the point that rapists are always known typically by the victim.
So, I’m actually very optimistic that the Build Back Better plan is going to change our country for the better as it relates to many of these social infrastructure issues.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Well, with that note of slight optimism, thank you both very much, Representatives Dingell and Speier, for joining me, and a particular thanks to Dingell for sharing that very moving story so courageously with us.
I’ll be back in a few moments to continue this program with author Rachel Louise Snyder and activist Margarita Guzmán. See you soon.
[Video played.]
MS. HALL: Hi, everyone. My name is Tamron Hall, and I am so honored to be here with you today on this Purple Thursday. Purple Thursday is our opportunity to join together in solidarity to bring awareness to every level and every layer of the conversation to end domestic violence.
Over the past 10 years, I’ve been open about the death of my own sister and the violence I witnessed firsthand in her life. And I committed myself, along with my family after her death, to use my platform and my voice to help other families. And we are here today, and I’m honored to be with two panelists who are also dedicated to bringing awareness and saving lives. Elise Johansen is the executive director of Safe Voices, the domestic violence and sex trafficking resource center serving portions of central and western Maine. Nina Leigh Krueger is CEO and president for Purina and an outspoken champion and supporter of the Purple Leash Project--an effort of Purina and the non-profit RedRover that is helping more domestic violence shelters across the United States become pet-friendly. Thank you both for being here. Thank you for joining me today.
I would like to just launch in first, Elise, with you. And what is the connection between pets and domestic violence from your experience that you’ve seen?
MS. JOHANSEN: Pets are our family, and for survivors of domestic abuse and violence that is no different. And we know that survivors of domestic abuse and violence are the experts in their lives. And we have heard from them that the abusers in their life will use anything and everything to assert power and control over them, and they often use the pets, too.
MS. HALL: It’s remarkable. Safe Voices operates Maine’s first pet-friendly shelter for survivors. Congratulations, of course, on being the first. But I know you want to be the first with many to follow. What was the process like?
MS. JOHANSEN: So, you know, we were thinking about this for a long time, because, again, survivors are the experts, and they have been telling us that they were not able to flee without their pet. They did not feel that they were able to move forward in a way and seek safety without their family members alongside them. And so, we listened to that, and we wanted to turn our shelter into a pet-friendly space, and with the help of the Purina Purple Leash Project and Red Rover, we were able to do that.
MS. HALL: So, how’s it going?
MS. JOHANSEN: It’s great and amazing. You know, I’ve been thinking about this story recently knowing that this interview is coming up, because there is this young boy in our shelter who was laying on the floor with his head back reading a book, leaning on a big dog. And the dog wasn’t his. It was another shelter resident’s dog. But it was this really beautiful moment of normalcy that would not have happened prior to us being able to allow pets to be in that building. And it’s been--it’s been remarkable. Survivors feel less alone. They feel that they’ve been able to flee with the things that matter most to them. And it has been nothing but a really wonderful experience for everyone involved.
MS. HALL: What’s your message for other advocates about the importance of supporting survivors and their animals?
MS. JOHANSEN: I would ask that every single advocate and every person who is supporting survivors to make sure that they’re asking about the pets during safety planning, and once that happens, we’re going to be able to wholly support the wholeness of survivors.
MS. HALL: Yeah, I love that, the "wholeness of survivors."
Nina Leigh, I know you’re standing by. It’s great to be with you again and talking with you about how Purina became involved in the domestic violence space and why.
MS. KRUEGER: So, it’s a great question. Almost a decade ago now we first learned about the lack of resources that domestic violence victims with pets had and how it had impacted their ability to leave.
Elise just said, you know, it’s--when a victim is in an abusive situation and they have to choose between their own safety or their safety for their pets, that’s really a heartbreaking situation. And the reality that nearly half of victims would delay leaving if they can’t take their pets was truly sobering. And really, we were shocked. And as a pet care company and a company of pet lovers, we really felt a responsibility to help that.
So, the first step on our journey was just to simply reach out to a shelter and offer to help them on their mission to accommodate pets. But as we all know, that bond that we share with our pets is unbreakable and universal, and so we saw an opportunity to have a role in protecting that bond at really a much larger scale. So that’s why we expanded this work nationally in 2019 by creating the Purple Leash Project with our non-profit partner RedRover to help more domestic violence shelters like Safe Voices become pet friendly.
MS. HALL: I know the numbers were around 10 percent of shelters when you started out in 2019. Now you’re 15, and the numbers are increasing with the shelters being able to take in pets. So, what is your vision for the Purple Leash project?
MS. KRUEGER: Our vision really, it’s--there’s a couple--it’s a couple fold. But really, it’s not an easy issue to address, as you know, but it’s having an undeniable impact on the safety and welfare of our friends and neighbors with their pets.
So, we believe we can help create a better future by advocating for changes that will make life a little easier for pets and their owners in a crisis, and the purpose leash project is one way to do that. My vision and hope, frankly, is that we can help fundamentally change the way survivors with pets are treated in America, and maybe even globally. I’m personally committed to continuing to advocate for change at the federal level, which we’ve been doing for years with members of Congress. And Purina has committed more than a million dollars so far to help, and that’ll continue to grow.
Our short-term goal is to help ensure that at least 25 percent of domestic violence shelters in the U.S. are pet friendly by 2025. So that’s our current focus. But we will have to continue to think bigger and do more as we look into the future to see how we can make a difference in this area.
MS. HALL: Well, I know your efforts are saving lives, and it’s been an honor to participate and spread the word, and it’s just been remarkable.
Elise, thank you for everything that you are doing for your community and survivors who are now able to leave with their pet and not leave a family member behind. I’m blown away by the passion of Purina, Red Rover, and organizations like Safe Voices that are serving survivors and shining a light on this incredibly important issue.
To find out how you can support the Purple Leash Project, visit purpleleashproject.com. And now I’ll hand it back over to The Washington Post.
[Video plays.]
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Hello and welcome back to Washington Post Live. I’m Frances Stead Sellers, a senior writer here at The Post. We’re talking today about domestic violence, and we want to look in this next section on some of the mental health issues associated with it. I’m delighted to welcome two experts on these subjects, the author, Rachel Louise Snyder; and advocate for survivors, Margarita Guzmán. A very warm welcome to you both to Washington Post Live.
MS. SNYDER: It’s good to be here.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Rachel, maybe I could start with you. Your new book is No Visible Bruises, and I wonder if you could talk about some of the invisible kinds of domestic violence that we often don’t think about when we focus on physical abuse and guns and other very dramatic forms of domestic violence.
MS. SNYDER: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you see--you see it again and again, where people expect that there will be some physical injury and that will be the obvious case of domestic violence. But in fact, what you find over and over and over again is, like one of your previous questions for the representatives is coercive control, emotional abuse, financial control.
You know, I covered the Orlando Pulse trial for The New Yorker, and one of the things that Omar Mateen had done was not give her access to any money at all. And so, she was really trapped. There’s somebody in my book that I write about whose husband went and got a rattlesnake and kept it in a cage in their house and threatened to use it on her any time she would do something that angered him. He said I’m going to put this in bed with you or put it, you know, in the shower with you. That’s an extreme example, but you see children used as leverage. You see pets used as leverage. There’s really--there’s really a misunderstanding when it comes to what we define as domestic violence in this country and abroad.
And I want to just mention actually that California, Hawaii, and Connecticut have all passed coercive control laws in the last year or so. So, we have some possibilities of kind of seeing how they work and how they’re interpreted, and hopefully other states will follow.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So that’s a little glimmer of optimism in making these sort of family secrets public.
But, Margarita, maybe you can talk to me a little bit about how abuse plays out in long-term mental health problems.
MS. GUZMÁN: Yeah, thank you so much for that question. And I agree with Rachel that there’s so much more that needs to be done in this country.
I think that it’s also something to consider the different intersections that people are experiencing when we’re talking about their mental health, and at the Violence Intervention Program we work primarily with Latino, Latina, Latinx immigrants. So, when we’re talking about their mental health, it’s really important to remember the context, that before the last 20 months we were at the tail end of many years of targeted anti-immigrant policies, increased ICE activity, increased social/political hostility against them for just being here, being in existence. And all of that forms a context for the mental health implications connected to COVID, because they had been abused and sought after by governments to find themselves trapped in abusive relationships with partners, stalked by a deadly virus, rendered penniless because of sudden job loss, and all really hinged to the visceral fear of not being able to feed themselves or their children, all was connected to the COVID crisis that we’ve been experiencing.
So, the mental health implications are complex, and they are really going to be longstanding. And if there’s something that we know about mental health, it’s that it will be intergenerational in nature. And the way that we choose to respond right now will have a huge impact on what that means for us down the road, for our children, for their children. So, I do want to note that when we’re talking about mental health, we’re talking about a real marathon, and we’re talking about unique experiences that really deserve a diversity of responses, right? There’s no one mental health answer for the diverse communities that we all work within and live within.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: I think we heard some of that so powerfully from Representative Dingell in the last segment.
Rachel, talk to me if you could about the specific loss of agency that so often characterizes these issues and how that contributes to a sense of powerlessness for people who are survivors of domestic violence.
MS. SNYDER: Sure. That’s a really complicated question. And you know, you see--I’m trying to not put a big historical frame on this, but, you know, throughout the '80s we had this idea about learned helplessness, that victims were passive, that they had all agency taken away from them, and you see that sometimes.
But you also see victims who really do fight back, and that gets turned against them as well, right? We saw that in the Gabby Petito case. I don’t know how many of you watched the hour-plus bodycam footage, but I watched it. And you know, you see all the dynamics play out that law enforcement, the judiciary, the people in positions of power get wrong again and again and again. You know, they looked for visible injury, they found some scratched on Brian Laundrie. They didn’t ask about the context. They didn’t do any kind of lethality assessment on her. And you see that in cases again and again and again now.
We live, fortunately or unfortunately, in a time in which bureaucracy really holds many of us in place. You can’t, for example, just take your children and go to a different state and put them in school, right? The bureaucracy of moving your children from one school to another requires that an abuser will also sign that documentation. You can’t get your name off a bank account or someone’s name off of your bank account without having, you know, your abuser sign that paperwork. So, there’s a way in which all of these different forces keep people in a violent or emotionally abusive relationship. And what happens year after year after year is just this sense that none of these systems can really help you.
I spend a hundred pages in my book trying to answer the questions of why systems fail again and again and again. So, it’s a really complicated issue, and I think it’s important that we’re talking about it. But it’s also--it’s also sort of up to the rest of us to understand this because victims are in such precarious situations.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: A quick follow-up for you before we move on, but what are the risks, and are they documented, of a survivor coming forward surfacing issues or actually trying to prosecute them? I gather there’s a debate in the legal community about the risks there.
MS. SNYDER: Yeah, there absolutely is. And you know, what happens oftentimes is, somebody calls the police, maybe only one time. There--you know, there’s a woman my book whose story I spend a long time telling, and she only ever called the police once. And they come and maybe they undercharge the situation, or they get it wrong, as we saw in the case of Gabby Petito, right? They read the situation wrong, because law enforcement, the judiciary, all of the systems that we work in that sort of hold somebody accountable are event-based systems, right? They’re just interested in why did you make this one call on this one day today. And domestic violence is what I call a narrative situation. It’s a long-term sort of whittling away at someone’s power. Margarita used the term marathon, and I think that’s a really good frame for it.
So, what happens is, the police come. They may arrest the abuser, but probably they’ll be able to bail out almost immediately. And that’s just one example. What does a victim understand when something like that happens? Well, the victim understands that an abuser’s freedom is prioritized over a victim’s safety. And very often he or she understand that message because an abuser comes back, is angry, and has to ramp up the level of abuse. And so, there’s this constant sort of cause and effect. This is why they don’t reach out to, you know, prosecutors, why they don’t reach out to police, because they are convinced that their abuser has more power than those systems that could help them.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: I just want to add there that although we know that Gabby Petito’s death was ruled a homicide, we actually don’t know if she was a victim of domestic violence at the moment.
But, Margarita, let me come to you and ask you specifically about the need for culturally specific answers to some of these very, very troubling questions we’ve been raising.
MS. GUZMÁN: Yeah, thank you so much for asking that question. I was thinking, Rachel, when you were responding how different communities just experience law enforcement differently, right? We work with a community who really measures their good fortune by the fact that law enforcement may never know they exist. And so, they’re not going to reach out to those resources because they see them as predatory, because they are terrified of unintended consequences that might come connected.
Even if they do believe that that system is more powerful than their abusive partner, or maybe they are--they know for a fact that it is, they don’t want there to be the unintended consequences connected to deportation, right? In New York City we had a series of arrests and deportations that took place in court, and whether or not those were outcomes that were important for the safety of the people involved, it had a chilling effect on our communities who chose to not go to court and not seek out any services, even civil orders of protection, because ICE was in the courthouses or waiting outside the courthouses to pick people up. So, there are so many--it’s just so important to have a culturally specific response because we’re a bridge. We’re a trusted bridge for community members, right? One of the things that mainstream and law enforcement entities have not been that successful at doing is reaching out to the communities, and we’re able to do that.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Rachel, we mentioned the pandemic already today, but I really would like to ask you about how these prolonged periods of isolation and forced intimacy has exacerbated problems and what we know and what we should be doing as we move ahead and, we hope, out of this pandemic.
MS. SNYDER: Well, I think--I think Margarita answered that. Sorry, I didn’t mean to call you Margarita. I think she answered that in terms of priorities. The number-one thing we have to do is programming for young people.
I talked about, gosh, I don’t even know how many cases, a hundred cases or something like this in my book, and every single one of them had a young woman meeting the person who would eventually kill her when she was 14, 15 years old. So, this--so teen dating violence, sexual assault, consent, all of these issues are combined, and they’re so important.
The other thing we saw, though, with the pandemic was that there was--initially there was this sort of bracing among, you know, shelters and hotlines, like they thought there was going to be this flood of victims. You saw many cities like Chicago, for example, where I’m originally from, renting out blocks, huge blocks of hotel rooms just kind of waiting, and that flood didn’t come. And what we learned was that people were really stuck. They couldn’t get to the hotlines. They couldn’t get out of their house to escape.
Those--the levels now are sort of back where they were pre-pandemic in terms of the hotline and shelters. But what’s happening is, there’s just no money. We talked a little bit about Representatives Speier and Dingell earmarking, you know, several hundred million dollars. The entire Violence Against Women Act was only--at its last passage was only $500 million. It’s just nothing. It is just nothing when you consider the unbelievable catastrophic effects on so many different social issues that we’re--that we’re facing today. It’s not--it’s not an isolated event, domestic violence. It interacts with homelessness, it interacts with mental health, it interacts with mass shootings and lost wages and all kinds of other, you know, medical bills and things like that--so all kinds of other issues that we face.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Margarita, there was surge of unemployment created by the pandemic. How do you see this playing into these problems going ahead?
MS. GUZMÁN: I mean, it’s been one of the single most devastating, you know, events to happen to our communities. They were suddenly--just suddenly left with absolutely no resources, and we were part of--we’ve served communities for whom the safety net did not activate, right? They weren’t getting stimulus benefits. They weren’t qualified for unemployment benefits. They were people who had historically participated in exploited labor and were abused in the workplace in addition to other places.
The recovery from this is something that can be an opportunity for transformation, right? We don’t necessarily want our communities going back to underpaid exploited labor practices. We want them to be able to build out and re-envision an economic future that creates sustainable paths for them and their children for the long run.
One of the things that we do in our organization is that we help survivors to establish small businesses. And during the pandemic that switched up to online sales. So, we do a lot of work with vendors here and survivors to helping them to get their licenses, make sure that they’re getting lawyers and legal services so that their businesses are properly registered and they’re paying their taxes. We want to be able to continue that in an online form so that they can continue to sustain themselves beyond this.
But I do think that along with the rest of, you know, non-profit sector and private sector re-envisioning what workplace practices looked like going forward after the pandemic, we’re also really thinking about how survivors can sustain themselves economically in a way that is re-envisioning going forward, where they are their supervisors, their own bosses.
We established a cooperative last year, and that’s a cooperative that’s run by and for domestic violence survivors, all of whom are immigrants and they’re all their own bosses now. And that certainly suffered a great hit during the pandemic. They lost a lot of members because they weren’t able to sustain that business at the time. They’re coming back slowly, and with a lot of support from our organization and through other small business development initiatives are really able to sustain that going forward.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: We’re getting very close to the end of time, but we have some audience questions and I’d like, if I can, to ask you each one of them. The first one, Margarita, is for you. And it comes to me from Amy from Virginia, who says, "Restraining orders are ineffective in preventing harm. What ideas do you have to prevent further harm against victims under threat?"
MS. GUZMÁN: So, I think that the effectiveness of restraining orders might really depend on the jurisdiction’s enforcement of them. And you're going to see that in Virginia--it might not feel as effective in New York City. It is a fact that when people have an order of protection, violence against them is reduced significantly by about 86 percent. So, the question is whether the order of protection is the right answer for that particular situation.
Other opportunities might exist like community-based interventions where there are, you know, opportunities to engage the person who is being abusive in a different way. And I know that Rachel speaks to this so brilliantly in her book. But the--part of the challenge is that we’re only addressing the survivors’ needs and not thinking about how we’re engaging the abusive partner, and we can’t solve the problem with only half the equation being addressed. So, I think that those are--
MS. STEAD SELLERS: You know--I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I thought you’d finished. But it brings me exactly to a question for Rachel. And it comes from a man writing from California. This is John, and he asks, "How do we educate and discuss domestic violence with young people and guide them in a way where we break the generational cycle of violence that exists in the home?" What an important question.
MS. SNYDER: That’s a really important question. And I think the first thing we have to do is get kids, young kids involved at ages that probably would be very surprising to us. What the research says is middle school, sometimes even elementary school. They have to learn that what they may witness in their own homes is not--is not normal. And there’s a lot of effective programming around there. Futures Without Violence has a wonderful peer education program. My daughter, in fact, is a youth ambassador for them, I’m proud to say.
Also, Yeardly Love, if you remember the case, she was killed at the University of Virginia some years ago. Her mother started the One Love Foundation. It is--it is probably the best resource I know where kids can get questions, answers, they can download apps, because I think--I think there is this idea of not quite knowing what’s okay and what’s not okay.
And of course, we see violence against women everywhere. I mean, every cop show I turn on starts with the dead body of a woman, right? And so, I think we need to complicate those narratives. I think we need more diverse voices in every room, every room of our culture.
And you know, I’m really--Margarita, I’m really glad that you brought up some of the things that you brought up because I feel like--with the question from Virginia, I feel like one of the things that is so important that we don’t talk about enough is the responsibility that we have to try and get that abuser to be not violent, right? We tell victims to leave. We tell them to go to shelter. To me, that seems ridiculous. Why are we putting the impetus for change on the victim of a crime, right? Let’s put the impetus for change on the person who is doing the harm. So, that’s my two cents.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Thank you both very much. I mean, that’s a huge message at the end, changing where the--we put the impetus for change. Rachel and Margarita, many, many thanks for joining us today.
MS. GUZMÁN: Thank you for having us.
MS. SNYDER: Thank you.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: That’s all we have time for. I’m Frances Stead Sellers from The Washington Post. If you want to see more of our upcoming programming and register for it, please go to WashingtonPostLive.com. Thank you for joining us.
Biden proposes 20-year ban on Chaco Canyon drilling at Tribal Nations Summit
Breitbart
November 15, 2021
Nov. 15 (UPI) — The Biden administration announced on Monday efforts to improve protections for Native American tribal lands and traditions, including a proposed 20-year ban on oil and gas drilling at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
The announcements came as President Joe Biden held the first Tribal Nations summit in five years at the White House.
The Interior Department in the coming weeks will begin consideration of a plan for a 20-year halt on federal mineral rights leasing within a 10-mile radius around Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico, the administration announced.
The Greater Chaco Landscape “is a region of great cultural, spiritual, and historical significance to many Pueblos and Indian Tribes” that contains “thousands of artifacts that date back more than 1,000 years,” the White House said in a statement.
Chaco cultural sites were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 and are one of only 24 such sites in the United States.
“For the past decade, Pueblos and Tribes in Arizona and New Mexico have raised concerns about encroaching oil and gas development threatening sacred and cultural sites, and Congress has passed a series of actions to temporarily defer new leasing,” the administration said.
The proposed withdrawal will not apply to individual allotments or to minerals within the area owned by private, state or tribal entities, nor would it impose restrictions on other developments, such as roads, water lines, transmission lines or buildings.
The New Mexico Land Office has already implemented a moratorium on new state mineral leases within a 10-mile radius of Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
The measure was one of several new projects aimed at enhancing protections for Native Americans announced at the Tribal Nations Summit.
“The White House Tribal Nations Summit is an opportunity to celebrate the progress we have made in this new nation-to-nation era and map out plans to improve outcomes for this generation of Native Americans and for the seven generations to come,” the White House said.
Biden on Monday also signed an executive order for several departments to create a strategy within 240 days to improve public safety and justice for Native Americans and to address “the epidemic of missing or murdered Indigenous peoples.”
“It’s long overdue,” he said during the signing ceremony. “We’re going to make some substantial change in Indian Country, and it’s going to continue.”
The strategy must also establish a plan to address unsolved cases involving Native Americans, provide coordination among the various departments and strengthen and expand Native American participation in the Amber Alert in Indian Country initiative.
The order also calls for supporting tribal and non-federal law enforcement to respond to violence against this marginalized population; improve data collection analysis and information sharing; and strengthen prevention, early intervention and victim and survivor services.
And it directs the departments of justice, homeland security and interior, to provide support for tribal nations to implement “tribally centered” responses to safety and crime.
“This builds on the work we did together on reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act in 2013 when we granted authority to tribes to exercise jurisdiction over non-Indian offenders who commit violence on tribal lands,” Biden said.
“We’re going to reauthorize that again, we’re going to expand the jurisdiction to include other offenses like sex trafficking, sexual assault and child abuse.”
Garland said in remarks at the summit that he is “eager” to work with Haaland to develop the plan and that the Justice Department on Monday launched a steering committee that will work with other agencies to develop a comprehensive plan to address the crisis of missing or murdered indigenous people.
The executive order was signed as the United States’ Native American communities combat violence committed against its people.
The National Crime Information Center has reported 5,712 cases of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls, though the number could be higher.
Biden in his executive order cited research that said Native American women are disproportionately the victims of sexual and gender-based violence as half have experienced sexual violence. The vast majority of Native American survivors, it said, reported being victimized by a non-Native American individual, it said.
“We acknowledge that our country’s historically failed to meet the crisis of missing or murdered Indigenous people with the urgency and the resources it demands,” Garland said. “We also recognize that solving this crisis requires that we work in partnership with one another. The president’s executive order will build on and expand our efforts to do exactly that.”
The administration said the infrastructure bill Biden signed Monday and the proposed Build Back Better measure being debated in Congress will provide “billions of dollars” to support Native American families with programs that will cut the costs of raising a family, along with easing healthcare costs and addressing climate change.
“Investments in the Build Back Better Plan would bring record funding for tribes in the areas of child care and preschool programs,” the White House said. “This transformative cradleboard to college funds will make it easier for Native women and other family providers to remain in the workforce and increase educational opportunities and outcomes for children.”
Angelina Jolie Meets with Mitt Romney, Cori Bush to Push Violence Against Women Act
Breitbart
December 15, 2021
Angelina Jolie recently returned to Washington, D.C. to meet with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) to urge the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, the legislation that was originally spearheaded by then-Sen. Joe Biden nearly three decades ago.
The Hollywood star was on hand Tuesday to stoke bi-partisan support for the latest reauthorization of the act, which expired in September, according to a report from The Hill. While the bill has traditionally enjoyed support across the political spectrum, the new version features poison-pill measures designed to get Republicans to oppose it, which will then be used against them during elections.
The reauthorization features language that broadens red-flag gun provisions to those involved in non-romantic relationships. It also includes language mandating biological males who identify as transgender and gender-fluid to be accepted into women shelters.
The House passed the reauthorization in March, with the Senate expected to take up the legislation shortly.
Jolie, who recently starred in Disney-Marvel’s woke superhero movie The Eternals, last visited Washington to push the reauthorization in September.
On Tuesday, Rep. Bush gushed over the Hollywood celebrity in a tweet showing them both wearing masks.
Sen. Romney also praised Jolie in a tweet showing them not wearing masks.
As Breitbart News reported, Angelina Jolie appeared at a White House press briefing in September to promote the legislation.
Senators float new bipartisan Violence Against Women Act outline
CQ News (USA)
December 16, 2021
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday announced an agreement on a framework to update and reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, the closest the law has come to reauthorization since it lapsed in 2019.
"Every day that goes by without action puts lives at risk, and we will work tirelessly to ensure that this framework becomes law as soon as possible," the four lawmakers -- Sens. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska -- said in a joint statement.
The group said it plans to introduce the bill next month and the measure would include provisions to expand existing law to bar domestic abusers from owning firearms -- a sticking point in the talks for more than a year.
"Our bipartisan agreement enhances and expands services for survivors of domestic violence, including survivors in rural communities, LGBT survivors, survivors with disabilities, and survivors who experience abuse later in life," Feinstein said in a floor speech Thursday.
The House passed a version of the reauthorization (HR 1620) in March in a 244- 172 vote that netted the support of 29 Republicans.
The Senate framework announced Thursday reflects the most bipartisan effort in the chamber since the law's authorization lapsed two years ago.
The four senators said their upcoming bill would include language to expand programs in rural areas and to LGBT survivors, as well as support to train law enforcement in handling trauma. The measure would also expand Native American tribal jurisdiction over crimes committed by nontribal members, building on a program started by the last reauthorization in 2013.
Senators also negotiated a version of the firearms provisions -- a sticking point that stalled previous talks -- that expanded the list of misdemeanor crimes that could result in a firearm ban. The new bill would apply the ban only to convictions after the law's passage, the lawmakers said.
Ernst took on the role of lead negotiator for Republicans in the bipartisan talks after taking a seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2019. In a floor speech Thursday, she said she was backing provisions that would expand existing provisions for domestic abusers to be barred from owning a gun if their victim was their spouse. The new provision would extend that firearm ban to domestic abusers who are not married to their victim.
"Due process is completely intact, fully present, and I will not be compromised on that, I can promise you that," Ernst said.
The National Rifle Association opposed the House version of the reauthorization because Democrats expanded the firearm ban in the legislation in 2019. The group said the law should not expand current limited exemptions that take gun rights from people convicted of misdemeanors rather than felonies.
Murkowski, vice chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, has made increasing resources for tribal governments a priority in a new authorization. Murkowski's home state of Alaska has a significant tribal population, which she said is experiencing a domestic violence crisis.
"To fully address the root causes of this crisis, the high rates of domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking, the violent crime in native communities, we have an awful lot more to do," Murkowski said on the Senate floor Thursday.
The 2013 reauthorization allowed tribes to prosecute nontribal members for domestic violence but not other crimes, such as assault on children or on law enforcement officers.
The Biden administration has backed a reauthorized Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, calling for swift Senate passage after the House passed its bill. At a Senate Judiciary hearing in October, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said federal and local prosecutors needed more tools to address gender-based violence.
"We must continue to equip police and prosecutors with the knowledge, skills and resources needed to provide survivor-centered and trauma-informed responses to victims who seek help from the criminal justice system," Monaco said.
The House bill would reauthorize VAWA for another five years and expand grant programs for criminal justice response and support for survivors. The bill also would expand housing options for survivors and expand tribal jurisdiction over non-Native perpetrators of domestic violence on tribal lands.
First passed in 1994, VAWA enshrines legal protections for victims of domestic and sexual violence. The original bill was championed by then-Sen. Joe Biden and was reauthorized and updated in 2000, 2005 and 2013.
The current legislation is co-sponsored by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa. A reauthorization attempt last Congress fell apart after a breakdown in the bipartisan Senate talks resulted in dueling bills that did not pass the filibuster threshold.
