Senate Passes Expanded Violence Against Women Act; It's Now The House's Turn

The Violence Against Women Act provides critical funding and training to curtail domestic violence, including funding for police training to handle cases involving sexual assault.  The legislation became law in 1994, and since then incidents of domestic violence against women have dropped by over 50 percent.

The Senate has voted to reauthorize a bipartisan version of the Act that will extend its protection to the LGBT community, undocumented immigrants and Native Americans.  House Republicans, however, are opposed to expanding protections to these groups.

As reported by Laura Clawson at Daily Kos:

Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act passed the Senate by a bipartisan vote of 68 to 31. The bill had reached 61 cosponsors, including eight Republicans, well before the vote; the further Republican votes have to be seen as a tribute to the effectiveness of the campaign Democrats waged in favor of the bill, including its protections for undocumented immigrant, LGBT, and Native American victims of abuse. Republicans tried and failed to remove those protections, and whined extensively about the politicization of the law as a result of their failure.

The House has yet to take up a VAWA reauthorization, but Republicans there are standing against those expanded protections for groups of people they don't like.

Send an email to your member of the U.S. House of Representatives, telling him or her to pass the expanded, bipartisan Senate reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.