WASHINGTON — By a robust bipartisan majority, the Senate voted Tuesday to renew the Violence Against Women Act with new assurances that gays and lesbians, immigrants and Native American women will have equal access to the act’s anti-domestic violence programs.
The 78-22 Senate vote to reauthorize the two-decade-old act that has shielded millions of women from abuse and helped reduce national rates of domestic violence turns the focus to the House, where Republican leaders are working to come up with their own version.
“Over 160 million women across the country are watching and waiting to see if the House will act on this bill and finally provide them the protections from violence they deserve,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
The act expired in 2011, putting efforts to improve its many federal programs on hold. Last year both the Republican-led House and the Democratic-controlled Senate passed renewal bills, but they were unable to reach a compromise.
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This year House Republicans, sensitive to their lackluster showing among women voters in the November election, have vowed to move expeditiously on the issue. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), has taken the lead in negotiating the terms of a House bill.
On Monday 17 House Republicans wrote Cantor and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), urging immediate action. The act’s “programs save lies, and we must allow states and communities to build upon the successes of current VAWA programs so that we can help even more people,” they wrote.
The Senate bill, while promoted by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and other Democrats, is co-sponsored by a Republican, Mike Crapo of Idaho, and garnered 23 Republican votes.
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The White House, which supports the Senate bill, says that among the positive changes created by VAWA are a decline in intimate partner violence by 67 percent between 1993 and 2010 and an increase in victims reporting domestic and sexual violence to police, resulting in more arrests.
The act provides grants to state and local authorities for legal assistance, transitional housing, law enforcement training, stalker databases and domestic violence hotlines. The Senate bill extends the act for five years and provides $659 million for VAWA programs, down 17 percent from the last reauthorization in 2005.
The legislation includes a provision, backed by a bipartisan group headed by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), that would speed up the analysis of DNA evidence in rape cases. There’s now a rape kit backlog estimated at 400,000, with evidence that might link an assailant to a victim now sitting on police department shelves for months and even years.
The Senate on Tuesday also approved an amendment by Leahy reauthorizing a law that funds programs to combat human trafficking both inside and country and around the world.
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