House OKs GOP’s anti-violence against women bill

LAURIE KELLMAN

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — House Repub­li­cans set up a show­down Wednes­day with the Sen­ate and Pres­i­dent Barack Obama over leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect women from domes­tic vio­lence, a fight that’s become as much about female vot­ers this elec­tion year as crack­ing down on abuse.

The House voted 222–205 to reau­tho­rize the 1994 Vio­lence Against Women Act for five years, as the Sen­ate already had done. But big dif­fer­ences remain: Obama, other Democ­rats and a long list of advo­cacy groups say the House bill doesn’t go far enough to pro­tect abused immi­grants, Native Amer­i­cans or gays. Repub­li­cans say their bill does more to pro­tect tax­pay­ers from fraud and main­tains the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of law enforce­ment pro­ce­dures on Indian land.

It’s unclear whether the dif­fer­ences will be rec­on­ciled before the Novem­ber elec­tions, or whether the bills will be used as cam­paign weapons.

But a pair of domes­tic vio­lence sur­vivors who fell on oppo­site sides of the debate reminded their House col­leagues that for them and other abused women it’s about far more than politics.

“The man I mar­ried had a pen­chant for drink­ing and was very vio­lent when he drank,” the bill’s spon­sor, fresh­man Rep. Sandy Adams, R-Fla., said dur­ing floor debate.

Wis­con­sin Demo­c­rat Gwen Moore recalled what it was like to try to press charges against her rapist in the days before the law’s passage.

“I took him to court (but) indeed, I was on trial,” Moore said. “I had to prove, as a vic­tim, that I was not being fraud­u­lent in my accu­sa­tions. They brought up how I was an unwed mother with a baby. Maybe I seduced him. They talked about how I was dressed.”

But in Wash­ing­ton this pres­i­den­tial and con­gres­sional elec­tion year, every issue is pressed for polit­i­cal advan­tage, even the government’s main domes­tic violence-fighting law twice reau­tho­rized with broad bipar­ti­san sup­port. Women account for the vast major­ity of domes­tic vio­lence vic­tims. They also account for the major­ity of vot­ers in pres­i­den­tial elec­tion years and a crit­i­cal bloc Democ­rats have tried to main­tain in 2012 by accus­ing Repub­li­cans of wag­ing a “war against women.”

In a veto mes­sage issued late Tues­day before the House voted, the White House said the GOP-written bill takes “direct aim at immi­grant vic­tims of domes­tic vio­lence and sex­ual assault” and jeop­ar­dizes vic­tims by plac­ing them “directly in harm’s way.”

Fol­low­ing the vote, Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden said, “I urge Con­gress to come together to pass a bipar­ti­san mea­sure that pro­tects all victims.”

The 1994 anti-violence law pro­vides mil­lions of dol­lars to pro­grams such as legal assis­tance for vic­tims, enforce­ment of pro­tec­tion orders, tran­si­tional hous­ing aid and youth pre­ven­tion pro­grams. Its 2005 reau­tho­riza­tion expired last year.

Major­ity Democ­rats in the Sen­ate would expand the law to specif­i­cally pro­tect gays, les­bians, bisex­u­als and trans­gen­der Amer­i­cans from dis­crim­i­na­tion and abuse in a move many Repub­li­cans saw as a provo­ca­tion to vote against a bill approved with­out objec­tion pre­vi­ously. Sen­ate Repub­li­cans also objected to Demo­c­ra­tic pro­vi­sions in the bill that would give tribal author­i­ties the power to pros­e­cute non-Indians for abuse com­mit­ted on tribal lands, say­ing it was uncon­sti­tu­tional because the accused would have no role in shap­ing laws that could be used against them.

The Sen­ate bill passed, 68–31, last month, with 15 Repub­li­cans vot­ing yes.

Six Democ­rats voted for the House bill Wednes­day: Reps. John Bar­row of Geor­gia, Shel­ley Berkley of Nevada, Dan Boren of Okla­homa, Jim Math­e­son of Utah, Mike McIn­tyre of North Car­olina and Collin Peter­son of Minnesota.

On the eve of the House vote, Repub­li­cans revised Adams’ mea­sure to bring it closer to the Sen­ate ver­sion. Gone, for exam­ple, was a pro­vi­sion that would have com­pro­mised the con­fi­den­tial­ity of bat­tered ille­gal immi­grants who break from their part­ners, coop­er­ate with law enforce­ment and apply for their own cit­i­zen­ship. But the White House said it still allows abusers to become aware of their vic­tims’ allegations.

Also still prob­lem­atic for some were pro­vi­sions that pre­vent Native Amer­i­can author­i­ties to pros­e­cute non-Indians who com­mit abuse on Indian land.

Under a 1978 Supreme Court deci­sion, non-Indians can­not be pros­e­cuted by tribal courts for crimes com­mit­ted on tribal land. Last July, the Jus­tice Depart­ment rec­om­mended that Con­gress give tribes local author­ity to pros­e­cute non-Indians in mis­de­meanor domes­tic and dat­ing vio­lence cases.

Instead, the Repub­li­can ver­sion allows a bat­tered Native Amer­i­can woman or a tribe on her behalf to file in U.S. Dis­trict Court for a pro­tec­tion order against an alleged abuser, whether Indian or not, who com­mit­ted the abuse on Indian land. But the White House and other Democ­rats want tribal courts to be able to pros­e­cute the offenders.

The revised House ver­sion omits the Senate’s ref­er­ences to gays, les­bians, bisex­u­als and trans­gen­ders, a support-killer for advo­cates for those groups.

An armada of groups advo­cat­ing for women, immi­grants, Indi­ans and gays said they were tak­ing names and hold­ing account­able law­mak­ers who vote for the Repub­li­can bill, argu­ing that such a vote was akin to vot­ing against the Vio­lence Against Women Act.

North Car­olina Repub­li­can Vir­ginia Fox said it pained her to hear Democ­rats accuse sup­port­ers of the bill of being uncar­ing toward bat­tered women.

“Repub­li­can men and women both abhor vio­lence against women,” Fox said dur­ing the floor debate Wednes­day. “I would say that we are more con­cerned against vio­lence against women. … We want to see the (fed­eral) money spent better.”

Posted by AP News on May 16 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.