Yesterday, Attorney General Beau Biden, along with all of his counterparts across the country, called on Congress to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act (“VAWA”).
Biden’s father, Vice President Joe Biden, drafted and sponsorsed the bill back in 1994, and he frequently points to it as one of his best accomplishments as legislator. Indeed, the National Organization for Women described the bill as “the greatest breakthrough in civil rights for women in nearly two decades.”
VAWA provided $1.6 billion to enhance investigation and prosecution of violent crimes perpetrated against women (i.e. domestic violence) that had long gone unreported or underreported, or when reported, not prosecuted or pursued. The Act imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave unprosecuted. The Act has to be reauthorized (i.e. refunded) every so often. After being signed into law in 1994, it was reauthorized by Congress in 2000, and again in 2005. It is now up for reauthorization again in 2012.
Biden and his counterparts sent a letter to lawmakers Wednesday saying since the measure passed in 1994, crimes against women that used to be kept behind closed doors have been subject to public scrutiny, cutting domestic violence by 50 percent nationally, but the problem hasn’t gone away. The AG’s say if the Act isn’t re-funded, programs vital to victims of domestic violence and other crimes against women will stop.
So this act has been wildly successful, and it is vitally important to protect abused women.
But the question remains, can it pass this Congress?
To be sure, Republican Congresses have reauthorized VAWA in the past, in 2000 and 2005. A Republican Congress has reauthorized it under a Democratic President and a Republican President. So reauthorizing this bill seems to be a geniune bipartisan issue, as if you can be partisan at all in combating violence against women.
But I still have a sneaky suspicision that the radical conservatives that now dominate the GOP in the House and Senate will gum up the works at the very least. Take for example Republican Congressman Ted Poe. He wants the law rewritten so as to be gender neutral, and believes the law discriminates against men. Some conservatives will say that they want to pass the bill, really they do, but the spending, the horrible evil spending is just too much, and we all must sacrifice now (except the rich). At the very least, VAWA will be held hostage for something. Probably more tax cuts for the rich again.
Prove me wrong Republicans.