The Violence Against Women Act’s Long Road To Oblivion

[DonViejo]

SAHIL KAPUR JANUARY 3, 2013, 3:55 PM

The Violence Against Women Act first became law in 1994 and has since been routinely reauthorized without controversy. By providing resources for law enforcement to combat spousal abuse, it has protected countless women from domestic violence.

But the 2012 re-authorization, like many initiatives of the just-concluded Congress, fell prey to House Republican resistance to expanding the Act to cover more women. In the end, House GOP leaders refused bring to a vote a bill that passed the Senate with a bipartisan supermajority.

“The House Republican leadership’s failure to take up and pass the Senate’s bipartisan and inclusive VAWA bill is inexcusable,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), a Democratic leadership member, told TPM. “This is a bill that passed with 68 votes in the Senate and that extends the bill’s protections to 30 million more women. But this seems to be how House Republican leadership operates. No matter how broad the bipartisan support, no matter who gets hurt in the process, the politics of the right wing of their party always comes first.”

A Republican source familiar with failed last-minute negotiations to save the measure between Vice President Joe Biden and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) disputed that view. The source blamed Senate Democrats for making a resolution impossible by “constantly shifting the goalposts” and adopting a “my way or the highway approach.”

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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/why-the-violence-against-women-act-died.php?ref=fpb

[Jennicut]

1. It's ridiculous that it was not reauthorized.

I hope Sen. Leahy can draft something new. I know Biden was trying to work with Cantor towards the end of the year. (I know, who can work with that imbecile but Joe tried). Cantor is an asshole and Biden had a lot going on this past week. I am so disgusted with House Republicans but really, isn't everyone in America at this point that is not a teabagger?