[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 82 (Monday, June 4, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3678-S3679]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2012

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, it has been more than a month since the 
Senate came together to pass the Violence Against Women Reauthorization 
Act of 2012. This bill, commonly referred to as VAWA, reflects the 
tradition of bringing together people from both political parties to 
work with professionals in the field and address the needs of victims--
all victims. More than two-thirds of the Senate, including 15 
Republicans, voted for this common sense legislation. It is a rare feat 
in the Senate these days, as the distinguished Presiding Officer knows, 
but it demonstrates that the Leahy-Crapo reauthorization bill is about 
saving lives, not partisan politics.
  Few laws have had a greater impact on the lives of women in this 
country than the Violence Against Women Act. Because of this law, the 
days of dismissing domestic and sexual violence crimes with a joke or a 
shrug are over. The resources, training, and law enforcement tools 
provided by VAWA over the past 18 years have transformed the criminal 
justice and community-based responses to abuse. It gave support and 
protection to victims who for generations had been blamed, humiliated, 
and ignored.
  I had hoped the House Republicans would follow our demonstration of 
bipartisanship by moving forward with the Senate-passed VAWA 
reauthorization bill. Instead, the Republican leadership in the House 
chose to proceed with a bill that doesn't reflect the core values of 
VAWA.
  I mention its core values because we worked--both parties in this 
body--to reflect what is most important in VAWA. The House Republican 
bill does not include protections for all victims. It takes away 
existing protections that have proven effective in preventing domestic 
and sexual violence. In short, the House bill is not VAWA.
  Regrettably, the House Republican leadership would not even allow a 
vote on the bipartisan Senate-passed bill, which truly does do the job. 
They would not allow open debate regarding the relative merits of the 
different versions of the bill--ours, which protects all victims, and 
theirs, which rolls back protections. Had the House had the opportunity 
to vote on the Senate-passed bipartisan bill, I believe the President 
would have signed it and it would now be law. Nearly two dozen House 
Republicans, along with most Democratic Members, voted against the 
restrictive House bill.
  It is not surprising that the House Republican bill failed to gain 
support among those who actually work with victims, the people who see 
these victims on a daily basis in all parts of the country. When 
challenged on the House floor to name any law enforcement or victim 
advocacy organization that supported the House Republican bill, their 
lead sponsor could not name a single one. Why? More than 320 
organizations that work with the victims of domestic and sexual 
violence opposed that bill.
  By contrast more than 1,000 local, State, and national organizations 
supported the bipartisan Senate bill, including hundreds of law 
enforcement, victim advocates, and faith-based groups. Why? Because in 
our bill, we worked at it. We did it the old-fashioned way--Republicans 
and Democrats working together after months of discussion with 
stakeholders from across the country and all political persuasions from 
the right to the left. The provisions in our bill that protect battered 
immigrant women, Native women, and the most vulnerable among us who 
have had trouble accessing services were recommendations from those 
very professionals who work with crime victims every day. The 
bipartisan Senate bill is intended to respond to the changing, unmet 
needs of victims and to prevent future acts of domestic and sexual 
violence. Instead of picking and choosing, as they tried to, among who 
would get protection, we came up with a simple fact. We said a victim 
is a victim is a victim. If somebody has been victimized, the police 
don't go and say: Can we help this battered person, maybe even murdered 
person? We might be able to get involved in this, provided they are not 
an immigrant or provided they are not a Native American or provided 
only if they are straight. That is not the way it works.
  I still have nightmares over some of the crime scenes I visited at 2 
and 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning when I was a prosecutor and I saw 
people who had been badly battered, badly injured. I never heard a 
police officer say: Before we go any further on this, what category 
does this battered victim fall into? Because unless they fall into one 
of these specific categories--such as the House bill had--we can't do 
anything for them. No, no police officer ever said that in my presence 
nor in anybody else's presence.
  It was law enforcement who educated us on the importance of the U 
visa to keeping our streets safe and encouraged us to support a modest 
improvement to this program. The enhanced consultation provisions in 
the bill were included after domestic and sexual assault coalitions and 
other victim advocacy groups told us that they wanted to coordinate 
their activities in a more effective way with VAWA state administrators 
and Federal agencies. Victim service providers also told us that the 
LGBT community experiences violence at the same rate as the broader 
community but faces a serious lack of available services. It was the 
Native American community that informed us about the epidemic of 
domestic violence in tribal communities and the need to increase local 
prosecution of these crimes. It is unacceptable that nearly three out 
of five Native American women have been assaulted by their spouses or 
intimate partners, yet the percentage of these cases that are 
prosecuted is appallingly low. That is why our bill provides law 
enforcement with additional tools to combat domestic and sexual 
violence in Tribal communities.
  The Senate has already considered and soundly defeated a conscripted 
version of the bill, like the House Republicans' version, that would 
not help all victims. We voted 37 62 against the Hutchison-Grassley 
amendment last April. This was not a case where an amendment did not 
obtain a supermajority of more than 60 votes. The votes against it were 
bipartisan and more than 60. I do not understand why the House 
Republican leadership has gone to tremendous lengths to avoid debating 
and voting on the bipartisan Senate-passed VAWA reauthorization bill.
  The House Republican leadership has refused to consider two House 
bills that mirror the Leahy-Crapo bill, including one introduced by a 
Republican. They also raised a procedural technicality as an excuse to 
avoid debating the Senate bill, even though the Speaker of the House 
has the ability to waive that technicality and allow the House to move 
forward to consider the bipartisan Senate bill.
  The Majority Leader tried to move this forward 2 weeks ago by 
proposing a way to resolve the technical objection by House Republicans 
to considering the bipartisan Senate-passed bill, but the Republican 
leader objected.
  Frankly, victims should not be forced to wait any longer. They will 
not benefit from the improvements made by the bipartisan Leahy-Crapo 
bill, unless both Houses of Congress vote to pass this legislation. The 
problems and barriers facing victims of domestic and

[[Page S3679]]

sexual violence are too serious for Congress to delay. Domestic and 
sexual violence knows no political party. Its victims are Republican 
and Democrat, rich and poor, young and old. Helping these victims, all 
of them, should be our goal.
  I will continue to work with our leadership in the Senate to come up 
with a solution that can move us past this impasse and send back to the 
House a Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill that protects 
all victims. We know we can do that because the Senate has already 
passed such a bill. I am still hopeful that the House will do the same.

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