[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 7072-7073]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CICILLINE. Madam Speaker, yesterday, this Chamber narrowly passed 
a bill entitled the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act. But 
although the bill we voted on shared its name with landmark legislation 
that this Chamber passed in 1994 to deter crimes against women, it 
failed to advance the important protections that should be afforded to 
all victims of domestic violence and sexual assaults.
  Our colleagues in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, worked 
together to pass a strong, bipartisan reauthorization of the Violence 
Against Women Act. Yet, rather than carrying on the important tradition 
of working in a bipartisan fashion to strengthen

[[Page 7073]]

and reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act here in the House, 
Republicans crafted a partisan bill that failed to include many of the 
important protections enacted by the Senate. In fact, the Republican 
legislation would undermine vital protections and services for victims 
of domestic violence. The House Republican proposal left out 
improvements that the Senate had passed, including protections for 
immigrant women, college students, and LGBT Americans.
  A bipartisan coalition of 13 women Senators, including Republican 
Senator Lisa Murkowski, signed a letter to Speaker Boehner yesterday 
urging that he call a vote on the strong, bipartisan Senate-passed bill 
that would strengthen protections for all victims of domestic and 
sexual violence saying, ``We should not let politics pick and choose 
which victims of abuse to help and which to ignore''--a bill, by the 
way, that every single woman in the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, 
voted for.
  Reauthorizing important provisions that help ensure the safety of all 
victims of domestic and sexual abuse across our country should be 
routine--even in Washington, D.C. But once again, House Republicans 
have allowed a far-right ideology to interfere with the commonsense 
approach to protecting women and families from violence.
  Women's lives are too important for another round of congressional 
brinksmanship. Last year, in my home State of Rhode Island, more than 
13,000 hotline calls were answered by the Rhode Island Coalition 
Against Domestic Violence.
  Republicans in this Chamber are wrong to relegate the safety and 
well-being of these women behind an extreme political ideology. I urge 
my colleagues to continue their strong support for the bipartisan 
Senate legislation that would provide effective protections for all 
victims of sexual or domestic violence. We must keep the pressure on 
for passage of the Senate bipartisan bill. America's women and our 
families deserve no less.

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