Fierce and partisan opposition is springing up against congressional reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, but before you break out your War On Women scrapbook, I've got good news: the opposition seems to be over gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals, Native Americans, and illegal immigrants. See? The arc of justice eventually bends onto other groups.
Congress has never had a problem renewing the Act before, but S 1925 is taking a surprising amount of heat. The three problems:
- The Act contains provisions preventing discrimination against LGBT individuals who seek assistance from VAWA grantees, which critics worry dilutes the assistance provided.
- S 1925 lifts the cap of available visas for undocumented victims of domestic abuse, who might otherwise fear reporting incidents due to the threat of deportation.
- The new VAWA expands tribal authority over non-Indians involved in domestic abuse charges. As it stands now, Native American tribes don't have authority over the potential offenders, and local authorities and the federal government don't have the resources to prosecute them, creating a no man's land of enforcement.
In other words, it's not the preventing violence against women part that bothers GOP legislators, but which women are being protected. By the by, it's quite impressive to be simultaneously anti-Native American and anti-illegal immigrant; that's called range. (It will also be interesting to see if yesterday's PEW survey about the reversal in immigration rates affects the visa issue.)
Chuck Grassley and Kay Bailey Hutchison are drafting a substitute bill without these provisions, but supporters of the original VAWA say the bill was crafted without any advocate input, and as a result contains numerous "solutions in search of problems." Meanwhile, House Republicans are quickly drafting their own bill so they aren't boxed in by S 1925. We all look forward to more quotes from Eric Cantor on domestic abuse.
Democrats have been using Republican opposition to paint the critics as unsympathetic toward domestic abuse victims. While it absolutely kills me to agree with John Cornyn, he's got a point when he calls this "political football." GOP critics are not objecting to the substance of the bill but specific (and somewhat peripheral) policy measures within it; agree or disagree with their objections, but they're engaging in legitimate legislating, not crapping on women.
That having been said, laws protecting women shouldn't just apply to white, straight, American women of European descent. The new VAWA provisions are hardly onerous impositions upon the government or the budget, and if anything turns America into an illegal immigration paradise it's not going to be giving out extra visas to victims of domestic abuse. If Grassley, Hutchison, et al take heat over their imposition to this bill, for whatever reason, all the better.
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