Months after House Republicans refused to allow a vote on the
bipartisan Senate reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, instead passing a bill that
excluded or weakened protections for vulnerable groups such as undocumented immigrants, LGBT people, and Native Americans, VAWA's fate is still undecided.
Now, Speaker John Boehner has appointed members—female members, even!—to a conference committee that doesn't exist. Conference committees hammer out the differences between House and Senate bills and reach compromise. But Senate Democrats are taking the view that since they already passed a bipartisan bill, there's no reason to compromise by making it weaker. They're all, "Moving forward means House Republicans dropping their opposition to including these groups in a final bill" and "There is no reason to have to go to conference." Really, those things were said by, respectively, a "senior Senate Democratic aide" and Sen. Patty Murray.
In an op-ed, Vice President Joe Biden joined Senate Democrats in keeping the pressure on House Republicans to take up the bipartisan Senate bill:
Support for the Violence Against Women Act runs broad and deep. It includes law enforcement, prosecutors, victims' advocates, faith groups, and Democrats and Republicans alike. So this should be easy - and beyond politics. Instead, the clock is now running out for the more than 23,000 women who call our national domestic abuse hotline every month and for all women who may one day be the victims of violence.
Congress should pass the bipartisan version approved by the U.S. Senate.
Boehner is going to keep trying to run the "we support VAWA and we're ready to negotiate" play. But the burden is on him to get the less-exclusionary, more-complete bill with proven bipartisan support through the House. Good for Democrats for not backing down.