The last time the Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized in 2013, Republicans held it up for months in large part because they objected to new protections for Native American women. With VAWA back under debate in 2019, House Republicans tried to roll back those protections.
Native women face outrageously high levels of violence, much of it from non-Native men. The 2013 Violence Against Women Act gave tribes jurisdiction over non-Native people who commit domestic violence or violate protection orders on tribal land, a necessary move because non-tribal authorities are often too far away to respond effectively or just … don’t. Republicans did not want to see white men potentially facing justice from American Indian authorities. They still don’t want it.
“Tribal courts do not necessarily adhere to the same constitutional provisions that protect the rights of all defendants in federal and state courts,” said Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, the Republican who introduced the attempt to gut the law. It’s a nice little concern for constitutional rights that has the ultimate effect of saying that women who are battered or raped by their non-Native partners don’t deserve justice or protection. According to the Indian Law Resource Center, “By their own account, between 2005 and 2009, U.S. attorneys declined to prosecute 67% of the Indian country matters referred to them involving sexual abuse and related matters.”
Republicans want to put white abusers above Native victims—but in this House, they can’t do that. Sensenbrenner’s amendment failed in committee on a party-line vote.