LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

July 6, 2000

Special Report: Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act

Breaking News 7/11/00 - We have just heard that the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill (H.R. 1248) may be placed on the House calendar for a floor vote on Monday, July 17th.  Please contact your Representative as soon as possible to urge your Representative to demand that the Local Law Enforcement Act (formerly called the Hate Crimes Prevention Act) be brought to a vote in the House; it has already passed the Senate.  We will follow up with updates on our email Action Alert network.

As the 106th Congress winds down and heads into the election season, this is the time for NOW activists to tell members of their Congressional delegation that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) must be reauthorized. The last few weeks have seen reauthorization bills moving in both the House and Senate - and that is very hopeful - but there is a possibility that the final votes will not be made until just before the November elections. That won't help a number of VAWA programs that have already expired and others due to expire this summer. So we are urging you to call Congressional leaders and ask them to bring VAWA reauthorization to the floor before the August recess! Here's how to reach them:

Senate Majority Leader
Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS)
Phone: (202) 224-3135
Fax: (202) 224-4639
Email: senatorlott@lott.senate.gov
Address: U.S. Capitol, S-230
Washington, D.C. 20510

Speaker of the House
Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
Phone: (202) 225-0600
Fax: (202) 225-7733
Email: dhastert@mail.house.gov
Address: U.S. Capitol, H-232
Washington, D.C. 20515
 

Recent Developments:

The House Judiciary Committee passed the VAWA reauthorization bill (H.R.1248) on June 27th with some changes: increased funding directly from the Dept. of Justice for state domestic violence and sexual assault coalitions, new definition of dating violence in STOP (law enforcement) grants, grants to encourage arrest, and rural grants, technical assistance and grant programs that facilitate enforcement of protection orders across state lines and on tribal lands, $25 million grant program for survivors transitional housing; $15 million for supervised visitation and exchange program in Dept. of Justice, and $35 million (increasing to $55 million by 2005) for Civil Legal Assistance Programs for survivors of domestic violence.

In the Senate, S. 2787, sponsored by Sens. Joe Biden (D-DE) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), was reported out of the Judiciary Committee on June 29th. It is a slim reauthorization bill that does not include everything that we would like; a summary of its provisions are included in the attachments. Please remember that you can go to thomas.loc.gov/ (website for Congress) and get the full text of all bills.
 

Victory!

The Smith-Kennedy Hate Crimes amendment (formerly the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, renamed the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act) was attached to the Defense Department authorization bill and passed the Senate on a 57-42 vote on June 20th. As the House has already passed the DOD reauthorization bill, the conference committee (composed of members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees) will be making the final decision. Please call, fax or email your Representative to urge that they support retaining the strong Smith-Kennedy hate crimes amendment.

Attached please find a set of detailed summaries of what is contained in the VAWA legislation that has been prepared by the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women in which NOW participates. NOW's regular Legislative Update for July will appear on our website soon and will be emailed out to our Action Alert network. If you are not on this network, sign up by sending the message subscribe-now-action-list to majordomo@now.org
 

Additional References:

Description of VAWA House bills in the House:  http://www.ncadv.org/publicpolicy/titleI.htm
Biden-Hatch (S. 2787) Summary:  http://www.now.org/issues/violence/s2787.html

VAWA House co-sponsors (H.R. 1248):  http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:HR01248:@@@P
Biden-Hatch (S. 2787) co-sponsors:  http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:SN02787:@@@P

H.R. 1248:  http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.r.1248:
S. 2787:  http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:s.2787:

Hate Crimes:  http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:s.622:

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