White House Says They'll Veto Republicans' Watered Down Version of the Violence Against Women Act

[bigtree]

The White House has issued a veto threat should the House version of the Violence Against Women Act reach the President’s desk.

In a statement just released, the administration said that the House version of the bill is unnacceptable. Sponsored by Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL), the House version removes the protections for marginalized communities, stripping out provisions that were passed in the Senate version of the bill.

According to the statement from the White House, the House bill “undermines the core principles of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).”

The House version of VAWA would let abusers know that their victims called for help. It would also strip out the Senate’s protections for LGBT people and undocumented immigrants.

read: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/15/484857/white-house-threatens-to-veto-watered-down-violence-against-women-act/


STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

H.R. 4970 – Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2012 (Rep. Adams, R-FL, and 40 cosponsors)

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 4970, a bill that would undermine the core principles of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). VAWA is a landmark piece of legislation that first passed the Congress in 1994 and has twice been reauthorized with overwhelming bipartisan support, each time with important improvements to strengthen VAWA. The Act transformed the Nation's response to violence against women and brought critically needed resources to States and local communities to address these crimes.

H.R. 4970 retreats from this forward progress by failing to include several critical provisions that are part of the Senate-passed VAWA reauthorization bill. For instance, H.R. 4970 fails to provide for concurrent special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction by tribal authorities over non-Indians, and omits clarification of tribal courts' full civil jurisdiction regarding certain protection orders over non-Indians. Given that three out of five Native American women experience domestic violence in their lifetime, these omissions in H.R. 4970 are unacceptable. The bill also fails to include language that would prohibit discrimination against LGBT victims in VAWA grant programs. No sexual assault or domestic violence victim should be beaten, hurt, or killed because they could not access needed support, assistance, and protection. In addition, H.R. 4970 does not include important improvements to the Clery Act found in the Senate-passed bill that would address the high rates of dating violence and sexual assault experienced by young people in college and other higher education institutions. The bill also weakens critical new provisions in the Senate-passed bill that would improve safety for victims living in subsidized housing.

H.R. 4970 also takes direct aim at immigrant victims of domestic violence and sexual assault by removing critical protections currently in law. H.R. 4970 allows abusers to be notified when a victim files a VAWA self-petition for relief, and it eliminates the path to citizenship for U visa holders – victims of serious crimes such as torture, rape, and domestic violence – who are cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation or prosecution of these crimes. These proposals senselessly remove existing legal protections, undermine VAWA's core purpose of protecting victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, frustrate important law enforcement objectives, and jeopardize victims by placing them directly in harm's way.
The Administration urges the House to find common ground with the bipartisan Senate-passed bill and consider and pass legislation that will protect all victims. H.R. 4970 rolls back existing law and removes long-standing protections for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault – crimes that predominately affect women. If the President is presented with H.R. 4970, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.

read veto statement: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/112/saphr4970r_20120515.pdf

[chickypea]

1. Fortunately the WH Takes These Erosions of Rights Very Seriously

And right now, in the U.S. if we had a Republican in the WH, we might as well all don well coifed hair, knee length modest skirts, with a garter belt and evocative lingerie... the 1950ies revisited.

Actually 1950ies America was more liberal than 2010s America, in some quarters.

If Mittens gets into the WH, women will become second class citizens again, and everything we have fought for and won, will go "poof" in one fell swoop.

[bigtree]

3. right on, chickypea!

welcome to DU

[spanone]

2. k&r...

republicans work day and night to restrict freedoms

[chickypea]

4. Thanks

Thanks for the welcome. I am new here. I was on another board, but it became inundated with the brain dead, so a friend who posts here said I would be welcomed. PHEW!!!!

[bigtree]

5. no worries, chickypea

I think you'll fit right in.

[jwirr]

6. Violence against WOMEN. What is it that they do not understand about that statement? A woman

is a woman regardless of any other criteria.

[NashuaDW]

7. How is this a Federal issue?

Assault and domestic violence are state and local issues.

Are we going to have the FBI investigating a late-nite, alcohol-fueled argument between spouses?

Seems like an over-reach and waste of time and resources.

[bigtree]

8. the federal law is more limited that you believe

The pending federal hate crime legislation would not convert every instance of domestic violence, rape, or sexual assault into a prosecution under the federal hate crime law.

The law applies only to felony crimes that involve a direct connection to interstate or foreign commerce, which requires, for example, that the perpetrator or victim crossed state lines or that the perpetrator employed a weapon that traveled in interstate commerce. The legislation would also limit federal involvement to those instances in which the Attorney General (or an authorized designee) not only certifies that the crime appears to be motivated by gender bias, and confirms the need for federal intervention by certifying in each instance that local officials cannot or will not act, or have requested federal assistance, or fail to adequately prosecute the incident.

It is important to note that not every violent crime against women is a bias crime, just as not every crime against an African American is based on racial prejudice. Federal courts already routinely assess the question of gender motivation in the context of workplace discrimination claims and claims raised under other federal civil rights laws, such as 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Prosecutors and judges can rely on the same totality of the circumstances analysis — considering the language, nature and severity of the attack, absence of another apparent motive, patterns of behavior, and common sense — to determine whether a violent crime was motivated by gender bias. A look at the actual numbers of prosecutions under state hate crimes laws further stems any concern that this legislation will open the floodgates to federal hate crimes prosecutions. States that recognize gender-based hate crimes have not been overwhelmed by prosecutions of domestic violence, rape, and sexual assault under their existing hate crimes laws. Instead, these laws have operated in a very targeted way. The experience in these states demonstrates that protection against gender-motivated bias crimes is essential.

[eggplant]

9. Your argument seems like an over-reach and a waste of time and resources as well.

Given that this law has been on the books for a number of years, and is simply being reauthorized, on what basis do you make your claims?

[sakabatou]

10. I'd hate to see what would happen if repubs got control of the Senate as well

[jwirr]

11. Heard what happened in Native American Clinic meeting as they were talking about the exclusion

of NA women from this bill. They are furious and support President Obama even more.

[bigtree]

12. there's nothing left to wonder

. . . about the poor character of the republican party.

[jwirr]

14. No. What is really sick about this whole issue is that the act protects women - who among the

excluded are not women?

[bigtree]

16. it's always been that way with those types

. . . who presume to speak for women, over the ages, yet insist on speaking down to them instead. It's obviously not women that they're concerned with in their opposition . . . If they admit that some women need protection, then it makes no sense at all why others shouldn't get the same protections. It's clearly discriminatory to exclude All of the folks the republicans do in the House bill.

[Johonny]

13. Isn't that what Republicans want him to do?

They are losing women as a group huge. So they put poison pill into this bill to see if Democrats won't support it. Then they claim "look Democrats are voting against protecting violence against women". They depend on low information voters. Hell they killed Kerry on his voting record. Kerry was smart enough to explain why he did what he did on several issues, but detailed explanations don't generally work on low information voters. If Obama does actually veto this bill, it is going to become a very interesting election topic. I imagine they would love to make attack ads on this subject. Nothing Republicans do is for the better of society these days, but nearly everything they do is to position themselves in elections.

[bigtree]

15. I don't think the Senate would pass this bill

. . . so it probably won't come to that.

Look, women who actually care about this issue know full-well who is on their side as far as the VAWA is concerned. It would be hard to argue that republicans -- who've opposed most of the important provisions in this bill since its inception -- are more concerned about the Violence Against Women Act, than its original author, Vice President Joe Biden.

[Johonny]

17. The senate passed a much better bill

so it will go to the compromise committee.

There are a lot of low information voters. They don't target people that inform themselves. There are a lot of women that would care about this issue if they understood it. Democrats generally run on their belief they can explain to people the complexity of situations, Republicans count on voters being ill informed. People tend to support every detail in the health care reform bill Obama passed, yet Republicans can and have run against the bill because so many people fail to understand the things they actually just said they support are in that health care reform bill. If the strategy didn't ever work Republicans would not use it.