Domestic violence bill now heads to Senate
WASHINGTON — With a nod to Women’s History Month, the Democratic-led House passed two measures Wednesday, one designed to protect women from domestic violence, the other to remove the deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.
The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act passed 244-172 with 29 Republicans joining Democrats in supporting the legislation.
The resolution to repeal the ERA’s ratification deadline passed 222-204. Both measures face a more difficult path in an evenly divided Senate.
The White House announced its support earlier Wednesday for reauthorizing VAWA, which aims to reduce domestic and sexual violence and improve the response to it through a variety of grant programs. Many of the Democratic congresswomen wore allwhite outfits to commemorate the day, a nod to the women’s suffrage movement when marchers would wear white dresses to symbolized the femininity and purity of their cause.
President Joe Biden applauded the House action and urged the Senate to follow suit. “This should not be a Democratic or Republican issue — it’s about standing up against the abuse of power and preventing violence,” the president said in a statement Wednesday evening.
The original bill created the Office on Violence Against Women within the Justice Department, which has awarded more than $9 billion in grants to state and local governments, nonprofits and universities over the years. The grants fund crisis intervention programs, transitional housing and legal assistance to victims, among other programs. Supporters said the reauthorization would also boost spending for training law enforcement and the courts.
“This bill leaves no victim behind,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.
The legislation also would prohibit persons previously convicted of misdemeanor stalking from possessing firearms, a provision that generated opposition from the NRA and resulted in most Republicans voting against the measure in the last Congress.
The other measure the House took up Wednesday would remove the deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, a decades-long effort to amend the Constitution to expressly prohibit discrimination based on sex. Congress initially required the states to ratify it by 1979, a deadline it later extended to 1982.
Shortly after Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the amendment last year, the archivist of the United States declared he would take no action to certify the amendment’s adoption, citing the Justice Department opinion.
Rep. Tom McClintock, RCalif., noted that a champion of the amendment, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, had said it was time to start anew.
“This measure is brazenly unconstitutional,” McClintock said. “If the majority were serious, they would reintroduce the ERA and debate it openly and constitutionally as Ginsburg suggests.”
The ERA faced bitter opposition from some conservatives, who say it could be used as a legal tool to fight state efforts to curb abortion.