Revamped legislation survives NRA challenge

House passes new version of Violence Against Women Act

Post-Gazette wire services

The House voted Thursday to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, overcoming opposition from the National Rifle Association to a provision of the bill expanding gun control — but the bill is seen as facing an unlikely future in the Senate where negotiators are working on their own version.

The vote was 263-158, with 33 Republicans joining Democrats to pass it, including Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Bucks County, the bill’s only Republican co-sponsor.

The law lapsed earlier this year after Democrats declined to extend it, wanting to pass their own reauthorization for another five years instead. VAWA programs, though, are technically still being funded.

Republicans objected to the bill Thursday for several reasons, including the inclusion of protections for transgender people and a provision that would prohibit those convicted of certain misdemeanor charges from purchasing firearms.

While the existing law has protections for transgender individuals in shelters and housing, the new bill would add protections in prisons, allowing transgender individuals to stay in facilities for the gender with which they identify.

Republicans spent time on the House floor objecting to both the existing and new protections, pointing repeatedly to a case last year in California where women alleged a transgender resident sexually harassed them at a women’s shelter. Democrats disputed facts in the case and argued there was by and large no evidence that transgender residents cause problems at women’s shelters.

Republicans also took issue with the bill’s lifetime ban on current or former dating partners who were convicted of misdemeanor charges of stalking or domestic abuse on purchasing firearms, or who are under one-party restraining orders. That language has strong NRA pushback. Democrats argue they’re trying to close the “boyfriend loophole.”

GOP lawmakers also argue the bill limits law enforcement tools to investigate and prosecute domestic violence and that it promotes a type of mediation that could put the victim and abuser in close proximity.

The landmark 1994 law, frequently reauthorized over the years with little debate, expired with the 35-day government shutdown.

Buoyed by a more-widespread embrace of gun control in their own ranks, Democrats seized on the NRA’s opposition. Both sides accused each other of playing politics with the bill and the sensitive issue of domestic abuse.

Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, blamed Democrats for allowing the Violence Against Women Act to expire and said they will be to blame again when the Republican-controlled Senate almost surely blocks it.

Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, said he supports extending the program for one year but could not agree to expansions Democrats insisted on. “My Democratic colleagues have chosen to take what has traditionally been a bipartisan initiative and instead turned it into a political weapon,” he said. “We know that the bill the House passed today is dead on arrival in the Senate as it contains numerous provisions that can endanger and retraumatize women.”

Like almost all of his Democratic colleagues, Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Mt. Lebanon, voted for the bill.

“This legislation reaffirms important protections for survivors of violence and supports organizations and programs that protect and serve thousands of victims all over Pennsylvania. We need to get it into law without any more delay and make it clear that this lifesaving work will continue.”