On May 16, the House passed, 222-205, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (H.R. 4970). The House Judiciary Committee approved the legislation on May 8 (see The Source, 5/11/12). The Senate approved its version of the bill (S. 1925) on April 26 (see The Source, 4/27/12).
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) would reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act through 2017, authorizing funding for programs to reduce and eliminate domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.
According to the committee report, “[t]the funding levels mirror those contained in S. 1925…H.R. 4970 incorporates the vast majority of the program reforms and improvements contained in S. 1925, including consolidation of a number of court-training, youth-targeted, and health-related programs and streamlined grant application procedures.” However, unlike its Senate counterpart, H.R. 4970 does not include gender identity or sexual orientation as a factor for VAWA grants. The measure would not grant jurisdiction to Indian tribal governments to issue protection orders or prosecute non-Indian perpetrators of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking. The bill would not increase the annual cap on available U-visas, as is the case in S. 1925 (the U-visa grants temporary legal status to nonimmigrant victims of crime). Instead, H.R. 4970 would require that law enforcement officials certify that the immigrant petitioner seeking U-visa status actively is assisting with the investigation and prosecution of criminal activity in order to be eligible for a U-visa. In addition, the bill would prohibit U-visa recipients from receiving permanent legal residence after three years, as is the case under current law. While the Senate bill would require colleges and universities to notify their communities about crimes on or near the campuses, the House bill does not include such language.
The measure would authorize $222 million annually for FY2013-2017 for the Services-Training-Officers-Prosecutors (STOP) grants program, the primary program to reduce and eliminate violence against women. A grant program that provides technical assistance to law enforcement agencies to improve their capacities to arrest and prosecute offenders, Grants to Encourage Arrest Policies and Enforcement of Protection Orders (GTEAP) would receive $73 million annually for FY2013-2017.
Greater emphasis would be placed on stalking and sexual assault prevention and services. The bill would require that at least 20 percent of the funds allocated for STOP grants be “allocated for programs or projects that meaningfully address sexual assault, including stranger rape, acquaintance rape, alcohol- or drug-facilitated rape, and rape within the context of an intimate partner relationship.”
In addition, the measure would authorize $40 million for FY2013-2017 for the Sexual Assault Services program, which provides grants to states, territories, tribal programs, and nongovernmental organizations that provide services to victims of sexual assault. The bill would authorize $50 million for FY2013-2017 for grants to address rural domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, and child abuse enforcement, and would “develop, expand, or strengthen programs addressing sexual assault, including sexual assault forensic examiner programs, Sexual Assault Response Teams, law enforcement training, and programs addressing rape kit backlogs.” The measure also would extend to victims of sexual assault the same housing protections available to victims of domestic violence and dating violence. Cyberstalking would be added to the federal anti-stalking statute “to capture more modern forms of communication that perpetrators use to stalk their victims.”
The bill would require that at least 75 percent of funds available in FY2013 and FY2014 through the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act (P.L. 106-546) be used to reduce the backlog in testing rape kits for DNA evidence.
The bill would consolidate several grants to programs that provide services for children and youth into the Creating Hope through Outreach, Options, Services, and Education for (CHOOSE) Children and Youth program. The bill would authorize $15 million for FY2013-2017 for grantees that provide services – counseling, mentoring, legal assistance, and training and assistance to middle and high schools – to enhance the safety of youth and children who are victims of, or exposed to, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking and to prevent future violence. The Rape Prevention and Education grant program would receive $50 million annually for FY2013-2017 under H.R. 4970.
Programs to train judges and court personnel and promote safe supervised visitation for families in cases involving domestic violence and sexual assault would be merged into a single program – grants to support families in the justice system – and authorized at $22 million for FY2013-2017.
Programs to reduce violence on college campuses would receive $12 million for FY2013-2017. Colleges and universities would be required to develop and distribute a statement of policy that details the “institution’s programs to prevent domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking; and the procedure that such institution will follow once an incident of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking has been reported.”
The measure also would establish a National Center for Campus Public Safety, administered through the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office at the Department of Justice. The center would “train IHE [institutes of higher education] public safety agencies and their collaborative partners; foster relevant research; collect, coordinate, and disseminate information and best practices regarding campus safety; develop protocols to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from natural and man-made emergencies that threaten the campus community; and increase cooperation between IHEs and the law enforcement, mental health, and other agencies and jurisdictions that serve them.” The Senate bill does not contain this provision.
As reported by the Judiciary Committee, the bill would have authorized federal immigration officers to “consider any credible evidence relevant to” a victim’s application for a U-visa. The provision would have allowed immigration agents to interview alleged perpetrators of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking as part of the evaluation of the victim’s “self-petitioning” visa application. However, a manager’s amendment offered by Rep. Adams and approved before the bill’s consideration on the House floor struck this provision and would retain current law’s evidentiary standards and procedures.
The bill also would provide grants to Indian tribal governments to address sex trafficking, sexual assault, stalking, as well as domestic violence, and dating violence. The grants would be used to provide services to youth who are victims of such crimes and to develop and promote legislation and policies that “enhance best practices for responding to violent crimes against Indian women.” Additionally, the measure would allow American Indians or their family members to seek federal protection orders against Indian and non-Indian individuals. Analysis and research on violence against women and the tribal sex offender registries program both would receive $1 million for FY2013-2017.
The measure would impose a mandatory ten-year minimum prison sentence for aggravated sexual assault by force or threat of force. Aggravated sexual assault by “other means,” such as the use of drugs to render a victim unconscious, would receive a mandatory minimum sentence of five years.
Speaking on behalf of the legislation, Rep. Adams said, “Keeping with the bipartisan nature of the act, the House bill, H.R. 4970, reauthorizes the grant programs in VAWA for a third time at the same funding levels as our colleagues in the Senate agreed to last month. In addition to making several key improvements to the Senate bill, including nearly doubling resources for eliminating the backlog of unprocessed rape evidence kits, the House bill brings greater accountability to VAWA grant administration by ensuring that funding is spent on the victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, and not on Washington bureaucrats…To achieve these goals, H.R. 4970 requires that the inspectors general of DOJ [Department of Justice] and HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] conduct an annual audit of at least ten percent of all VAWA grant recipients and limits the use of funds for OVW [Office on Violence Against Women] salaries and administrative expenses to five percent of the annual authorization. H.R. 4970 also requires the attorney general, in consultation with the secretary of Health and Human Services, to improve the coordination of grants within the department in order to eliminate duplication and overlap. H.R. 4970 also requires the attorney general, in consultation with the secretary of Health and Human Services, to improve the coordination of grants within the department in order to eliminate duplication and overlap. Make no mistake about it: this is a victim-centered bill which includes all victims – an all-inclusive, victim-centered bill. Turning this reauthorization into a political issue is not only wrong, but it is dangerous. It is dangerous. We cannot allow domestic violence in this country to become a campaign issue. It must be a reflection of our best efforts as Americans united against breaking a cycle of violence and helping victims become survivors.”
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) spoke against H.R. 4970 and in support of her motion to recommit, which would have clarified provisions to protect the victim’s identity. She said, “Under current law, abused women are able to seek help and come forward to authorities under the condition of confidentiality; but H.R. 4970, as amended, does a couple of things. For example, it delays the protection of battered victims by staying adjudications before pending investigations or prosecutions are completed. It creates a negative inference against the victim if law enforcement does not open a formal investigation or if prosecutors fail to prosecute the perpetrator. I can tell you that, notwithstanding the due process rights of abusers, current law provides a very delicate balance between the due process rights of abusers and the confidentiality of those accusers. The fact that the bill was amended in this way re-stimulates me to remember an incident in my own life when the balance of rights was tipped in favor of the abuser. I am reminded of a time when I got into an automobile, with a man whom I thought to be a personal friend, to go get some fried chicken. He pulled in behind some vacant buildings, and he raped me and choked me almost to death. When I went to the hospital, I was encouraged by an advocate – this was in the 1970s, long before there was a Violence Against Women Act, long before there was a Rape Shield Act – to take him to court. Indeed, I was on trial because, like this bill – and just like what I experienced – I had to prove as a victim that I was not being fraudulent in my accusations. Oh, they brought up how I was an unwed mother with a baby. Maybe I seduced him. They talked about how I was dressed, and they carried me through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops. Ultimately, he was found to be not guilty; although, I had done everything that I was told to do in terms of prosecuting this. I cannot stress the solemn nature of this issue.”
Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) said, “One area of particular concern to people back home in South Dakota is provisions for Native Americans and Native American women. Native American women suffer from higher levels of abuse than non-Indian women, but all too often they don’t get to see their perpetrators brought to justice. It’s simply unacceptable. This Violence Against Women Act improves upon many of the programs that are designed specifically to aid Native American women, and it also includes new provisions to improve Congress’s response to potential problems they may run into. Furthermore, to better ensure that Native American women have improved recourse against abusive individuals, I worked with the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the staff to include language in this bill to empower Native American women to either petition individually the federal courts or through their tribal courts for a federal restraining order. Ensuring that these women have the ability to obtain a protection order is a vital step towards stopping the cycle of abuse that many of them suffer through. It impacts disproportionately those in Indian country over other areas of the nation. Those who have suffered from violence and abuse have gone through enough. Let’s not cause more harm by putting politics before victims, and let’s support and reauthorize the improved Violence Against Women Act today.”
Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL) said, “I am disappointed in this closed rule for VAWA. I am concerned that the bill, even with the changes made in the manager’s amendment, doesn’t reflect everything that we’ve learned over the past five years in terms of what works best for victims or prosecutors. Over the past several months, I sat down with advocates in my district to go section by section through the Senate reauthorization and discussed what works and what doesn’t work. They strongly support provisions that would clarify equal treatment for LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered] individuals, bolster enforcement on Native American reservations, and ensure that victims aren’t deported simply for reporting domestic abuse. I see no reason to exclude these provisions from a House bill. Our victim service providers on the front lines really just want to know whom they can help and that they can help everyone who comes through the front door. Last night, I offered an amendment that would have modernized the bill’s definitions to reflect the input of victim service providers, including special protections for immigrant victims, and clarified that LGBT individuals can be served by VAWA. I previously worked on the authorization of VAWA, which incorporated good ideas. That authorization was never a partisan issue, and it shouldn’t be now.”
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) argued in support of the legislation, saying, “I spent 16 years prosecuting men who raped, stabbed, strangled, shot, and killed women. I have a mother, a wife, a daughter, three sisters, and the images of countless women indelibly imprinted on my mind because they were killed by men who claimed to care about them. This is not about politics to me. If you want to make women safer, then change the way we draw juries, change the discovery rules, improve the rape shield statute. But stop focusing on November’s election for just one afternoon and wonder with me what good we can accomplish if we will stop the political games, and if we could pick up some humanity and embrace the fact that, even in a political environment as dysfunctional as this one, we can find common ground when it comes to fighting for those who have no voice, who have nobody to stand up for them. [T]he political games have to stop, at least for a day. They have to stop. If this bill fails, it will be because those on the other side were so bent on making a point that they stopped caring about making a difference. [T]he Senate bill is fundamentally and constitutionally flawed. Further, to say…it continues to pit one group of Americans against another group of Americans solely for political reasons. Lady Justice doesn’t do that, and politicians shouldn’t do it either.”
“Before coming to Congress, I founded and was the first executive director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence,” said Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD). She continued, “I’ve trained thousands of police officers and judges, held victims’ hands in courts. I’ve done intake in shelters and held their children in emergency rooms and answered calls on hotlines. This bill, the underlying bill and the rule, do great damage to the work that we’ve done across the aisle as advocates and leaders of good will to protect the interests of battered women of domestic violence, victims, and survivors. Since the passage in 1994, the Violence Against Women Act has been a bipartisan piece of legislation. It has revolutionized the way violent crimes against women are prosecuted and prevented. Never would I have imagined that, when working on this 18 years ago, that we’d be in this Congress rolling back the protections that have been expanded to protect women, victims, survivors across this country and their children. It really is a sad day in this Congress. We should be ashamed of what we’re doing. We should make sure that we expand protections for women, for immigrant women, for lesbian and gay men and women, and to make sure that we pass a rule that truly is bipartisan in this Congress that reflects the values and the needs and the spirit of the 1994 law.”
