Asking for it
by digby
GOP war on women? Please, that's just ridiculous:
Protecting women from violence and abuse has been an issue of bipartisan cooperation since President Clinton signed the landmark Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994. It was reauthorized with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2000 and again in 2005. Not this year.
On Feb. 2, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation (S. 1925) reauthorizing VAWA. The bill was sponsored by Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) -- who is not on the committee -- and cosponsored by 34 senators from both parties. Nevertheless, the legislation attracted no GOP support among committee members and passed out of committee on a party-line vote of 10-8. It was, according to Leahy's office, the first time VAWA legislation did not receive bipartisan backing out of committee.
Why?
The Leahy-Crapo reauthorization would place an increased emphasis on reducing domestic homicides and sexual assault, strengthen housing protections for domestic violence victims and focus more on the high rates of violence amongst teens and young adults.
The objections, led by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and a few conservative organizations, are not over the VAWA as a whole, but over a few new provisions in the reauthorization -- specifically, protections for LGBT individuals, undocumented immigrants who are victims of domestic abuse and the authority of Native American tribes to prosecute crimes.
The Leahy bill enumerates protections for LGBT victims of domestic violence, forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by VAWA grantees.
The tribal provision is taken from the SAVE Native Women Act, which had bipartisan support and passed out of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Grassley doesn't feel Native Americans should have the right to prosecute white people, apparently. (Who knows where that slippery slope might lead.)
And, of course, gays and immigrants are asking for it. (They can always straighten up and fly right if they don't want to get hit ...)