VAWA 2013: House GOP Unveils Bill With No LGBT Protections, Modified Tribal Provision

Submitted by JAC on Fri, 02/22/2013 - 12:00am

The House leadership continues its attack on women by introducing a version of VAWA that again strips the expanded provisions of the bipartisan Senate bill passed last week.

House Republican leaders quietly unveiled their Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill on Friday, a proposal that differs from what the Senate passed last week in a handful of ways, namely in its omission of LGBT protections and its modified language targeting Native American victims of domestic abuse.

The GOP proposal was posted on the House Rules Committee website with little fanfare, along with an announcement that the committee will begin moving the bill forward in a Tuesday hearing. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) will sponsor the bill and the House is expected to bring it to a full vote later next week, a House Republican leadership aide confirmed.

Here is a link to their 288-page bill and a section-by-section analysis of what's in it. House Republicans are planning to take up the Senate bill, strip its contents and put their language into that bill.

A cursory look at the bill reveals some notable changes from the bipartisan VAWA bill that cleared the Senate last week.

The House GOP bill entirely leaves out provisions aimed at helping LGBT victims of domestic violence. Specifically, the bill removes "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" from the list of underserved populations who face barriers to accessing victim services, thereby disqualifying LGBT victims from a related grant program. The bill also eliminates a requirement in the Senate bill that programs that receive funding under VAWA provide services regardless of a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. Finally, the bill excludes the LGBT community from the STOP program, the largest VAWA grant program, which gives funds to care providers who work with law enforcement officials to address domestic violence.