This really should not have taken this long.
Efforts to renew the Violence Against Women Act reached a potential turning point Tuesday when the bill received its 60th cosponsor, Nevada Sen. Dean Heller. Some Republicans had voiced oppositions to proposed additions to the legislation that would expand protections for same-sex couples and illegal immigrants. If all 60 cosponsors vote for the bill, it will overcome a potential filibuster.
So we have every Democrat, including Mark Pryor God love him, and a handful of Republicans that had to be dragged kicking and screaming to support the bill:
Heller joins Idaho’s Mike Crapo, an author of the bill, Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Massachusetts’ Scott Brown, and Illinois’ Mark Kirk as a Republican supporting reauthorization.
And why is this bill that should be totally nonpartisan so controversial all of a sudden? Because Republicans are bigots.
There are three reasons some Republicans are trying to block the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act: Gays, immigrants, and Native Americans.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which first passed in 1994 and has been reauthorized twice since then, increased federal penalties for domestic violence and provided funding for groups and services that aid victims of domestic abuse. The bill hit the bipartisan sweet spot of being both tough on crime and oriented toward women’s rights. Usually it’s reauthorized without much fanfare. This time around, however, several Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), are putting up a fight. Despite the fact that the bill has several Republican sponsors, all eight GOP senators on the Judiciary Committee voted against the bill when the committee considered it last month.
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In a speech before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February, Grassley laid out his objections to the bill. Republicans’ biggest qualms are about provisions that make federal grants to domestic violence organizations contingent on nondiscrimination against gay, lesbian, and transgender victims; rules extending the authority of tribal courts over domestic violence matters; and a section that would provide more visas for abused undocumented women who agree to cooperate with law enforcement.
“I wish we could proceed in a consensus fashion again,” Grassley said. “But there are provisions in the bill before us that have never been part of VAWA before. They’re not consensus items.” Grassley says he wants the reauthorization to pass—just without the parts he considers extraneous. Here’s a quick breakdown of what has the GOP riled up.
So let’s put it this way. Republicans hate brown people and LGBT people so much that they are perfectly happy with abusers kicking the crap out of them. In fact, they hate them so much that they are perfectly willing to let this bill die and see women who don’t fall into those categories get the shit beat out of them by abusive husbands and boyfriends. That’s the mind set and “moral values” of these sick psychotic fucks that make up the GOP. And if that doesn’t scare you into never voting Republican again I don’t know what would.
Oh by the way, notice John Boozman isn’t on that list of cosponsors.
The Crapo bill is flawed and so is Senator Pryor. While no one would condone beating up anyone the language of the bill needs to be properly stated if it is to become a law. Mark Pryor needs to retire since the scandal about how he used his considerable influence to silence an IRS audit of his family’s tax evasion case. Can we please try to have some professionalism brought back to government?
@johnbalzer-Relevance?