Senate Passes VAWA (Again)

Yesterday, the United States Senate again passed a bill to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) -- and they did it by a large margin (78 to 22). To their credit, 23 Republicans (about half of the Senate GOP) joined all of the Senate Democrats in voting for VAWA to be re-authorized. The bill that was passed is very much like the bill passed by the Senate last year (before being allowed to die in the House of Representatives). It includes protections for immigrants, Native Americans, and members of the LGBT community.

The bill now moves on to the House, where it was not even allowed to come up for a vote last year. The same thing could happen this year, since there is still substantial opposition to the bill -- especially from the teabagger Republicans. And the House leadership may still be afraid to allow a vote that might anger the large teabagger contingent. Those opposed to the bill are against the provisions that include protection from domestic violence for immigrants, the LGBT community, and Native Americans.

Frankly, I am amazed that these elected officials could even propose that some Americans should be protected from domestic violence while others should not be protected. That view is not only contrary to the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law, but violates common and basic decency which says ALL people should be protected from domestic violence. Obviously, these politicians believe pleasing their racist and misogynistic base is more important than protecting Americans from violence.

The picture above shows the 22 senators (all of them Republican) who either don't think women should be protected from violence, or think that only certain groups should be protected and others not protected. American women (and the men who care about them) should remember the names of these senators when they come up for re-election. Here are those names (in alphabetical order):

John Barrasso (Wyoming)
Roy Blunt (Missouri)
John Boozman (Arkansas)
Tom Coburn (Oklahoma)
John Cornyn (Texas)
Ted Cruz (Texas)
Michael Enzi (Wyoming)
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
Charles Grassley (Iowa)
Orrin Hatch (Utah)
James Inhofe (Oklahoma)
Mike Johanns (Nebraska)
Ron Johnson (Wisconsin)
Mike Lee (Utah)
Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
Rand Paul (Kentucky)
James Risch (Idaho)
Pat Roberts (Kansas)
Marco Rubio (Florida)
Tim Scott (South Carolina)
Jeff Sessions (Alabama)
John Thune (South Dakota)

Note that there were six states that had BOTH of their senators vote against protecting women from domestic violence (Texas, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming, Kentucky, and South Carolina). There were 10 other states that had one of their two senators vote against VAWA.