With all the wrangling over measures to keep America from going over the fiscal cliff, another piece of legislation died quietly on Tuesday night: the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has expired, forcing supporters to start all over again to extend protections to more than half this country’s population.
Expansions to a Senate version of the act—which would have added provisions for Native American women, illegal immigrants, lesbians and trans women—were opposed by several key GOP lawmakers, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), the main advocate for VAWA re-authorization, attacked the GOP’s inaction in a statement:
“The House Republican leadership’s failure to take up and pass the Senate’s bipartisan and inclusive VAWA bill is inexcusable. This is a bill that passed with 68 votes in the Senate and that extends the bill’s protections to 30 million more women. But this seems to be how House Republican leadership operates. No matter how broad the bipartisan support, no matter who gets hurt in the process, the politics of the right wing of their party always comes first.”
Frankly, we’re not exactly surprised the House leadership doesn’t have much consideration for women. Female voters voted Democrat on Election Day by a 12-point margin.
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2eo
Of course, the groups most attacked by the GOP are the ones they will always vote against, given how the GOP loathe women it should come as no surprise.
This is the same collective who think the body can magically stop r@pe. There is a direct correlation between r@pists and GOP voters.
Myles.
Shame!
1EqualityUSA
GOP is the gift that keeps on giving. Thanks for 2016!
Cam
The right wing seems to hate women, gays, minorities, workers, taxpayers, middle class, etc…
They don’t hate countries like Saudi Arabia because they dislike their policies with regard to religion or women.
They hate those countries because they feel the same way and they see those clerics etc… as competition.
Right winger fundamentalists and right wing islamic clerics seem to be just another branch of the typical Catholic v. protostant or Suni v. Shite issue.
Two beliefs very close together that hate each other.
MK Ultra
Canter looks like that quack “researcher” Regnerus or whatever his name is. You remember, the lunatic that claimed gays caused the extintion of the dinosaurs, and the hole in the ozone layer, and the cold wsr (oh but he doesn’t want you to think he has an anti gay agenda! wink wink)
2eo
@MK Ultra: I caused the cold war.
Just because I was only alive for 4 years of it doesn’t mean it isn’t completely and absolutely true.