From Talking Points Memo: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/11/gop-not-budging-on-violence-against-women-act.php?ref=fpb
Sahil Kapur
November 15, 2012
If Republicans have been chastened by losing the women’s vote last week by the widest margin in modern history, they have a funny way of showing it.
House GOP leaders aren’t yielding to a bipartisan coalition of Senate leaders demanding they extend the protections of the Violence Against Women Act — an anti-domestic abuse bill that was first passed with broad support in 1994 but hit a brick wall of Republican opposition earlier this year.
“Nothing has changed,” a senior GOP aide told TPM. “The House has passed a bill, we are ready to move to conference, and the Speaker has announced his conferees. We are waiting on Senate Democrats to follow suit and act.”
Six months ago, Senate Democrats passed re-authorization that expanded the law’s protections to LGBT women, illegal immigrants and Native Americans. House Republicans rejected that approach, and in response passed a scaled back version that would make it more difficult for domestic violence victims in the country illegally to achieve legal status.
Democrats have reiterated their insistence that the House take up their version, which passed 68-31 with plenty of GOP support back in April, while the Republicans’ version passed the lower chamber on a more partisan basis in May. As a result, they have no interest in taking up the House GOP’s offer to go to conference.
Continue reading at: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/11/gop-not-budging-on-violence-against-women-act.php?ref=fpb
