Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty(rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
This past week a vote was taken in the United States Senate and it was not a vote to end a filibuster! The vote that I am referring to was a vote to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.(VAWA) It was noteworthy that the vote actually took place at all, but the results of the vote were especially interesting. The vote to reauthorize VAWA, which was co-sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, passed by a 78 to 22 margin. All 22 votes against the measure were by male Republican members of the Senate.
Before we disclose some of the members who voted against this bill, let’s discuss just what this bill has done for women. “As the country celebrates the 18th anniversary of the legislation, here are some of the victories achieved through VAWA:
- Victims can call for help. The National Domestic Violence Hotline was established as part of VAWA. It currently serves over 22,000 victims a month and has taken a total of 3 million calls.
- Law enforcement officers are trained to help victims. 500,000 law enforcement officials, judges, and prosecutors a year are trained with VAWA funding to help domestic abuse victims.
- Partner violence and homicides fell. From the year before VAWA’s passage until 2008, the number of women being killed by partners dropped 43 percent, and partner violence against women fell 53 percent.
- Stalking became illegal. Before VAWA, stalking was not a federal crime. The law established stalking as a felony offense.
- Rape is rape, no exceptions. Since the passage of VAWA, each state in the United States has updated its laws so that rape by a partner is treated equally to rape by a stranger.” Think Progress
I guess I could understand a Senator voting against the reauthorization if they thought the bill was too expensive and had not been successful in protecting women in the past, but that does not seem to be the case. Some of the reasons the dissenting Senators gave for voting against the VAWA are startling. One reason given was that the VAWA reauthorization included Native American women and LGBT women and undocumented women.
“Two Senators — Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) — also offered significant amendments to the VAWA bill. Grassley’s amendment stripped all Native American, LGBT, and undocumented victim protections. It was voted down on Thursday of last week. Cornyn’s, aimed exclusively on the bill’s language relating to tribal lands, failed on Monday. Grassley and Cornyn amendments
Does it surprise you that all 22 of the dissenting Senators were male? If this act was so bad, you would think that at least one female Senator would have voted against it. Even in this current political climate, I just cannot understand how approving a bill that has helped prevent violence against women could be voted against by anyone. Eight of the Senators even voted against moving the bill ahead to a vote.
The original VAWA passed in 1994 with even more Republican Senators voting against it, so maybe we are making progress. VAWA As I think about it, there were probably fewer female members of the Senate in 1994, so maybe we are not making progress after all. Why do you think that some of the dissenting Senators wanted to omit Native American women from the VAWA protections? Aren’t Native American women citizens? I realize that some of the Republican’s Native American concerns involve the Native American courts being able to deal with non-Native American participants. LA Times
From a political standpoint, I was surprised to see so many Republican Senators vote against reauthorizing VAWA. Especially in light of the Republican Party’s public attempts to court Hispanic voters, it seems strange that some of the leading Republicans in the Senate would vote against a bill designed to continue programs that have helped protect women at risk.
I think we should ask Senate Minority leader McConnell and GOP Presidential hopeful Marco Rubio and Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Chuck Grassley, and the other dissenting Senators, if they think women do not deserve the legal protections afforded them in this important piece of legislation. Would women in these dissenting Senator’s states agree with their votes on this legislation? Do these gentlemen remember how many voters are women? What do you think of this legislation?
Additional sources: Talking Points Memo; Think Progress;
The goals of protecting anyone from anyone are laudable goals.
The violence against women’s act by its very name is sexist, as is the content.
It should be named the violence against humans act.
Stats show that women assault men as often men assault women.
The end result of this legislation when it finally reaches the ground level is a presumption w/o proof of the man assaulting the woman, and encourages lying and false accusations, where there is no penalty for those false allegations.
It additionally entirely skews all Family Court proceedings, and allows gaming of the system against fathers.
The 22 Perps of the Senate For the Year 2013 are:
The 22 Republicans who voted against it were Sens. John Barrasso (WY), Roy Blunt (MO), John Boozman (AR), Tom Coburn (OK), John Cornyn (TX), Ted Cruz (TX), Mike Enzi (WY), Lindsey Graham (SC), Chuck Grassley (IA), Orrin Hatch (UT), James Inhofe (OK), Mike Johanns (NE), Ron Johnson (WI), Mike Lee (UT), Mitch McConnell (KY), Rand Paul (KY), Jim Risch (ID), Pat Roberts (KS), Marco Rubio (FL), Tim Scott (SC), Jeff Sessions (AL) and John Thune (SD)
Now you dogs here in Florida need to get crackin and organize around some woman to run against the Cuban whose parents fled Castro in 1956 (three years before Castro was around). Yeah, the Marco guy.
And, Mitch McConnell. Wife beater. Yep.
Joy,
Bing should read “being”!
Joy,
To answer your question, I was just bing polite.
Who were these 22 perps? I would guess: Blunt of Mizzou; Lindsey Graham of SC. I will go back and punch some of those blue words with my paws and see if I get the names.
The extension of the jurisdiction of tribal courts to criminal proceedings against those accused who are not members of the tribe is a major issue for many people. Being against that extension is not equivalent to being against protecting native american women from violence.
Steven, Are you an officer in the Thought Police? I’m guessing mind readers would be an expert witness in your court. The answer to your Russian hypothetical question or for ANY “hate” crime is an absolute NO..there should not be stiffer penalties.
Anyone who carries on about the law being either unnecessary or discriminatory because it concentrates its efforts on ameliorating violence against WOMEN as opposed to “against humans,” is just using pretend blindness/dumbness to cover for sexism. The plain fact is that in the 250 years our laws have developed, there have been gaping holes in enforcement and application of the nice neutral-gender laws as they applied to women (and children). Yes it was illegal to commit battery upon someone … BUT … if she was a disobedient wife, it was just plain necessary so nobody minded (except perhaps HER). Yes it was illegal to commit rape but really, would it count if she was a slut to start with? Yes it was illegal to kill somebody but if you think about it, a guy can get pretty worked up if the b*tch slept around. Don’t you see? Law is only law when it is applied, NOT when it is written. For it to be applied so that women are protected, there had to be a clear set of enabling legislation making it (a) clear; and (b) mandatory; and (c) possible for there to be application, enforcement and regulation.
There is not only no DOUBT that the VAW Act worked even better than it was planned, there is no doubt that this improvement would not have happened without it. How much simpler can you get when it comes to measurement of the effects of legislation?
The real reason for voting against this act is that the return to feudalism that is the essential plan of the 1% right now can best be achieved by keeping most, if not all, of the 99% very frightened, very besieged, and poor. Violence against Women is one of the best ways for an abusive society to do that. If the women are either terrorized or just plain disenfranchised (de facto), one of the strongest bases, if not THE strongest base, of future democratic viability is neutralized.
Go ahead, beat down your women. You will destroy your society. You are two-thirds there already.
Malisha & Steven,
Your comments have been brilliant and I applaud and I am awed by both of you.
Steven:
that is why we have varying degrees of murder, premeditated, manslaughter, etc. The reason for a premeditated murder doesnt really much matter. And neither does an unprovoked assault, it doesnt really matter why, it only matters that it was done.
Intent to murder is the issue, not whether the person is a particular nationality.
And no, that is not where my logic takes this. Manslaughter and premeditated murder are results of a state of mind or lack there of, not of a state of race.
The will of the individual is what counts, did he do it purposefully or was it an accident or was the individual negligent. It has nothing to do with race or gender but with the state of an individual mind.
Bron:
Here is your problem: you don’t like mitigating factors.
You seem to enjoy lumping things into categories. In order to diffuse my hypo you suggest that it doesn’t matter if the act was provoked or unprovoked, just that it happened. Fine, I can accept that, lets run with it. In a world where it either happened or it didn’t, mitigating factors have no place. Interesting. So how do you, using that logic, separate voluntary manslaughter from second degree murder (since you agree that the degrees of murder are appropriate), both require malice aforethought yet are differentiated by mitigating factors…thoughts?
You conveniently didn’t address my property hypo, but I guess you’d say the same thing. Spray painting a smiley face on my front door is apparently the same as writing a racial slur telling my family to leave because the same thing happened, someone damaged my property with spray paint….there is no difference.
You can’t honestly believe that both instances are the same?
But that brings me to the second part of your statement when you hit the nail on the head…it is all about state of mind (what was your intent when you spray painted my door). Except, you continually confuse the physical or perceived state of the victim with the state of mind of the criminal. When a criminal, intentionally, selects someone, due to their race or what have you, it his “state of mind” that he wants to injure that person because of that attribute. Yes, you are correct, it is his intent to harm someone and that should be punished. No argument there. But there is that mitigating factor again, that his intent to harm is predicated solely on his misguided belief.
In your line of logic, there is no way to punish a crime more severely because you fail to account for anything other than the intent of the criminal to cause the result. But the world is far more nuanced…you can’t simply just punish someone on the theory of it either happened or it didn’t.
Bron, in short, yes. Here is why (like with most crime, its about intent):
Scenario #1 – I knock a beer out of a guy’s hand in a crowded bar, he shoves me because I spilled the beer all over his shirt and jeans, I get mad and punch him in the face and then he beats the tar out of me.
Scenario #2 – I’m sitting in a crowded bar drinking some beer and chatting with a friends. The same guy now comes up behind me, unprovoked, and beats the tar out of me solely because I’m Russian.
Is that the same? While in both cases the tar is beaten out of me, doesn’t it seem like the violence provoked by nothing other than my nationality warrants a stiffer punishment?
You’re suggesting removing intent from the criminal equation. By your rationale, any killing, regardless of the circumstances, is murder because intent is irrelevant….all that is important is that a criminal act left someone dead. But that fails to take into account the circumstances. Is killing in the heat of the moment the same as a per-meditated killing? No. Is getting beat up for being Russian the same as getting beat up for shoving and punching someone? No.
But hate crimes don’t just involve physical altercations. What if someone defaced the front door of your home with racial and ethnic slurs…should the culprit only be fined for the damage (likely less than $1,000) and then charged with a misdemeanor? I think, and I would imagine you would also agree, that the cost of the crime is far greater than just the money needed to replace the door.
So yes, we are all humans, but since humans are imperfect and act upon misguided beliefs, we need to create a mechanism to punish those who commit crimes because of those beliefs. And despite what you suggest, there is not special group that receives protection. The law does not say, for example, that punching a Russian means you will receive a stiffer sentence. No, the law states that a hate crime is a “crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.”
By your rationale, the intent makes no difference, just the end result of the criminal act. I’d hate to live in that society, because, when being consistent with your logic, a person convicted of involuntary manslaughter would, in your world, be guilty of murder because intent is not important, only the fact that a person killed another person.
It doesn’t matter what race or sex or ethnicity you are, the law isn’t saying your protected because you fall into a certain group. Rather, the law is saying that if you are going to commit a crime based upon your ignorant beliefs (provided it can be proven that was the intent), be prepared to receive a stiffer penalty.
why would you refer to them as gentlemen?
RAFFLAW:
well that is true. But the states are compelled to follow the federal Constitution where it applies. Does the federal Constitution not protect us from murder, rape, beating and theft of our property?
Bron,
If the court or police won’t enforce the law against the other human being, the victim has to have some recourse to protect themselves.
The state judicial and police authorities who don’t do their jobs require additional laws to make them enforce all of the laws equally. Without these kind of laws, the DOJ would be filing many more lawsuits to force compliance and then the states would be crying states rights. As I mentioned above, this is not a new law, but a reauthorization of a law created in 1994.
rafflaw:
isnt the relief in the Constitution? Why do you need to make another law?
Steven:
if someone beats the tar out of you, does it matter why? Is it any more of a crime if they do it because they dont like Russians?
I just dont understand, a human being is a human being. The crime is against a human being not a member of a group.
Bron,
You do need so-called special laws when the states do not follow those Constitutional protections or deal with crimes against women differently.
rafflaw:
Please show where in the constitution it says that it is ok to invade the body cavity of any individual. That is a violation of a person’s individual rights. The putzs, here in Virginia, who brought that up should be run out of office on a rail by the people at the ballot box. We dont need special laws to handle things like that, they are already illegal per the Constitution.
Amen
Well said Steven.
This grouping argument is ridiculous.
VAWA protects children and men, as well as women. Women do deserve most of the attention (for reasons previously stated in earlier posts) but the law isn’t designed to protect just female victims of domestic violence or sexual assasults. If that’s how it appears to you naysayers, it’s likely because women are, unfortunatly, more often than not the victim…but that doesn’t mean the law is designed solely to protect women…it is designed to protect the group of victims as a whole (men, women and children). But wait, victims are a group…we shouldnt be selecting victims out like that, should we.
And Nick, hate crimes create a special class? What class? The only class i see those laws help protect are, once again, victims. I think you, and those who have issues with VAWA, have trouble seperating the genral concept of victims from the stereotypical notions of who is typically a victim in such incidents. Hate crime laws are essentially color blind since they deal primarily with the reasons for the criminal act, which, if based on race, or sex, or sexual orientation, or what have you, can be labeled a hate crime and given tougher penalties. It’s about determing the catalyst for an act of crime, it’s not some law that haphazardly increases criminal penalties based on the affiliation a victim has with an overly persecuted group….go and read Wisconsin v. Mitchell. In that case the supreme court upheld a hate crime law but, and perhaps more importantly, you’ll notice that the victim was a white male. Why? It was found that the victim was targeted because he was white.
So the only group created by both VAWA and hate crime laws are victims, aka, everyone. How the hell is that even remotely a bad idea?