Jennifer Bendery Profile picture
Sep 21, 2020 16 tweets 4 min read Read on X
NEWS: The House quietly just passed Savanna's Act, a long overdue bill that addresses missing and murdered indigenous women m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5f…
This will probably get lost in today's news.

But imagine women + girls in your community just disappearing and being murdered. Law enforcement having little or no data on what's going on. Media not paying much attention to their cases.

This is happening to indigenous women.
The bill Congress passed today has taken years to pass and it shouldn't have.

If white women + girls were disappearing and being murdered it would be treated like a crisis. This is happening to Native women + girls. Congress has barely addressed it.
Today's bill, Savanna's Act, isn't a comprehensive response to this by any means. But it's something.

It makes local/state/federal/tribal law enforcement start collecting data on these cases and sharing it with each other. Data on this is currently awful + fragmented.
Savanna's Act is broadly bipartisan. It doesn't cost any additional federal $. It's badly needed. It passed unanimously in the Senate in March, and in the House today.

It still took nearly 3 years to pass outta Congress.
Why is this bill called #SavannasAct?

It's named for Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, a 22-year-old indigenous woman who was abducted and killed in North Dakota in 2017. She was 8 months pregnant and her baby was cut from her womb. Yep.
Savanna's Act was *this* close to becoming law in 2018, until former Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte singlehandedly blocked it. huffpost.com/entry/native-w…
To be clear, the House passed Savanna's Act today but the Senate already passed it.

It's on its way to the president's desk to be signed. huffpost.com/entry/missing-…
Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp was the sponsor of this bill when she was in the Senate.

She spent her final weeks in 2018 publicly shaming Rep. Goodlatte for blocking it.
After Heitkamp lost her race in 2018, she talked to Lisa Murkowski about this bill. She promised to take the lead on it and get it across the finish line.

I asked her in Jan. 2019 about Goodlatte, a fellow Republican, blocking it: “That member is gone. And I’m still here.” 🔥
The House passed a companion bill to Savanna's Act today too: the Not Invisible Act. It makes the fed govt step up its response to Native women going missing, being murdered or being forced into sex trafficking.

It's on its way to Trump's desk too. huffpost.com/entry/violence…
These are both relatively small-ball bills. But they are something. Anything. Congress is otherwise not addressing this in any kind of comprehensive way.
This is, of course, part of a broader pattern of violence aimed at Native women that doesn't get near enough media attention (imo).

84% of Native women experience violence in their lifetime. In some tribal communities, Native women are murdered at TEN times the natl average.
Updating the Violence Against Women Act could go a long way to help address this.

But the last I checked, this effort was stalled in the Senate, where Dems had a broad bill ready to go while Joni Ernst was trying to STRIP protections for Native women. huffpost.com/entry/violence…
How did this thread get so long?

Suffice it to say, Congress finally did something to address the largely invisible crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women. Long overdue.
A little update: here's former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp after learning that Savanna's Act will become law.

"It means the world.... Missing and murdered indigenous women are no longer invisible." huffpost.com/entry/missing-…

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More from @jbendery

Apr 30
I know there's a lot going on, but I would like to highlight that Mike Johnson slipped language into an otherwise routine House procedural vote yesterday that now blocks Democrats from forcing an investigation into Pete Hegseth’s Signal scandal, through October.
When the House voted yesterday to approve the "rules" for beginning debate on 5 bills, this unrelated provision was tucked into the rule they approved: Image
Translated into normal-person speak, this provision prevents members from being able to force a vote on a "resolution of inquiry," through October.

Dem Rep. Adam Smith filed a resolution of inquiry directing the Trump admin to provide all communications relating to SignalGate.
Read 6 tweets
Apr 24
Holy crap. Here are 91 pages of letters that 14 House Democrats just sent to the nine law firms that have paid off Trump to not attack them.

Lots of Qs aimed at sorting out if they violated federal bribery/anti-fraud/racketeering laws. min.house.gov/sites/evo-subs…
This fresh round of Qs for these firms come after two other Dems, Rep. Jamie Raskin and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, sent their own letters on Tuesday. Their letters were more scathing.

"An illegal shakedown of the legal profession.” huffpost.com/entry/democrat…
The 9 firms paying off Trump to avoid his attacks:

A&O Shearman: $125 million
Kirkland: $125 million
Latham & Watkins: $125 million
Simpson Thacher: $125 million
Cadwalader: $100 million
Milbank: $100 million
Skadden: $100 million
Willkie: $100 million
Paul Weiss: $40 million
Read 5 tweets
Apr 9
Here's the rule the House just passed for taking up its budget resolution -- with a provision preventing any House member from filing a disapproval resolution on Trump's tariffs through Sept. 30.

See #6. They're insulating Trump's tariffs from being canceled by themselves. Image
I know this reads like a bunch of procedural jargon.

In normal speak, what is happening here is the House is getting ready to vote to begin debate on its budget resolution -- and when it does, it is also voting to BAR ITSELF from taking action to stop Trump's tariffs.
Dems seizing on this provision being tucked into the rule for the budget res:

“A vote for this rule is a vote for Trump’s tariffs," says Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). “Anyone who claims to want to retake congressional authority over trade and tariffs must vote against this rule."
Read 7 tweets
Mar 31
In House Rules Committee hearing, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) rips the GOP for moving forward with the SAVE Act, a bill that makes it harder for eligible voters to register to vote.

"The SAVE Act is a voter suppression bill," he says. "That's all it is." Image
McGovern says ~69M women who married + took partner's names don't have a birth certificate matching their legal name.

"Nothing in this bill guarantees they could use marriage licenses ... to prove their ID," he says.
"It's about taking away the right of women to vote, plain and simple," McGovern says of the SAVE Act.
Read 12 tweets
Feb 26
NEW: Trump admin has ordered all federal agencies to submit plans for "large-scale" firings no later than March 13, per a new memo from OMB director Russ Vought.

Copy of memo in here:
huffpost.com/entry/trump-di…
ALL federal agency heads are being directed to hollow out their teams by mid-March by...

-upholding Trump's hiring freeze
-removing "underperforming employees"
-reducing headcount through attrition
-revisiting collective bargaining agreements that "inhibit" government efficiency
This order is the equivalent of wearing a blindfold + smashing everything, without knowing what you're smashing or who it hurts.

Vought's justification: "The American people registered their verdict on the bloated, corrupt federal bureaucracy on Nov 5, 2024 by voting for Trump."
Read 4 tweets
Feb 11
Just got off the phone with Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), who said Elon Musk's DOGE team is "actively dismantling" federal Department of Education programs today.

"They are in the building, on the 6th floor, canceling grants and contracts."
Stansbury says her understanding is the Trump admin "has been running drills for the last couple of weeks, planning for this."

She also said she expects that "the Department of Education is going to potentially be dissolved in the coming days."

And yes, this is illegal.
"It’s not legal. They know it's not legal. But they're doing it anyway," said Stansbury.

"The only recourse we have right now is to to go the courts."
Read 9 tweets

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