Thread by @jbendery

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-…