Thread by @jbendery

It's official: Senate Democrats have included the bipartisan Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill in the omnibus spending bill.

It's been 3 years since Congress failed to reauthorize VAWA, and nearly 10 since they've passed a new VAWA bill.

This is a big deal because the main reason VAWA hasn't been renewed, updated, strengthened, etc is because Senate Republicans repeatedly blocked it. They even blocked their own damn bill on this.

This time around, it has 10-11 Republican cosponsors along with Dems.

So what does this new VAWA bill do?

It reauthorizes VAWA programs through 2027.

It also has new stuff in it that domestic violence prevention advocates say is badly, badly needed. huffpost.com/entry/violence…

Some of that new stuff includes $ for community-specific services for LGBTQ survivors of violence.

It also includes new jurisdiction to tribal courts to go after non-Native perpetrators of violence against Native women on tribal lands.

That tribal piece is a BFD + years in the making.

It used to be that, b/c of a complicated mess of laws, tribal courts couldn't do anything about non-Native men who lived on tribal lands and abused their Native girlfriends/wives.

So they got away with it. And knew they could.

Native women on tribal lands endure horrific levels of violence + it's almost entirely from non-Native men.

~84% of Native women experience violence in their lifetime.

~96% of Native women who report being victimized say it was by a non-Native person. huffpost.com/entry/violence…

So in 2013, after an ugly ugly partisan fight, Congress finally gave tribes the ability to investigate and prosecute non-Native men who abuse Native women on tribal land. Huge. huffpost.com/entry/vawa-nat…

Of course, House Republicans later tried to gut those protections for Native women from VAWA.

They failed, though. huffpost.com/entry/violence…

But since that 2013 VAWA bill passed, it's become clear its protections for Native women were pretty narrow.

The Senate VAWA bill that just got rolled into the omnibus bill expands tribals courts' ability to go after non-Native perpetrators of more violence again Native women.

Specifically, the new Senate VAWA bill lets tribal courts investigate and prosecute non-Native perpetrators of sexual assault, child abuse, stalking, sex trafficking and assaults on tribal law enforcement officers on tribal lands. Much broader. huffpost.com/entry/violence…

I've been following VAWA for 10+ years now (Jesus Christ, time flies), specifically relating to how Congress handles the tribal piece.

Lisa Murkowski gets a lot of credit for the expanded tribal portion of VAWA.

Not everything around here is partisan.

So now that the Senate VAWA bill has been rolled into the omnibus bill, that means it's catching a ride on a must-pass bill on a fast track to Biden's desk.

The House is voting on it today.

Senate aiming to vote before Friday, when current govt funding runs out.

Anyway, Happy #InternationalWomensDay2022