Victory: House passes Violence Against Women Act

Activism works! Thanks in part to CREDO members who recently generated more than 144,000 petition signatures, the House of Representatives passed the Violence Against Women Act after years of obstruction by Donald Trump’s Republican minions in Congress.

Congress first passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994 and reauthorized it three times with bipartisan support. But Trump Republicans are not really interested in protecting women. In 2013, they tried to play games around reauthorization because they opposed protections for LGBTQ people, immigrants, and Native Americans. But with massive pressure from CREDO members and our allies, Democratic champions gained the bipartisan support they needed to pass VAWA.

We unleashed the same grassroots pressure to get this latest version of VAWA approved in the House of Representatives. Rep. Sheila Jackon Lee’s VAWA legislation improves on previous versions and would:

• Bar evictions of survivors based on the actions of their abusers.
• Prohibit people with dating violence or stalking convictions from possessing firearms.
• Improve access to federal crimes databases for Native American women and affirm tribal criminal jurisdiction in cases where the assailant is not a member of the tribe.
• Strengthen protections against online harassment.
• Expand protections for LGBTQ survivors.

The legislation now moves to the Senate, which is why we need to keep up the fight. CREDO and our allies will be mobilizing again in the coming weeks to make sure Mitch McConnell and Republican leaders pass the reauthorization legislation. Survivors can’t wait any longer for Congress to do the right thing.