page_title: Violence Against Women Act
section_title: Reauthorizations
hierarchical_section_title: Violence Against Women Act / After passage / Reauthorizations
caption_attribution_description: English: Vice Presiden Biden delivered remarks at the National Archives to mark the 20th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act. As a senator, he was the chief sponsor of the original legislation. Vice President Biden talked about some of the challenges in passing the legislation and the continuing need to expose the truth about domestic violence. He was introduced by Ruth Glenn, who shared her own story as a victim of abuse.
context_page_description: The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 was a United States federal law signed as Pub.L. 103–322 by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994. The Act provided $1.6 billion toward investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave un-prosecuted. The Act also established the Office on Violence Against Women within the Department of Justice.
  VAWA was cosponsored by Senator Joe Biden and Senator Orrin Hatch in 1994 and gained support from a broad coalition of advocacy groups. The Act passed through Congress with bipartisan support in 1994, clearing the United States House of Representatives by a vote of 235–195 and the Senate by a vote of 61–38, although the following year House Republicans attempted to cut the Act's funding. In the 2000 Supreme Court case United States v. Morrison, a sharply divided Court struck down the VAWA provision allowing women the right to sue the accused in federal court. By a 5–4 majority, the Court overturned the provision as exceeding the federal government's powers under the Commerce Clause.
context_section_description: VAWA was reauthorized by bipartisan majorities in Congress in 2000 (H.R. 1248, Roll Call 415-3), and again in December 2005, and signed by President George W. Bush. The Act's 2012 renewal was opposed by conservative Republicans, who objected to extending the Act's protections to same-sex couples and to provisions allowing battered undocumented immigrants to claim temporary visas. Ultimately, VAWA was again reauthorized in 2013, after a long legislative battle throughout 2012–2013.
  On September 12, 2013, at an event marking the 19th anniversary of the bill, Vice President Joe Biden criticized the Republicans who slowed the passage of the reauthorization of the act as being "this sort of Neanderthal crowd".
  As a result of the United States federal government shutdown of 2018–2019, the Violence Against Women Act expired on December 21, 2018. It was temporarily reauthorized by a short-term spending bill on January 25, 2019, but expired again on February 15, 2019.
  On April 4, 2019, the reauthorization act passed in the House by a vote of 263-158, this time including closing the boyfriend loophole. All Democrats voting joined by 33 Republicans voted for passage. New York Representative Elise Stefanik said Democrats, "...have refused to work with Republicans in a meaningful way," adding, the House bill will do nothing but "collect dust" in the GOP-controlled Senate.The bill has indeed been ignored by the Senate.
  On December 9, 2019, following the firearm murder of a Houston police officer on duty by a boyfriend who had been abusive towards his girlfriend, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo criticized Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Cornyn (R-TX) for preventing a vote on the VAWA reauthorization.  Acevedo said "I don't want to hear about how much they care about lives and the sanctity of lives yet, we all know in law enforcement that one of the biggest reasons that the Senate and Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn and Ted Cruz and others are not getting into a room and having a conference committee with the House and getting the Violence Against Women's Act (passed) is because the NRA doesn't like the fact that we want to take firearms out of the hands of boyfriends that abuse their girlfriends. And who killed our sergeant? A boyfriend abusing his girlfriend. So you're either here for women and children and our daughters and our sisters and our aunts, or you're here for the NRA."
  In a follow-up interview with CNN, Acevedo said his criticism of Senators Cruz, Cornyn and McConnell was not political, because “death is not political — you see, death is final.” He challenged Senator Cruz to directly answer whether he supports closing the boyfriend loophole, and said that failing to address it would put the Senators “on the wrong side of history”. Senator Cornyn said that Acevedo was “mistaken” invoking the VAWA.
caption: Vice President Joe Biden (the Act's primary sponsor when a Senator), at the National Archives in 2014 honoring the Act's 20th anniversary
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