Support the Violence Against Women Re-Authorization Act (HB.6545)
Note: only one of these two Congresswomen represents you. To find out which one, click here.
Leader Nancy Pelosi
SF Office: (415) 556-4862
DC Office: (202) 225-4965
Call the SF office first, but try the DC office if you can’t get through. If you get voicemail, hang up and try a few more times to talk to a real person. Don’t give up! Short direct messages are most effective.
Rep. Jackie Speier
San Mateo Office: (650) 342-0300
DC Office: (202) 225-3531
Keep calling if you don’t get through. Voicemails are logged daily into a central report across offices.
Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
The Violence Against Women Act expires on September 30 unless reauthorized by Congress. I urge the Congresswoman to support HB6545, the Violence Against Women Re-authorization Act of 2018.
The Act has provided critical funding and support for law enforcement training, the protection, care, and treatment of victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and the creation of the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the DOJ Office on Violence Against Women. Without this support, these important programs and services will be endangered.
HB6545 expands the Act to offer protection to domestic violence victims living in public housing, provides law enforcement with more tools to remove firearms from domestic abusers who are not legally allowed to own them, increases funding for local rape prevention efforts and supports reform of current laws and policies for Native American reservations. Your support is needed to make sure this critical Act does not expire.
Background
The VAWA was first passed with bipartisan support in 1994 and has been reauthorized 3 times since then. VAWA provides grants for law enforcement training, victim services and prevention efforts and led to the creation of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. The Act has since been expanded to include domestic abuse, dating abuse, stalking, and human trafficking.
Republicans have increasingly opposed VAWA re-authorizations over issues like same-sex domestic violence, granting Native American’s jurisdiction over reservation domestic violence and undocumented immigrant domestic violence. As Senator from Alabama, Attorney General Jeff Sessions opposed the re-authorization of VAWA in 2013.
The re-authorization bill, introduced in the House by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, expands the current definition of domestic violence to include technological abuse, grants law enforcement increased ability to remove firearms from abusers, and revisits the issue of Native American courts. There are currently no Republican co-sponsors to this bill.
The Violence Against Women Act of 1994, signed by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994, 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 not to prosecute. The Act also established the Office on Violence Against Women within the Department of Justice.