Photograph by Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-WA., Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA.,Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-MI., Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN., and Claire McCaskill, D-MO., during a news conference with Senate Democratic women on the Violence Against Women Act in this file photo.
From Bloomberg Government’s Congress Tracker blog
To get a sense of the size of the Republican divide over its version of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, look at the guys with gavels.
Chairmen of committees with jurisdiction over the bill split on the Republican alternative with Judiciary’s Bob Goodlatte of Virginia voting in favor and Doc Hastings of Natural Resources, which oversees Indian affairs and the tribal provisions of the measure, voting against. They both opposed the Senate-passed version of the bill on final passage.
Hastings, of Washington state, issued a statement calling the bill’s consideration “far from deliberate” and so politicized it went through in a “political stampede.”
Worth noting: neither committee marked up the bill, because leaders bypassed regular order.
Sixty Republicans defected on the GOP alternative; the vote was 166-257. Two Democrats voted in favor of the Republican alternative: Dan Lipinski of Illinois and Mike McIntyre of North Carolina.
The House cleared the underlying bill, S. 47, by a vote of 286 to 138. Every Democrat voted in favor, while Republicans split 87-138.
Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, who led debate for Republicans in favor of the GOP alternative, then voted in favor of the Senate’s version.
“While I am disappointed a stronger version of the Violence Against Women Act did not pass, I am proud that such important legislation was reauthorized today with bipartisan support,” she said in a statement.
