Amending the Violence Against Women Act

Abstract

This chapter studies the effort to reauthorize and expand the reach of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). In September of 1994, after years of grassroots advocacy, U.S. Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and President Clinton signed it into law. VAWA provides federal funding for enhanced law enforcement, social services, and legal services for victims of domestic violence. The legislation was originally enacted with a sunset provision that required that Congress reauthorize it after five years, a feature that was repeated in subsequent reauthorization bills. When the law was due for reauthorization in 2011, however, the process did not go as smoothly as it had before. Instead, although VAWA had bipartisan support, advocates wanted to strengthen it with provisions they saw as essential to keeping all survivors of domestic violence safe. These additional protections were met with resistance in Congress. In advance of the 2012 presidential election, advocates sought to amend the legislation in ways that would strengthen the protections offered to Native Americans, undocumented immigrants, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) communities. In the last reauthorization battle, the ability of advocates to harness the medium, their networks, and their message provides a contemporary example of the social change matrix at work in the age of social media.