From: januarybaybee@gmail.com   
      
   What to know about Joe Biden and his fight for women's safety and rights   
      
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   TIME MAGAZINE   September 12, 2019   
      
      
   The Violence Against Women Act Was Signed 25 Years Ago. Here's How the Law   
   Changed American Culture   
      
      
   During the third Democratic primary debate on Thursday, Vice President Joe   
   Biden brought together his potential future and his political past when he   
   urged legislators to renew a piece of legislation that was first signed into   
   law 25 years ago Friday.     
   Biden has called that law, the Violence Against Women Act, the legislation he   
   is “proudest” of from his career in the Senate.   
      
   Before President Bill Clinton signed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)   
   into law as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act on Sept.   
   13, 1994, domestic abusers could cross state lines to avoid prosecution for   
   beating their spouses,    
   as law enforcement was not to required to listen to orders of protection filed   
   in other states.  Police officers were also generally discouraged from   
   intervening in domestic violence cases.   
      
   Today, many experts credit VAWA with contributing to a dramatic decrease in   
   the rate of domestic violence in the United States. According to the U.S.   
   Department of Justice, the overall rate of intimate-partner violence dropped   
   64% from 1993 to 2010.   
      
   Lawyers who helped to draft the bill say that part of the reason the   
   legislation has been so successful is that it has helped to create a profound   
   cultural change, and has encouraged Americans to take gender-based violence   
   seriously.   
      
   “The Violence Against Women Act, precisely because it was a federal law that   
   took this issue seriously, created an unprecedented level of visibility for   
   this problem,” says Sally Goldfarb, now a law professor at Rutgers Law   
   School, who monitored the    
   drafting of the bill as a staff attorney for the NOW Legal Defense and   
   Education Fund (now known as Legal Momentum). “The very existence of this   
   federal law shifted public perception of the problem.”   
      
   To get a better sense of how that shift happened, TIME spoke with Goldfarb and   
   Victoria Nourse, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University who   
   helped to draft the bill as counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee at the   
   time.   
      
      
   What is VAWA and why was it introduced?   
      
   Before Violence Against Women Act went into law 25 years ago, Nourse says,   
   police were told to avoid interfering in domestic violence cases.  Getting   
   involved could be dangerous to the officers, and in any case, many people felt   
   that domestic violence    
   was a family matter, not something that rose to the level of federal law.   
      
   “We had women testifying that the police said, ‘I have to come back and   
   see him punch you for me to arrest him,’” Nourse says.   
      
   In addition, although one recent survey showed that more than two-thirds of   
   sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows, equating “date   
   rape” with stranger rape was considered to be controversial.  And when cases   
   did go to court, judges    
   often failed to take them seriously.  “Judges were saying things like, you   
   wore a short skirt, you can’t be raped.  You’ve been raped before, you   
   can’t be raped again,” Nourse says.  “Just ridiculous stuff that was all   
   put in the first    
   hearings.”   
      
   The team that worked on the law wanted to prove that domestic violence   
   wasn’t some exceptional case, but “real violence,” Nourse says.   Those   
   who argued against the need for such a law framed it as an intrusion into the   
   private — or at least    
   state-level — sphere.   
      
   “Modeled on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, [VAWA] stipulates that   
   gender-biased crimes violate a woman’s civil rights,” TIME reported in a   
   cover story about domestic violence, published as the law was being considered.   
      
   “The victims of such crimes would therefore be eligible for compensatory   
   relief and punitive damages.  Heightened awareness may also help add bite to   
   laws that are on the books but are often underenforced.   
      
   At present, 25 states require arrest when a reported domestic dispute turns   
   violent.  But police often walk away if the victim refuses to press charges.    
   Though they act quickly to separate strangers, law-enforcement officials   
   remain wary of interfering    
   in domestic altercations, convinced that such battles are more private and   
   less serious.   
      
   Yet, of the 5,745 women murdered in 1991, 6 out of 10 were killed by someone   
   they knew.  Half were murdered by a spouse or someone with whom they had been   
   intimate.  And that does not even hint at the level of violence against women   
   by loved ones: while    
   only a tiny percentage of all assaults on women result in death, the violence   
   often involves severe physical or psychological damage.”   
      
   After the final statute was added to the crime bill, it passed the House   
   235-195, with five representatives not voting, and the Senate 61-38-1.  It put   
   into place a range of legal remedies to protect women. These measures included   
   requiring states to    
   recognize protection orders from o ther states, federal prosecution of   
   domestic violence and sexual-assault crimes that crossed state lines,   
   incentives for states to require the mandatory arrest of abusers, and grants   
   for programs such as educating    
   judges on gender-motivated violence and funding sexual-assault and domestic   
   violence crisis centers.   
      
      
   What was Joe Biden’s involvement in VAWA?   
      
   According to Nourse, Joe Biden, who was then the chair of the U.S. Senate   
   Judiciary Committee, first proposed working on the bill because he was   
   concerned about national attitudes about violence against women — and was   
   especially “appalled” that    
   people didn’t take marital rape seriously.   
      
   He introduced the Act in 1990 and thus helped to return the issue of violence   
   against women to the national stage.  The legislation, co-authored by Rep.   
   Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, was also backed by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch,   
   a Utah Republican, and    
   had the support of a coalition of women’s rights groups, including NOW Legal   
   Defense and Education Fund.   
      
      
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