Washington Digest: Senate votes for domestic violence law, against raise

WASHINGTON ? The Senate voted last week to renew the federal domestic violence law.

Senators voted 78-22 to update the Violence Against Women Act, which was created in 1994. The law funds anti-abuse programs and establishes a framework to investigate and prosecute sexual assault and stalking.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, voted for the bill. Rep. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, voted against it.

One point of debate was giving tribal courts more authority to prosecute non-Indians for domestic abuse crimes committed on the reservation. Supporters said the provision would close a loophole that has allowed for the abuse of Native American women. But others said the provision raised questions of constitutionality.

?Native women in this country experience domestic abuse at a shockingly high rate,? Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in defense of the bill. ?A recent study found that nearly three in five American Indian women have been the victim of a domestic assault.?

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said it was ?not clear that Congress can constitutionally delegate to tribal courts the authority to try non-Indians.?

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., sought to strike the tribal language from the bill. It failed 31-59. Grassley voted for the amendment. Harkin voted against it.

Defense Nominee Delayed

Senate Republicans banded together to force a delay in the confirmation of former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel to become Secretary of Defense. GOP senators said they wanted more time to gather information on Hagel, whose performance at a confirmation hearing two weeks ago generally had been panned as uninspirational.

Some Republicans also used the Hagel vote as leverage to force more information from the Obama administration on the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of an unprecedented filibuster against a defense secretary nominee, and that they had no good reason to reject him.

But a test vote on Hagel was 58-40, short of the 60 needed to force the nomination forward. A new vote was scheduled for Feb. 26.

Harkin voted for Hagel. Grassley voted to delay a final vote.

Federal Pay Raise Rejected

The House voted 261-154 to block a 0.5 percent pay raise scheduled to be paid in April to federal employees.

A pay raise for members of Congress already had been put off for the year. Supporters of the Republican-written federal worker pay freeze said the raise would cost $11 billion over 10 years. They argued it comes at a time when many federal programs are facing spending cuts and as private sector workers have endured pay and benefit cuts. Opponents said the continuing pay freeze would hurt recruiting and keeping the best workers.

Reps. Steve King and Tom Latham, both R-Iowa, and Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, voted to block the pay raise.

Source: http://amestrib.com/sections/news/politics/washington-digest-senate-votes-domestic-violence-law-against-raise.html

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