Congressman Panetta-Cosponsored Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act Passes House

Today, Congressman Jimmy Panetta (D-Carmel Valley) and his House colleagues passed H.R. 1620, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021. The landmark Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994 called for the protection of all Americans from violence and abuse and ensured survivors had access to essential services and to justice. Reauthorizing VAWA serves to improve and strengthen the bill's protections for survivors. Congressman Panetta is a cosponsor of the legislation.

"Since the Violence Against Women Act was first signed into law, the rate of domestic violence has significantly declined, but the extent of those crimes remains too high, with one in three American women still experiencing domestic violence," said Congressman Panetta. "Today's reauthorization of VAWA would address gaps in current law based on close coordination with victim service providers and law enforcement to protect survivors and prevent crimes of stalking, domestic violence, and sexual assault from occurring. Our legislation will ensure the federal government does its part in protecting Americans from violence while providing the tools that victims need to heal and move forward."

H.R. 1620 includes the following provisions:

Makes investments in sexual assault prevention

• Increases the authorization for the Rape Prevention & Education Program (RPE) to $110 million a year from $50 million a year and specifically includes prevention of sexual harassment to its authorized uses.

Improves services for survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking

• Reauthorizes for fiscal years 2022 to 2026, key grants for programs providing services to the victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
• Increases the authorization for Legal Assistance for Victims.
• Increases the authorization for the Sexual Assault Services Program to $60 million to address increased demand and waiting lists for services.

Improves the criminal justice response to gender-based violence

• Reauthorizes STOP (Services, Training, Officers, and Prosecutors) grants and allows the grants to be used to develop law enforcement tools and protocols for preventing domestic violence homicides.
• Reauthorizes grants to improve the criminal justice response to domestic violence, focusing on implementation of offender accountability and homicide reduction.

Better protects Native American women

• Ensures non-Native perpetrators who commit sexual assault, stalking, child abuse or trafficking on tribal lands are held accountable.
• Improves the response to cases of missing and murdered women in tribal communities.

Improves access to housing for survivors and victims

• Strengthens the enforcement of housing rights for survivors and victims.
• Creates a Violence Against Women Director at HUD who is tasked with the work of enforcing housing rights for survivors and victims.
• Increases survivors' options to maintain housing or break their leases.
• Strengthens emergency transfer protections in federal housing programs for survivors and victims.
• Creates a Victim Relocation Voucher pool to assist survivors needing to flee their homes due to safety concerns.
• Improves the homeless system response to survivors.

Improves the health care system's response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking

• Provides for the training of health care providers to better prevent, recognize, and respond to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking across the lifespan, particularly through HRSA programs such as the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program.

Protects survivors of dating violence from firearm-related violence

• Closes loopholes in current firearm laws to prevent intimate partner and stalking homicides.
• Prohibits persons convicted of stalking misdemeanors from possessing firearms.
• Expands the current law that already prohibits those subject to most domestic violence protective orders from possessing a firearm to also include those subject to "ex parte" protective orders (also called ‘emergency' or ‘temporary' protective orders), but not until the notice and an opportunity to be heard have been provided to the respondent.