While Senate Republicans are working overtime to move Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination forward despite sexual assault allegations, the Violence Against Women Act is due to expire in nine days if Congress doesn’t act. Hmmm, what do those two things have in common?
Let’s throw in one more thread: A group of former staffers is calling out Congress for its failure to pass a new sexual harassment policy. Both the House and the Senate have passed bills to address the issue, but they haven’t sorted out their differences and sent a final bill to the groper-in-chief for his signature. Now they say that “probably” won’t happen until after November’s elections.
The Violence Against Women Act, meanwhile, may get kicked down the road by being included in the short-term spending bill to keep the government open. The Senate included a VAWA extension in the bill it passed on Tuesday. In the House, Republicans have proposed a six-month VAWA extension, but it doesn’t just fail to improve the law as advocates had hoped—it eliminates some provisions of the current law. And again, it’s nine days until the law expires and even a short-term reauthorization is still up in the air.
A woman’s sexual assault allegations against a Supreme Court nominee. The Violence Against Women Act. Sexual harassment in congressional offices. The one that’s drawing the most vigorous action from Republicans is the first, and the action in question is the attempt to smear the victim and push the nomination through without a full investigation. That’s life under a Republican Congress: issues of concern to women get pushed aside, pushed back, left to the last minute, and watered down. But when a powerful man’s big job promotion is on the line, suddenly there’s a lot of energy available to protect him from a woman’s allegations.
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