May 4, 2012

Your help is MOST needed if you live in: AZ, AK, CA, CO, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, MI, NV, NY, NC, OH, PA, PR, SC, TN, TX, VA, WI!

ACT NOW:

         Urge the House Judiciary Committee to Oppose H.R. 4970, the Adams VAWA Bill!

On Tuesday, May 8th, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up and vote on H.R. 4970, a bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) introduced by Rep. Sandy Adams (R-Fl, 24th). 

H.R. 4970 is an anti-victim bill strongly opposed by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) and the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence.  H.R. 4970 weakens vital improvements contained in the recently passed Senate VAWA bill (S. 1925), including provisions designed to increase the safety of Native women and the needs of the LGBT community.  In addition, H.R. 4970 includes damaging provisions that roll back years of progress to protect the safety of immigrant victims. While there are portions of H.R. 4970 that mirror the bi-partisan Senate bill and are supported by the field, we remain opposed to this bill.  

We must tell our legislators that we oppose H.R. 4970 and want to see a bipartisan bill that helps ALL victims.  Time is of the essence, we must take action BEFORE 10am EST May 8th!

ACTION: Call/Write/Tweet your Representative on House Judiciary Committee and tell them:

"We strongly oppose H.R. 4970 and urge you to oppose it.  We support a bill that is closer to H.R. 4271 with improvements, including those provisions in the bi-partisan Senate bill that protects Tribal victims, immigrant victims, LGBTQ victims and other marginalized communities."

 Target List: House Judiciary Committee Roster  

Sample Letter 

[ORGANIZATIONAL LETTERHEAD]

[May X, 2012]

Dear Representative [Last Name]: 

The [organization name], located in [city] which serves more than [X] victims of domestic and/or sexual violence, expresses its strong opposition to H.R. 4970, the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), introduced by Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL). We stand behind the opinion of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence that this bill will do more to further victimize and disempower people who have experienced these devastating crimes.

H.R. 4970 is an anti-victim bill that weakens vital improvements contained in the recently passed Senate VAWA bill (S. 1925), including provisions designed to increase the safety of Native women and the needs of the LGBT community.  In addition, H.R. 4970 includes damaging provisions that roll back years of progress to protect the safety of immigrant victims.  Consequently, H.R. 4970 will create obstacles for immigrant victims seeking to report crimes, increase danger for immigrant victims by eliminating important confidentiality protections, and will undermine effective anti-fraud protections. While there are portions of H.R. 4970 that mirror the bipartisan Senate bill and are supported by the field, we remain opposed to the bill.   

For the past 18 years, VAWA and its subsequent reauthorizations has served as a beacon of hope for victims of domestic and sexual violence.  VAWA is one of the few policies unfettered by partisanship and divided government.  Now is not the time to abandon victims and subject them to re-victimization by making them war casualties.  The House has the opportunity to pass a victim-centered VAWA reauthorization bill that will allocate sufficient resources to hold perpetrators accountable and expand services and protections to all victims. 

We strongly oppose H.R. 4970 and urge you to oppose it.  We support a bill that is closer to H.R. 4271 with improvements, including those provisions in the bipartisan Senate bill that protects Tribal victims, immigrant victims, LGBTQ victims and other marginalized communities.  Thank you for your consideration and please do not hesitate to contact me or Tralonne Shorter, Public Policy Advisor for NCADV at (202) 744-8455 if you have any questions or want additional information.

Sincerely,

[Name]

[Title]

cc: National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV)

Advocacy and Social Media

If you need more information please visit the National Task Force website for fact sheets, press coverage, support letters and updates at: www.4vawa.org.  The site has been visited more than 25,000 times! For toolkit and other action information please visit and "like" the National Task Force Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/NTF_Facebook_page.

Don't forget to tweet about VAWA using the hashtags #ReauthorizeVAWA and #VAWA.

If you aren't on one of the VAWA email lists or want to add members of your staff or state/community leaders to our grassroots alerts e-mailing list, send names and contact information including email to Sean Black, sblack@icasa.org.

If you have additional questions, please contact publicpolicy@ncadv.org.

Thank you for everything you do!