House and Senate Appropriations Committees Pass Funding Increases for VAWA and VOCA

The House Appropriations Committee passed their Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) bill with $35 million in increased funding for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) programs at the Department of Justice and a $60 million increase for the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Fund. This is a huge increase in funding over FY 08 and even more funding than VAWA and VOCA received last week when the Senate Appropriations Committee passed their CJS bill.

The House bill increases VAWA from $400 million (in Fiscal Year 2008) to $435 million. This includes increases for several key programs:

· The STOP (Services, Training, Officers, Prosecutors) Grant Program was increased to $178 million
· The Legal Assistance to Victims Program and the Rural Grant Program were both increased to $41 million each
· Transitional housing received $20 million
· The Sexual Assault Services Program (SASP) received $15 million
· The House passed a $60 million increase to the VOCA cap, providing a total of $650 million. This is a large and much needed funding increase for VOCA.

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed their version of the CJS bill with $15 million in increased funding for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) programs bringing the total to $415 millio at the Department of Justice and a $45 million increase for the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Fund.

This included increases for several key programs and critical funding for new programs:
· The STOP (Services, Training, Officers, Prosecutors) Grant Program was increased to $162.9 million.
· The Legal Assistance to Victims Program was increased to $42 million.
· Rural Grants were increased to $42 million.
· The Sexual Assault Services Program (SASP) received $12 million.
· $45 million increase to the VOCA cap, providing $635 million in crucial funds.

To learn more about VAWA programs click here.

What happens next?
Next the full House and Senate must vote on the bills that were passed out of committee. After the House and Senate pass their separate bills, they must be reconciled into one final bill that is passed by Congress and signed by the President. It is possible that Congress will not finish the Appropriations process this calendar year, and may delay the process until a new President is inaugurated in 2009.

For an explanation of the Budget and Appropriations process and timeline click here.

Your legislators need to hear that they did the right thing by supporting these increases. Those who serve on the House and Senate Appropriations committees played a key role. Click the name of each legislator below to visit her or his congressional website. Use the contact form to send a thank you note for their work to maintain and expand funding for sexual and domestic violence.

If your reps aren’t listed below, fear not! There will be more opportunities to advocate for all of these measures to be funded at the maximum possible level as the federal budgeting process continues.


House Appropriations Committee Members from GLA
David R. Obey, Wisconsin, Chair
Marcy Kaptur, Ohio
Peter J. Visclosky, Indiana
Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., Illinois
Carolyn C. Kilpatrick, Michigan
Tim Ryan, Ohio
Ralph Regula, Ohio
David L. Hobson, Ohio
Joe Knollenberg, Michigan
Ray LaHood, Illinois
Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois

Senate Appropriations Committee Members from GLA

Herb Kohl Wisconsin

Richard Durbin Illinois

Gratitude to the National Network to End Domestic Violence for suppling the information included in this update.

YWAct: YWCA USA National Issue Update

Half in Ten Campaign

The Half in Ten: From Poverty to Prosperity campaign has been launched to help end poverty in America. The Campaign will be spearheaded by four organizations including Coalition on Human Needs (CHN), Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), ACORN and the Center for American Progress (CAP) and will be chaired by former Presidential Candidate and U.S. Senator John Edwards.

The goals of the campaign include: elevating and sustaining a focus on the situations facing the poor and middle class today; building and strengthening an effective constituency to demand legislative action on poverty and economic mobility; and advancing specific legislative and policy proposals that will deliver real benefits to struggling American families.

As members of both LCCR and CHN, and as an organization dedicated to poverty reduction, the YWCA USA will be involved in this campaign. For more information on the campaign please visit: http://www.halfinten.org/.

Supplemental Spending Bill

The House and Senate have nearly finished their work on a supplemental spending bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to the war funding, the bill provides an extension of unemployment benefits, a delay of six Medicaid regulations and funding for veteran’s education benefits. The House of Representatives passed the war supplemental on Thursday, June 19th. The Senate is slated to consider the bill on Friday, June 20th.

Recession

In response to the rise in the unemployment rate for March, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5749, the Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act by a vote of 274 to 137. H.R. 5749 will provide up to 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits to workers in every state who have exhausted their 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. In addition, workers in states with unemployment rates of 6% or higher may be able to receive an additional 13 weeks of benefits, for a total of 26 weeks of extended benefits. It is unclear if the Senate will vote on H.R. 5749 because the war supplemental bill passed by both the House and Senate contains an extension of unemployment insurance.

Budget Resolution

The House and Senate have passed the FY09 budget resolution after House and Senate Conference Committee members worked out the differences between their two bills. One sticking point was the amount of discretionary funding for domestic and international funding that would be available this year. Discretionary funding provides funding domestic programs including violence against women programs, child care and Head Start programs, housing and health care.

The committee decided on approximately $1.016 trillion or $24.5 billion above the President’s requested level. The next step is for the Appropriations Committees to work on the appropriations bills which will detail the funding amounts provided for federal agencies and their programs. Though the committees are expected to complete their work, few bills are expected to be signed by the President this year.

Farm Bill

On Wednesday, June 18th, the President vetoed the Farm, Nutrition, and Bioenergy Act of 2007 (H.R. 2419), otherwise known as the farm bill, for the second time. The President vetoed the bill for a second time because of a printing error which resulted in the bill being passed by Congress being different than the bill he signed. It is expected that the House and Senate will have enough votes to override the President’s veto.

The bill provides an additional $10.36 billion over 10 years for nutrition programs. Specifically, the bill provides $7.9 billion to increase food stamp benefits; $1.25 billion to purchase food for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides food for food banks; and $1 billion over 10 years to provide fresh fruit and vegetables for children in elementary schools. The bill also renames the Food Stamp program to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and provides a number of changes to the Food Stamp program.

And we wonder why the U.S. Ranks 69th in the world for Women's Poltical Empowerment

One of GLA's issue priorities is advocating for increased access to political leadership and power for women and for people of color. According to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap 2007 Report, the United States ranks 69th in the world for women's political empowerment.

A new initiative from the Women's Media Center brings the sexism directed at women in the public eye into stark relief. Check out this YouTube video on the "Sexism Might Sell, But I'm not Buying It" site. The campaign calls upon national news outlets to stop using sexist commentary as a punchline.

As one speaker in the video states-- women make up more than 50% of the U.S. population. We have every right to demand that our issues, our campaigns for public office, and our ability to lead be taken seriously.

Paid Sick Days Poll

This weekend, Parade Magazine, the country’s most widely-read magazine, featured a story on paid sick days. Now, Parade is conducting an online poll, asking its readers: “Should employers be required to offer paid sick days?”

Help us send the message loud and clear that paid sick days are much-needed—and strongly supported—by taking Parade’s online poll. Parade is distributed by over 400 Sunday newspapers, including several major papers, and reaches an estimated 71 million readers. This article and online poll will help paid sick days campaigns across the nation reach a broad, new audience.

Please take a moment to check out the article and, most importantly, cast your vote in Parade’s online poll, and forward it to your members, friends and coworkers in a show of support for paid sick days for everyone.

contributed by Loretta Line
YWCAs Illinois Advocacy Manager

Advocates Make Case for NC Racial Justice Act

This story is a few weeks old and not from a state in our region, but seemed compelling enough to pass along. North Carolina's House has already approved the "North Carolina Racial Justice Act," and it is now before their state Senate. Racial Justice advocates occassionally struggle with the belief that Civil Rights Era lawsuits and legislation attended to our nation's anti-racism policy needs and that now we simply have to deal with individual attitudes and occassional enforcement issues. When race-based disparities are as egregious as they are on death row-- where approximately 41% of inmates are African American (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2006)-- it is apparent that policy changes are needed. Here is one state's attempt to remedy an aspect of structural racism.


By WHITNEY WOODWARD Associated Press Writer

Posted: May. 27, 2008

RALEIGH, N.C. — Spurred by the recent release of three black men from death row, judicial reform advocates called on lawmakers Tuesday to give defendants in capital murder cases the right to challenge their prosecution on racial bias grounds.

The North Carolina Racial Justice Act has sat dormant in a Senate committee since the House voted 68-51 to approve the measure last year. The proposal would allow death penalty defendants to use statistics to claim their conviction or sentence was driven by race.



Click here for the full article

News Item: Racism Exists

GLA is embarking on the exciting work of planning "Catapult 2011," a training initiative aimed at "catapulting" our work to eliminate racism and empower women to its furthest, most transformative end. YW advocates may have thought the the original language of the YWCA One Imperative was bold. In 1971, we proclaimed that the YWCA will thrust its collective power toward the elimination of racism, wherever it exists, and by any means necessary.

This radical statement was only the beginning. Now, in 2008, we are practically and strategically aiming to fling ourselves miles further.

In preparing background materials for this initiative, we needed common language about our core values to get us started. At our absolute foundation, YWCAs share a belief that racism exists. This may sound obvious, but we've all heard the disclaimers and counter arguments-- sometimes from our own colleagues, board members, and families. Indeed, one YWCA staffer recently discussed a conversation she had with an individual who tried to tell her that "Sexism is real. Racism is just a concept."

The NAACP's Research Department has a slew of Fact Sheets that describe conditions for African Americans in Education, Health, Criminal Justice, and Economic Empowerment. In addition, their November 2007 report "State of Emergency: Stemming the Tide of Injustice Against African Americans" gives some of the starkest evidence that the playing field is not even where race is concerned.

If we are to go boldly forward, thrusting our collective power all the way, there will always be some for whom proof is needed. I'm sure many have favorite resources that pin down some of the most egregious manifestations of racism-- feel free to leave a comment with yours.

--Rebecca

Economic Downturn Stories Needed

YWCA USA is a member of the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN), which works on funding human needs programs and budget and tax issues, including the federal budget and appropriations process. CHN is one of the organizations leading the Half In Ten: Poverty to Prosperity Campaign with former U.S. Senator John Edwards.

CHN and the YWCA are working together to collect stories from people who can speak first-hand about how the economic downturn impacts service providers and their clients. The goal of this campaign is to put a human face on the rising economic needs.

We are hoping you or someone in your association will be willing to participate in this easy but important effort. Two types of stories are needed: 1) Stories describing the importance of human needs programs and how unmet needs, cutbacks, or proposed cuts impact communities, and 2) stories of the importance of human needs programs and how unmet needs, cut backs, or proposed cuts will harm or have harmed YWCA associations or clients. Examples include stories on cuts to programs, having to limit the clients served, having to layoff staff, rising co-pays, and longer waiting lists. Programs of interest include Medicare, Medicaid, housing assistance, violence against women programs, child care, child support and Head Start.

To give a 10-15 minute “interview” for this project, or to get more information, please email Randi Schmidt, YWCA USA Senior Advocacy Associate.

For more on Half In Ten see the related post from May 2008.