Sorry, but I have to comment on this one.

Jon Kyl is a lot of things, and his amendment to VAWA is by no means a good thing, but his goal is definitely not to kill the bill.

He has a solid record of voting for VAWA both in 1994 as a House member and in 2000 in the Senate. He's the only member of the Arizona delegation to do the right thing both times. (So-called "maverick" McCain voted no on one of those occassions)

Let's face it, the guy's a hateful schmuck, but he's one of those rabid law enforcement types who loves this kind of legislation.

The bill wouldn't be killed because of this amendment anyway. It passed the House last week by a 415-4 margin and the Senate this week by unanimous consent. It's hugely politically popular on both sides of the aisle. Democrats won't vote against it even if the amendment stays in the conference version and Republicans won't vote against the final version if the amendment is gone.

You're right in that the part of the law with the amendment is an Unconstitutional provision that will likely be challenged almost immediately after Bush signs the bill into law. And assuming the Supreme Court still has a shred of allegiance to the Constitution and precedent by that point, that one portion of the law will be struck down without affecting the deeply crucial funding and legal protections that comprise the majority of VAWA.

Sometimes you need to make a deal with the devil to get anything positive done. As someone who works daily with survivors, I think this was one compromise that will turn out to be well worth it and one in which we'll eventually be the only beneficiary when the devil's amendment is declared unlawful.

And lest you think I'm some troll, please visit my blog and see how much I take Kyl to the mat on just about everything else: blog.m2powered.com.

Thanks for paying attention to this issue though. We need all the copy we can get dedicated to reauthorization as soon as possible.

// permalink | posted by Michael @ 8:54 PM |