Senate Legislation to Protect Native Women

Dec 19, 2011

On December 8, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee amended and unanimously approved S. 1763, the SAVE Native Women Act. Click here to see FCNL’s letter of support for this bill, which was delivered to each member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in November.

Chairman Akaka, in his presentation of the bill, noted that there are “still some outstanding concerns” about the bill on the part of Vice Chair Barrasso and others. Chairman Akaka offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute to the original bill which mostly makes technical changes and corrections, but also adds to the bill a new provision which would make it a federal crime to violate a tribal protection order for domestic violence. Senator Murkowski offered an amendment which would address concerns raised by the State of Alaska about tribal protection orders. Both the amendment in the nature of a substitute and the Murkowski amendment were agreed to.

Amendments similar to those outlined in the SAVE Native Women Act have been included in the overall Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization of 2011 (S.1925), which was introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (VT). The bill was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Fifteen faith-based organizations presented an interfaith sign-on letter of support for the Native American provisions in the VAWA Reauthorization bill. The letter was hand-delivered to all the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee as well as the initial co-sponsor of the bill, Senator Michael Crapo (ID).