WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will sign a law extending and expanding protections for victims of domestic violence.
Law enforcement officers, domestic-violence survivors, lawmakers and tribal leaders will join Obama for the signing ceremony Thursday at the Interior Department. Vice President Joe Biden will also speak. He wrote the original bill in 1994.
The Violence Against Women Act renewal includes new protections for gays and lesbians and gives tribal courts the power to prosecute non-Indians who attack their Native American partners on tribal lands.
House Republicans opposed those expansions when the Senate included them in a bill last year. But after performing poorly among women voters in the fall election, GOP leaders capitulated in February and allowed a vote on a similar version. It passed even though most Republicans voted against it.
