On October 4, 2005, the Senate voted to amend S. 1197, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 2005, as reported earlier by the Judiciary Committee, and subsequently passed the bill by unanimous consent. In addition to making technical corrections, this floor amendment modified housing and other provisions in the bill, and inserted a new Title X related to DNA fingerprinting.
On September 28, 2005, the House approved H.R. 3402, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Appropriations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2006 through 2009, which contains the House version of the VAWA Reauthorization Act of 2005. These bills would reauthorize VAWA; continue to encourage collaboration among law enforcement, judicial personnel, and public and private service providers to victims of domestic violence; address the special needs of victims of domestic and sexual violence, including the elderly, disabled, children, youth, and individuals of ethnic and racial communities; provide emergency leave and long-term transitional housing for victims; make provisions gender neutral; and require studies and reports on the effectiveness of approaches used for certain grants in combating domestic and sexual violence.
During the 108th Congress, the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003 and the PROTECT Act were passed, which, among other provisions, authorized funding of HHS and DOJ transitional housing assistance programs for victims of domestic violence, respectively. The Keeping Children and Families Safe Act also extended to FY2008 authorization for the national domestic violence hotline and grants for battered women’s shelters programs.