Biden touts Texans in re-upping women’s protection law: ‘Nobody worked harder than Sheila Jackson Lee’

President Joe Biden this week signed the first rewrite in nearly a decade of a federal law to protect women from sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking — a bill that Texas lawmakers were key to passing. At a White House celebration Wednesday, Biden shouted out one of them, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat who wrote an early version of the Violence Against Women Act. “In the House of Representatives, nobody worked harder than Sheila Jackson Lee,” Biden said. “I learned a long time ago, when Sheila wants something, just say yes, it saves a lot of time.” Jackson Lee’s bill was stuck in the Senate until last month, when a group of senators including Texas Republican John Cornyn announced a bipartisan agreement to pass a reauthorization of the law, which had lapsed in 2018.

The Senate version expands federal funding for programs to assist victims and was included in the $1.5 trillion government spending package that Congress passed last week. Its passage comes after women’s shelters in Texas reported a wave of domestic violence calls during the pandemic. Jackson Lee has called the legislation a “singular prize” for women. “Given the rise in domestic violence and sexual assault cases during this COVID-19 crisis, where perpetrators are spending significant amount of time at home with their victims, this landmark, transformative legislation is needed now more than ever,” she said. The legislation omits some key elements that Jackson Lee and other Democrats had pushed for, including provisions closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole” that in some cases allows those with a history of dating violence to legally purchase firearms.