WASHINGTON – House Republicans raised the white flag Thursday on extending domestic violence protections to gays, lesbians and transsexuals after months of resisting an expansion of the Violence Against Women Act.

Republican leaders, who had tried to limit the bill before last November’s election, gave the go-ahead for the House to accept a more ambitious Senate version written mainly by Democrats.

Democrats, with a minority of Republicans, were key to the 286-138 House vote that sent to President Obama a renewal of the 1994 law that has set the standard for how to protect women, and some men, from domestic abuse and prosecute abusers.

It was the third time this year that House Speaker John Boehner has allowed Democrats and moderates in his own party to prevail over the Republicans’ much larger conservative wing. As with a Jan. 1 vote to avoid the fiscal cliff and legislation to extend Superstorm Sandy aid, a majority of House Republicans voted against the final anti-violence bill.

Obama, in a statement, said that “renewing this bill is an important step towards making sure no one in America is forced to live in fear” and said he would sign the bill “as soon as it hits my desk.”

The law has been renewed twice before without controversy, but it lapsed in 2011 as it was caught up in the partisan battles that now divide Congress. Last year, the House refused to go along with a Senate-passed bill that would have made clear that lesbians, gays, immigrants and Native American women should have equal access to Violence Against Women Act programs.

It appeared the scenario would be repeated this year when the House introduced a bill that didn’t mention the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and watered down a Senate provision allowing tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians who attack their Indian partners on tribal lands.

But the House proposal encountered quick and strong opposition from women’s groups, the White House, Democrats and some Republicans, and Tuesday the Republican leadership agreed to give the House a vote on the Senate bill. It passed immediately after the House rejected the bill backed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., 257-166, with 60 Republicans voting against it.

Both Maine Reps. Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud voted for the Senate version of the bill.

Vice President Joe Biden, who as a senator was instrumental in moving the 1994 act through Congress, praised Cantor for not standing in the Senate bill’s way. “He kept his word,” Biden said.

The Republican decision to step aside and let the Senate bill pass came after the party’s poor showing among women in last fall’s election and Democratic success in framing the debate over the Violence Against Women Act as Republican policy hostile to women. Obama won 55 percent of the women’s vote last November. Republican presidential candidates haven’t won the women’s vote since 1984.

The anti-violence bill never should have become partisan, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a sponsor of the Senate bill. “That is why I applaud moderate Republican voices in the House who stood up to their leadership to demand a vote on the Senate bill.”

The Senate passed its bill on a 78-22 vote with every Democrat, every woman senator and 23 of 45 Republicans supporting it.

A turning point in the debate came earlier this month, when 19 Republicans, led by Rep. Jon Runyan, R-N.J., wrote a letter to their leadership urging them to accept a bipartisan plan that would reach all victims of domestic violence. The letter, Runyan said, was a catalyst in showing the leadership “a willingness of people in the House to really compromise” and see that the Senate “has a pretty good bill.”

 

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