Mr. CICILLINE. Madam Speaker, yesterday, this Chamber narrowly passed a bill entitled the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act. But although the bill we voted on shared its name with landmark legislation that this Chamber passed in 1994 to deter crimes against women, it failed to advance the important protections that should be afforded to all victims of domestic violence and sexual assaults.

Our colleagues in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, worked together to pass a strong, bipartisan reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Yet, rather than carrying on the important tradition of working in a bipartisan fashion to strengthen and reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act here in the House, Republicans crafted a partisan bill that failed to include many of the important protections enacted by the Senate. In fact, the Republican legislation would undermine vital protections and services for victims of domestic violence. The House Republican proposal left out improvements that the Senate had passed, including protections for immigrant women, college students, and LGBT Americans.

A bipartisan coalition of 13 women Senators, including Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, signed a letter to Speaker Boehner yesterday urging that he call a vote on the strong, bipartisan Senate-passed bill that would strengthen protections for all victims of domestic and sexual violence saying, ``We should not let politics pick and choose which victims of abuse to help and which to ignore''--a bill, by the way, that every single woman in the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, voted for.

Reauthorizing important provisions that help ensure the safety of all victims of domestic and sexual abuse across our country should be routine--even in Washington, D.C. But once again, House Republicans have allowed a far-right ideology to interfere with the commonsense approach to protecting women and families from violence.

Women's lives are too important for another round of congressional brinksmanship. Last year, in my home State of Rhode Island, more than 13,000 hotline calls were answered by the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Republicans in this Chamber are wrong to relegate the safety and well-being of these women behind an extreme political ideology. I urge my colleagues to continue their strong support for the bipartisan Senate legislation that would provide effective protections for all victims of sexual or domestic violence. We must keep the pressure on for passage of the Senate bipartisan bill. America's women and our families deserve no less. END