Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., second from left, the lead author of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, joined by, from left, Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Christopher Coons, D-Del., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, following the Senate’s passage of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013.WASHINGTON – Tennessee and Georgia senators last week joined 74 colleagues in voting to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, but some local House Republicans aren’t sold on doing the same.
As the latest budget fight rages between President Barack Obama and House Republicans, the measure’s $600 million cost and new protections for homosexuals are prompting questions that never surfaced in the bill’s first three approvals.
U.S. Rep. John “Jimmy” Duncan Jr., a Knoxville Republican, said most constituents wouldn’t be unreasonable in expecting him to cast a supporting vote.
“Every bill is given a motherhood-and-apple-pie title,” Duncan said outside the House chamber. “But if you voted [based] on the title, you’d vote for every bill up here. If we’d all done that, the country would have crashed a long time ago.
“So this is another bill with a motherhood-and-apple-pie title,” he added.