"Violence Against Women" reauthorization now has enough votes

[Riot]

Good news

The newly politicized fight to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act for the third time may have reached a tipping point. With the cosponsorship of Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller, there are now 60 cosponsors, enough to overcome a filibuster if they all actually vote for the bill.

Heller joins Idaho's Mike Crapo, an author of the bill, Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, Massachusetts' Scott Brown, and Illinois' Mark Kirk as a Republican supporting reauthorization. Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, the bill's other author, notes that "Fewer than a dozen bills introduced in the United States Senate this Congress have amassed 60 or more cosponsors."

Note: my attention to this domestic policy continuing to protect women in no way reflects any ignoring, on my part, of other violence against women elsewhere in the world. So suck it, Dell.