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Archive: 2013 February
VAWA Goes to the President’s Desk
Although lawmakers in Congress may have failed to break the sequestration stalemate before heading home for the weekend on February 28, they did manage to take final action on the long-delayed Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization. By a vote of 286 to 138, the House of Representatives voted to send the Senate-passed bill to the President’s desk. Eighty-seven Republicans joined 199 Democrats in voting for passage. The Senate approved its version on February 12, 78 to 22. The legislation renews a 1994 law that expired in 2011. The original law, written by Vice President Joe Biden when he was…
Obama Delivers Fourth State of Union Address to Congress
Last night, the president stood before a joint session of Congress and delivered the first State of the Union address of his second term. The speech came just three weeks and a day after Obama took the oath of office and gave his inaugural address, and many commentators and officials in the administration predicted the speech would serve as a more detailed counterpart to the earlier speech. Obama delivered as expected, giving an hour-long speech that outlined a wide range of goals and proposals for his second-term. He ended with an emotional appeal for Congress to bring his gun-control proposals…