Jim Sensenbrenner: “I yield myself 4 minutes. This manager's amendment makes several technical and clarifying changes requested by the…”

“I yield myself 4 minutes. This manager's amendment makes several technical and clarifying changes requested by the Department of Justice. Probably more importantly, because this is the issue of controversy, it clarifies a provision in the legislation that may have been vulnerable to a constitutional challenge. In its current form, a provision in the legislation could be viewed to prescribe race-based VAWA grant awards by conditioning certain grants upon an applicant's ability to address the needs of ethnic and racial minorities. The amendment addresses this issue by clarifying existing VAWA grant criteria that require applicants to indicate how they intend to meet the needs of populations that are currently underserved by existing VAWA programs. Specifically, the manager's amendment clarifies that such funding should be based on an applicant's ability to address the needs of ``populations underserved by geographic locations, underserved racial and ethnic populations, populations underserved because of special needs, such as language barriers, disabilities, alienage status, or age, and any other population determined to be underserved by the Attorney General.'' The amendment remedies the possible constitutional concerns that effectuates the intent of the committee when drafting the legislation.…”