A bill that would help fund critical services for millions of victims of domestic and sexual violence, including children, is getting a second chance in Congress.
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is reintroducing the Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act, the office of Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, announced on Wednesday. The legislation aims to help shore up the Crime Victims Fund (CVF)—a pot of federal money established by the 1984 Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) that supports domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, and child advocacy centers nationwide—by temporarily diverting funds collected through the False Claims Act, which penalizes defrauding of the government, into the CVF through 2029.
The news, which Mother Jones is the first to report, follows widespread support for the bill during the last session, with 210 co-sponsors in the House and five in the Senate. But it failed to make it out of committee in both chambers. This time, advocates are hoping for more success. The reintroduction of the legislation comes as survivors of abuse are in desperate need of support: Rates of domestic violence have soared since the pandemic; a housing crisis—and the Supreme Court decision criminalizing homelessness—has made it even harder for survivors to flee abusers; and the overturning of Roe v. Wade has given abusers another way to threaten pregnant survivors.
“This legislation will prevent the devastating impact of depleting deposits into the fund, enabling victim services organizations to continue helping those who depend on them to heal and move forward,” Dingell said in a statement Wednesday. “Congress must ensure that the CVF receives robust, stable funding that equips victim services with adequate staffing and capacity.”
As I have reported for Mother Jones, the CVF, which is supported by financial penalties levied in corporate criminal cases, has been declining for years as federal prosecutors have pursued more deferred and non-prosecution agreements, which allow defendants more time to pay up or avoid charges entirely if they cooperate with the government; the fund’s balance shrunk by more than 60 percent, from $13 billion in fiscal year 2017 to $4.25 billion by the end of last year. The money is distributed to states based on their population size, and then finally to eligible programs.
It’s these programs—the shelters and centers where abused women and children seek support—and the people they serve that have been most severely and directly impacted. As I chronicled in a story I spent months reporting for Mother Jones published back in October, the dwindling money has put multiple statewide hotlines catering to domestic violence survivors at risk of closing and has imperiled legal advocacy services for survivors across the country. Judge Shelley Santry, a family court judge in Louisville, Kentucky who lost domestic violence advocates who helped survivors in her courtroom understand the limits of restraining orders and formulate safety plans, painted a bleak picture of the VOCA funding crisis: “The consequence [of losing those services],” she told me, “may be death.”
As I reported back in December, the funding declines have also devastated child advocacy centers, where children go to testify about abuse they sustained to specially-trained, trauma-informed forensic interviewers and receive mental and physical support: One center in rural northern Wisconsin that served about 50 kids annually for free closed its doors in October due to the funding cuts, and advocates in four other states told me the funding declines forced them to cut personnel or left them unable to fill vacant positions, leading to longer wait times for children and burnout for existing staff.
Advocates greeted the news of the bill’s reintroduction with celebration: “It’s very, very exciting,” Jaime Yahner, executive director of the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators, told me Wednesday morning. Stefan Turkheimer, vice president for Public Policy at the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, said in a statement that the bill’s passage could “provide a lifeline to survivors and help safeguard their access to the most essential services.” And Stephanie Love-Patterson, president and CEO of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, said the bill could “give victim assistance programs the support necessary to keep their doors open.” As Love-Patterson also noted, the funds that it would divert into the CVF via the False Claims Act are non-taxpayer dollars, which may make it more appealing to GOP members. A Department of Justice spokesperson previously told me that since fiscal year 2017, $1.7 billion from the False Claims Act has gone into the General Fund of the Treasury—money that, under the new bill, would go into the CVF instead.
But whether the bill actually has a shot at passing remains to be seen. Spokespeople for the White House, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether or not they support the bill. And it’s unclear if the Senate companion bill will be reintroduced this term. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced the Senate version of the bill in the last session, but their spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday morning.
Even if the bill does get some movement among lawmakers, it’s all but certain to face other barriers outside of Congress. Whistleblowers have alleged that by diverting money from the False Claims Act, the legislation would siphon funds from people who report government fraud; advocates of the bill say it would preserve payments for them. And if it ultimately passed, it would not be enough to solve the CVF funding crisis once and for all, given that the diversion of funds from the False Claims Act would end in 2029.
“This stabilization bill is just a band-aid,” Emily Perry, who runs a child advocacy center in Indiana, told me in December. “If there isn’t more of a steady, consistent flow of funds into the Crime Victims Fund, then we’re just going to be revisiting this time and time again.”
