by Jody Rabhan, Deputy Director of Washington Operations, NCJW

After all these years in Washington, I finally attended my first bill signing – the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). I was thrilled to join Nancy Kaufman, NCJW CEO and Sammie Moshenberg, Director of NCJW’s Washington Office, to represent NCJW at what felt like Washington, DC’s version of the Oscars.

Imagine a room filled with advocates and members of Congress — so many the bill signing had to be moved from the White House to an auditorium nearby at the Department of the Interior. The audience hooted and hollered when the Vice President spoke about working with Representative John Conyers (D-MI) almost 20 years ago, when they envisioned and passed the original Violence Against Women Act in 1994.

Indeed, those were heady days. I can remember representing NCJW in meetings with then Senator Biden (D-DE), as a graduate fellow tasked with covering this issue. The advocates sat around an oval table with Senator Biden in his office, and literally wrote pieces of the bill — including the first National Domestic Violence Hotline. I continued to follow this important legislation for NCJW through several reauthorizations, and came back to it in the last Congress when suddenly it became a political football, not a bipartisan slam-dunk as the legislation had been in years past. VAWA languished in the 112th Congress — a result of partisan politics —awaiting reauthorization for 2 years. I can say with certainty I wasn’t the only person in the room pinching myself that the bill — the Senate-passed version offered by Sens. Leahy (D-VT) and Crapo (R-ID) that ensures protections for LGBT, tribal, campus and immigrant victims — swiftly passed both houses of Congress and was about to be signed by President Obama.

The President was clearly pleased to be at this bill signing, he almost had a spring in his step despite the “snowquester” (8-12 inches of snow predicted that never materialized) and a budget sequester (indiscriminate across the board cuts to government programs that did materialize on March 1). President Obama thanked the Vice President for his persistence, sparking a standing ovation, and spoke beautifully about the legacy of the law — how it changed the rules and “made it okay for us, as a society, to talk about domestic abuse. It made it possible for us, as a country, to address the problem in a real and meaningful way. And it made clear to victims that they were not alone — that they always had a place to go and they always had people on their side.” March 7 was a day to celebrate for victims of domestic and sexual assault. This bill — now law — will provide enhanced services to all victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking for the next five years. We should all be proud of what we accomplished with good old-fashioned tweets, phone calls and emails. Today, we rejoice. Tomorrow, it’s back to work.