NEW: VAWA Passed in Senate

After allowing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to expire, the Senate passed its version of VAWA 2005 earlier this week. While the Senate version includes many of the provisions excluded in the House version of the Act, it dropped a key program that would have extended unemployment insurance coverage to domestic violence survivors. As we have reported in earlier MISSING pieces, the issue of unemployment insurance is critical to those seeking to leave situations of domestic violence, and, in most states, individuals are ineligible for unemployment benefits if they leave work voluntarily without "good cause" or if they are discharged for "misconduct". Adding such a provision to VAWA 2005 would be a step towards addressing this problem.