A state lawmaker says members Congress should put aside their differences and reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.
More than 100 Michigan women were killed by an intimate partner in 2011, and more than 68,000 were victims of domestic violence.
State Sen. Rebekah Warren says the federal Violence Against Women Act was allowed to expire last year because of partisan squabbling.
She says that affects shelters, prevention programs and the women they protect.
"So many of our state and local units of government, without that kind of support from the federal act and the dollars that flow from it, don't have the resources to go after the perpetrators " Warren says.
Warren says since the Violence Against Women Act was first authorized in 1994, the number of women killed in domestic violence fell 30 percent.
