WASHINGTON — While Washington was transfixed by sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Congress set the stage for politically charged negotiations on a domestic violence law.

The Violence Against Women Act expired Sept. 30, but Congress extended funding through December. That gives both parties more time to build consensus on an issue that has proved contentious in the past — the last reauthorization, in 2013, took a year and a half to pass.

A flash point in this renewal could be an expansion of gun control measures to prohibit individuals under protective orders and with stalking convictions from possessing guns. The issue is a clear distinction in the race between Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, and his Democratic challenger, Colin Allred.

Sessions believes gun laws related to domestic violence are strong enough as they are. Allred wants to expand gun restrictions for violent partners.

“We should be doing more to take guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, and make sure they don’t get them in the first place,” Allred said Thursday at a candidate forum on family violence in Dallas.

Gun control is an especially relevant policy issue in Texas where gunmen in two mass shootings last year had histories of domestic violence.

In September 2017, Spencer Hight killed eight people in Plano when he opened fire on a Dallas Cowboys watch party hosted by his estranged wife, who had filed for divorce two months earlier. Meredith Hight’s mother says Hight physically abused her daughter at least twice, including slamming her face against a wall.

In November, Devin Kelley shot and killed 26 people and injured 20 in First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.

Kelley was supposed to be barred from purchasing firearms because he had been court-martialed for domestic violence. But the Air Force did not submit the determination to the relevant federal database, which allowed him to pass a gun buyer background check.

According to the Texas Council on Family Violence, 146 women were killed in domestic violence incidents in Texas in 2016. Firearms were used in 68 percent of those cases.

At Thursday's candidate forum at the Dallas Women’s Foundation, Allred said he supported a full, five-year reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and added gun control measures. He criticized Sessions for not pushing harder before the expiration and for voting against the 2013 reauthorization.

“My opponent should have gone to Speaker [Paul] Ryan and said, put the Violence Against Women Act on the table so we can vote for it and have a full five-year reauthorization, full funding for it, and he did not do that,” Allred said.

Sessions did not commit to reauthorizing the act in its entirety, and said he would follow the Trump administration’s requests. He also said he was satisfied with current federal gun regulations on domestic violence, and wanted to keep that out of the conversation so discussions could stay “bipartisan.”

Sessions said he voted against reauthorizing the act in 2013 because “it was a political issue,” but he expressed confidence that Congress would reauthorize the law.

Sessions came under fire in August for comments he made claiming that a Highland Park woman was at fault for her death because she was “unfair” to her husband, who shot her while the two were in the process of a divorce.

Sessions' chief of staff said a report critical of his comments was a "clear misrepresentation" of the congressman's history of supporting women and domestic violence survivors.

Expiration

Houston Democrat Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has been on the front lines in Washington, D.C., of advocating for reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

She introduced a reauthorization proposal that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asked House leadership to bring to the floor. Jackson Lee’s bill has no GOP co-sponsors, and Republicans blocked it from getting a vote.

Jackson Lee said she was “disappointed” about the delay. She has also been an outspoken opponent of Kavanaugh’s confirmation

“It’s a chilling response to the claim that [Republicans] care about women’s rights, and women’s issues. They made no attempt to engage in a positive sense and be timely in the reauthorization,” she said.

Ryan’s office said that an extension would allow more time for discussion.

"As we work toward a larger agreement, an extension is necessary to ensure there is no lapse in the program. We are confident our Democratic colleagues will join us in ensuring that doesn't happen," a spokeswoman for Ryan told The Hill.

Jackson Lee's bill would expand a prohibition on possessing guns to include individuals who are under protective orders or have been convicted of dating violence or stalking, instead of just domestic violence.

“The issues have grown, and they have become more complicated. This is a different set of issues than it would have been nearly eight years ago,” Jackson Lee said, referring to the law's previous expiration.

Other provisions in Jackson Lee’s bill include protecting victims from eviction from public housing, regulating the treatment of LGBT individuals and pregnant women in prison, addressing campus dating violence, and increasing funding for local rape prevention efforts.

Though the issue is on standby, there have been indications of bipartisan support for renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. In early September, 46 House Republicans — none of them Texans — asked leadership to take up a reauthorization bill.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, has also filed a bill to renew the existing Violence Against Women Act, but only for one year instead of the typical five years. Poe and former Rep. Blake Farenthold of Corpus Christi were the only Texas Republicans to vote for law's last reauthorization in 2013.

In Texas

The short-term extension creates uncertainty for service providers and law enforcement that created programs and hired employees using grant funding. Texas received nearly $16 million in grant money set aside by the law in 2017, the fourth-most of any state.

“Just the funding is not enough because the policy piece of it has really changed the way parts of the system do business,” said Paige Flink, CEO of the Family Place, North Texas’ largest family violence shelter.

While the Violence Against Women Act funds grants for community organizations, a significant portion of those grants go to law enforcement.

Flink said a grant provided training for lethality assessment in 2012 that helped facilitate cooperation between the Dallas Police Department and the Family Place.

“That lethality assessment training changed the way they interacted with victims, and it changed calls to our hotline,” Flink said.

The Texas Municipal Police Association has overseen training on family violence and sexual assault for law enforcement for over a decade using funds from the Violence Against Women Act.

Executive Director Kevin Lawrence said the group has trained more than 38,000 law enforcement officers statewide, including 369 Dallas police officers and telecommunicators.

“There is a whole different dynamic that requires officers to get outside the normal investigative process” in family violence and sexual assault cases, Lawrence said.

Gloria Terry, CEO of the Texas Council on Family Violence, called the extension a “short-term Band-Aid” for a law that provides key protections for domestic violence victims.

“When you have somebody who has been victimized by a boyfriend or a husband, they don’t care that there’s a resolution that only extends the funding for another 10 weeks,” Terry said. “They just need the support.”