After years of messy partisan fights and failures, Congress on Thursday finally reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act and expanded its protections for particularly vulnerable groups of people, including Native American women and LGBTQ survivors of violence.

Lawmakers tucked the VAWA bill into a massive, fast-moving $1.5 trillion government spending package that sailed through the House and Senate this week. As a result, people may not have noticed that Congress just renewed the lifesaving law too.

The VAWA bill that President Joe Biden is expected to sign into law later Friday will reauthorize the laws programs through 2027. It also includes new provisions like expanded access to forensic exams for victims of sexual assault in rural communities; new grants for community-specific services for LGBTQ survivors of domestic violence; and new jurisdiction to tribal courts to go after non-Native perpetrators of sexual assault, child abuse, stalking, sex trafficking and assaults on tribal law enforcement officers on tribal lands.

The expanded protections for Native American women are particularly notable, given the appallingly high rates of domestic violence and sexual assault that Indigenous women face on reservations by non-Native men. More than 84% of Indigenous women experience violence in their lifetime, and the vast majority of Native victims of violence 96% of women and 89% of men report being victimized by a non-Native person.

That is in addition to an ongoing national crisis of Native American women simply disappearing and being murdered.

VAWAs passage marked a rare moment in todays Congress with leaders in both parties taking victory laps together.

This is a major advancement for protecting women from domestic violence and sexual assault a tragedy faced by one in three women in this country, said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one of the bills sponsors. Passing this legislation to prevent domestic violence and support survivors is long overdue.

Every Native person should feel safe in their own homes and communities, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), also a bill sponsor and the senator who led the effort to strengthen VAWAs tribal provisions. Jurisdictional issues should not deny safety or justice. Tribes are valuable partners with the State and Federal governments and can help turn the tide against violence in Native communities.