ANOTHER VICTORY: House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passes LRA/Uganda bill

We are thrilled to bring you news that this morning, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs unanimously passed the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act.

Debates between some Committee members over details in the bill had initially threatened to stall its consideration for months, until robust efforts from activists and the bill's champions in Congress succeeded in convincing leaders of the Foreign Affairs Committee to swiftly pass the Senate version of the bill. In a very rare move, the Committee added the bill to today's agenda just yesterday afternoon---less than 24 hours before the hearing was to take place.

Consequently, during today's meeting the Committee members agreed unanimously to support the passage of the Senate version of the bill without amendment. From here, the bill will go to the floor of the House for a full vote, most likely in the next week or two.  

Once the bill passes in the House, it will go straight to the President's desk to be signed into law and implemented. At that point, it will be up to activists to convince President Obama to fully utilize this public mandate for action.

“I’m very pleased that this important, bipartisan legislation will be moving to the House floor,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), an original cosponsor of the bill, said. “It is crucial that the United States commit to a proactive strategy to help bring this conflict to an end and to strengthen humanitarian assistance.”

The unanimous decision by the Foreign Affairs Committee to pass the the bill was a major victory and another step toward an end to LRA atrocities and toward lasting peace in northern Uganda.  As emphasized by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), former Africa subcommittee chairman and an original cosponsor of the bill, "LRA leader Joseph Kony is driving this crisis.  Ensuring United States leadership in ending his reign of terror is the goal of this legislation, and the many Americans who have backed it. Kony must be stopped." 

Today's victory reflects a consensus within Congress and amongst hundreds of thousands of Americans that forging a more effective response to LRA violence necessitates increased US engagement and leadership. As we look forward to the bill's passage in the House and it's movement to the President's desk, we will continue to strongly reiterated that message and amplify the voices of those whose lives have been devastated by Joseph Kony's campaign of violence.

Our deepest thanks to the thousands of you who have called, written, and met with your Representatives over the past few months and to the 5,500 people who signed the petition to Foreign Affairs Committee leaders over the course of just four days.

Today is further evidence of what our committed voices can accomplish together---and there is certainly much more to accomplish!

Well done, everyone.