Congress spent much of the last session at loggerheads over the issue, with Murray and other Democrats accusing Republicans of dragging their feet in protecting women.

After the Senate voted 78-22 two weeks ago to reauthorize the bill as one of its first acts in the new Congress, it became clear that Republicans wanted to avoid a replay of the fight.

The House voted on two bills: In the first, 60 Republicans joined Democrats to defeat an amendment that would have reauthorized the law without adding the extra protections for Indian women, immigrants and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender victims. In the second, 87 Republicans backed the broader Senate bill.

Murray credited moderate House Republicans as helping to turn the tide by demanding a vote on the Senate plan.

Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said she’d backed the Senate plan as a way to help more children escape domestic violence. She told the story of a little boy who died when he was struck and killed after jumping out of a car on a freeway when his mother’s boyfriend began beating her.

Freshman Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told the story of his 5-year-old son, whom he and his wife adopted three years ago: The boy had watched his stepfather beat his mother for half an hour, killing her.

“I know the scourge of violence against women personally,” Cramer said.

Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen recalled a case in 2000 in his district in northwestern Washington in which an immigrant woman named Anastasia King was murdered by her husband.

“Domestic violence does not discriminate. With this bill, domestic violence protection will no longer discriminate,” Larsen said.

Backers of the law said they wouldn’t have prevailed if they hadn’t been able to put a human face on domestic abuse. Murray, in particular, had urged victims to go public.

After the vote, Murray said Parker’s story – she appeared with Murray and other Democratic senators at a Capitol Hill news conference – had played a key role in getting the law reauthorized.

Parker said her abuse began when she was a toddler and happened repeatedly until the summer after third grade. But she said it was never reported to police because they wouldn’t have bothered to investigate anyway.

“I think Deborah Parker made the absolute difference at the absolute critical time, being here, standing up and making her personal story become the face of what this was about,” Murray said. “It was an act of courage and it changed the whole debate.”