Vice President Biden Will Be in Rockville Wednesday

Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Maryland U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin will be in Rockville on Wednesday to highlight the need to reduce domestic violence deaths.

The event is scheduled for 10 a.m. in the auditorium of the Montgomery County Executive Office Building.

Organizers are remaining tight-lipped about the event.

A spokeswoman from Biden’s office would not provide further details, when reached by Patch on Tuesday.

Biden was the sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act passed on Sept. 13, 1994 and pushed Congress to reauthorize it this year, which it did. Cardin was a vocal supporter of re-authorizing VAWA.

Holder called it a “landmark law” that transformed how the government responds to domestic violence and in a statement said:

“I applaud Congress for passing a bipartisan reauthorization that protects everyone – women and men, gay and straight, children and adults of all races, ethnicities, countries of origin, and tribal affiliations. The Department of Justice looks forward to implementing this historic legislation after it is signed into law.”

Locally, in October, Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown came to Rockville to mark the start of Domestic Violence Awareness Month by highlighting new laws to protect domestic violence victims.

The first law allows someone who leaves a job to escape the threat of domestic violence to be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits. The second law applies to how courts report domestic violence cases. It requires judges to report crimes as domestic violence-related if state prosecutors prove a defendant and victim have a "domestically-related relationship,” Rockville Patch reported.