Since the 1970s, New Hampshire police have operated under a progressive policy for handling domestic violence cases that has saved countless lives. Under current law the presumption is that an arrest will be made when police observe evidence of abuse. They have a large degree of discretion and don’t need to witness the assault firsthand or obtain a legal warrant before they can separate the alleged attacker from his victim.

All that will change if Republicans get their way. The state’s GOP legislators are pushing two bills that will reverse a half century of progress, the Concord Monitor reports:

Domestic violence is no longer taken lightly legally or by society. That’s the way it should be, but two bills under consideration by this most unusual of legislatures, would undo that progress and put lives in danger. Both deserve a speedy defeat.

House Bill 1581 would turn the clock back 40 years to an age when a police officer could not make an arrest in a domestic violence case without first getting a warrant unless he or she actually witnessed the crime. That’s an exceedingly dangerous change. Consider the following scenario, one outlined for lawmakers by retired Henniker police chief Tim Russell:

An officer is called to a home where she sees clear evidence that an assault has occurred. The furniture is overturned, the children are sobbing, and the face of the woman of the house is bruised and bleeding. It’s obvious who the assailant was, but the officer arrived after the assault occurred. It’s a small department, and no one else on the force is available to keep the peace until the officer finds a judge or justice of the peace to issue a warrant. The officer leaves, and the abuser renews his attack with even more ferocity, punishing his victim for having called for help. [...]

It’s impossible to say how many lives the policy, in place since the 1970s, has saved or how many injuries it’s prevented. If they adopt House Bill 1581, lawmakers might find out, but the price paid could be extraordinarily high.

The other bill Republicans have proposed, HB 1608, limits judges’ ability to order the arrest of someone who has violated a domestic violence restraining order by contacting or abusing the person named in the order. It would also prevent judges from ordering defendants to surrender their weapons or block them from buying guns.

Police say the bill stops them from intervening to protect victims. For instance, they would be stripped of their power to arrest someone who is threatening to use violence against a victim or child. It’s unclear why New Hampshire Republicans have set their sights on repealing protections for abuse victims when promised to focus on economic priorities.

MIAMI, Florida — A group of undocumented students gathered outside a Mitt Romney campaign stop yesterday to protest the former Massachusetts governor’s pledge to veto the DREAM Act if he were elected president.

The DREAM Act would allow certain qualified youth, most of whom were brought here as children, to apply for residency and citizenship in the United States after completing high school and two years of college or the military. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives in December 2010 and received 55 votes in the Senate, but failed due to a Republican filibuster.

Last month, Romney promised an Iowa audience that even if Congress sent the DREAM Act to his desk, he would veto the measure.

The student protestors on Wednesday were outraged by the presidential hopeful’s pledge, which would hinder their future prospects in the country they’d grown up in. Led by Felipe Matos, an aspiring biology teacher who was elected president of the student government at Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus and named one of the top 20 community college students in the country, the students chanted, “veto Romney, not the DREAM Act!” and “education, not deportation!”

Watch highlights from the protest:

Ironically, the venue of the event was Miami’s Freedom Tower — “a monument to the Cuban immigrant experience” where “thousands of Cuban exiles were processed when they first entered the United States.” Inside, Romney’s speech focused almost exclusively on bringing “freedom” to Cubans. “I will use the power of America to spread freedom in Latin America,” he said. This apparently does not apply to people who come to the United States from Latin America or elsewhere looking for freedom.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is raking in millions of dollars to fund his campaign against a recall effort to remove him from office. Out-of-state donors have poured money into his campaign coffers, making up more than 60 percent of the $4.5 million Walker raised in five weeks. And that includes the $1 million he received from four out-of-state donors alone, who donated $250,000 each — all thanks to a loophole in state law:

Normally, a governor or candidate for governor can accept a maximum of $10,000 from an individual during a four-year campaign cycle. But a quirk in state law lifts all limits for recall targets while petitions are circulated and election officials determine how many signatures have been submitted.

Walker’s most recent campaign finance report covers December 11 to January 17, the day Walker’s opponents filed petitions with more than 1 million signatures to recall him from office — when only 540,000 were needed. It could take up to 60 days for the Government Accountability Board, which runs state elections, to review the signatures.

Walker’s campaign spokeswoman Ciara Matthews contended that he only is trying to counter the money national out-of-state unions will spend on the recall effort, but there is little evidence that unions are even capable of competing with the kind of deep pocketed groups and wealthy individuals that support Walker. Last year, corporate interest groups sprang to the rescue of a Walker ally on the state supreme court, Justice David Prosser, after polls began to show Prosser’s reelection bid in trouble. This influx of corporate money rapidly overwhelmed the much smaller donations made by groups supporting Prosser’s opponent, and he managed to squeak out a narrow victory.

So far, Walker has an enormous fundraising lead over potential opponents. In the same time period where Walker raised millions, the state Democratic party raised more than $394,000, with $40,000 being the largest donation to the party. United Wisconsin, the group spearheading the recall effort along with the Democratic party, raised $86,379. And former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, who has announced she is running against Walker, had $27,000 in her campaign account as of June 30.

While it’s not clear if Walker’s opponents will match his millions in campaign donations, it is perfectly clear that Walker is benefiting from an unfair loophole in state law allowing just a handful of wealthy individuals to drown out the more than a million Wisconsin residents who want to see him recalled.