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Goodlatte ultimately sent over the changes he wanted to see to Heitkamp’s office last night -- two weeks after the bill passed the Senate and almost one week after Heitkamp tweeted at Goodlatte.

According to a document reviewed by ABC News, Goodlatte’s edits are extensive, striking entire provisions throughout the bill’s fourteen pages. He wants to remove stipulations that the attorney general \"shall give affirmative preference\" to applicants for two existing DOJ grant programs from law enforcement agencies that have implemented the guidelines -- the part he feared might discriminate against certain agencies. The Heitkamp aide said that language was a suggestion and was non-binding.

But in a separate edit that Heitkamp hadn’t been expecting, Goodlatte also struck provisions to keep law enforcement agencies accountable for implementing the bill’s new requirements, including requiring the attorney general to keep a public list of law enforcement agencies that have not yet implemented the guidelines.

While Goodlatte hasn’t been particularly outspoken on Native issues throughout his career, this isn’t the first time he has objected to protections specifically for that minority. During an appropriations debate in 2016, he objected to an agreement forged by House and Senate committees that would have set aside some money collected for a Native crime victims fund to be directly allocated among tribes, rather than through state agencies. Goodlatte objected to this set-aside, saying it was an example of \"legislating through an appropriations bill.\"

In 2012, Goodlatte was one of 17 Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who voted for a version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization that lacked protections for Native American women, which had passed as part of the Senate’s version. Those safeguards would have allowed tribes to prosecute domestic violence committed by non-Native perpetrators on tribal lands.

\"PHOTO:
Tom Williams/AP
PHOTO: Chairman Bob Goodlatte arrives for a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Dec. 20, 2018.
>

Congress held another vote on VAWA the following year, this time including the expanded legal protections for tribal women. Goodlatte voted against that version.

Spokespeople for Goodlatte, House Speaker Paul Ryan and the Department of Justice did not respond to requests for on-the-record comment.

Given the fact that Savanna's Act passed unanimously in the Senate, Heitkamp's aide argues it would face a similar lack of opposition in the House. But if Goodlatte succeeds in blocking this bill's progress until the end of the month, which is the conclusion of the current congressional session, the process would have to start all over again, beginning back in the Senate.

But some of Heitkamp’s Senate co-sponsors have already vowed to honor her legacy – and that of the bill’s namesake – and get the bill passed next year, even if it means starting from scratch. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told ABC News that she has committed to Heitkamp to get Savanna’s Act passed \"aggressively and early.\"

\"We’re going to be working it, we’re going to be working it early and we’re going to make the difference,\" Murkowski said.

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