Senate OKs Expanding Federal Reach on Hate Crimes

The Senate on Thursday adopted legislation to expand federal hate crime laws to cover offenses committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation, gender or disability.

The measure, passed as an amendment to an unrelated bill, also would give the federal government more leeway to prosecute or investigate hate crimes that are not committed on federal property or while the victim is exercising a federally protected right, such as the right to vote. Current laws give federal authorities the right to investigate and prosecute only those hate crimes motivated by bias against religion, race, national origin or color.

The measure, whose chief sponsor was Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), was passed by unanimous consent with other amendments to the appropriations bill for the departments of Commerce, State and Justice. Also in the package was a narrower hate crime measure, introduced by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), that did not include crimes based on sexual orientation, gender or disability.

The action comes in the wake of several highly publicized crimes against gays, including the killing of a gay couple in a rural Northern California community near Redding three weeks ago.

“Hate crimes are occurring with alarming frequency in this country, and that includes hate crimes against lesbian and gay people,” said David Smith, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian and gay political organization. “One needs to look no further than Redding to understand that current hate crime law does not address the problem adequately.”

The fate of the measure will be determined in a House-Senate conference, but sponsors were warned that the GOP leadership would strip the legislation out during that phase. A similar measure died before passage last year. The House has not taken up a similar measure.

Sponsors believe that because the Kennedy measure was passed by the Senate, the White House will have an opportunity to lobby hard for its final passage.

Kennedy has led a bipartisan effort to broaden current hate crime laws to cover other groups victimized by such crimes. Six Republicans joined 34 Democrats in sponsoring the Kennedy legislation.

“The federal government can’t continue to sit on the sidelines,” Kennedy said earlier this month. “With each new tragedy, it becomes more and more difficult for Congress to claim there is no problem.”

The existing legislation has tied the hands of federal prosecutors, advocates say, because it covers only those crimes committed while the victim was on federal property or engaging in six federally protected activities, such as attending school, serving as a juror or voting.

Under the Kennedy legislation, the federal government could prosecute any hate crimes that have an interstate commerce connection. That could include crimes committed in almost any business, cases where a defendant crossed state lines or crimes that took place in a vehicle.

The Hatch measure, introduced Wednesday, would authorize a study of crime data collected by states, provide some funds to help states that do not have sufficient resources to investigate hate crimes and give federal prosecutors leeway to investigate or prosecute hate crimes if the defendant crossed state lines.

“It is no answer for the Senate to sit by silently while these crimes are being committed,” Hatch said. “The ugly, bigoted and violent underside of some in our country that is reflected by the commission of hate crimes must be combated at all levels of government.”

Some conservatives have opposed hate crime legislation in general, arguing that such crimes are already prosecuted under existing criminal provisions.