Expanded Hate Crime Measure Dropped

Congressional Republican leaders on Thursday scuttled hate crime legislation sought by President Clinton, even though a majority of the House and Senate have voiced support for the measure.

The legislation would have expanded federal hate crime laws to cover acts of violence based on gender, sexual orientation and disability--the first major expansion of the law passed in 1968.

House-Senate negotiators dropped the hate crime provision from a defense authorization bill. The measure’s only hope for enactment now appears to hinge on how strongly Clinton will insist upon it as part of final federal budget negotiations between Congress and the White House.

On Thursday night, Clinton vowed to make such an effort, saying he would “continue to fight the Republican leadership in Congress to make sure this important work gets done this year.”

Just last week the president sought to increase the political pressure on those Republicans opposing the hate-crime legislation. “We all know what the deal is here,” he said then. “The Republican majority does not want a bill that explicitly provides hate crimes protections for gay Americans. And I think they think it will split their base.”

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, said Thursday that he had pushed for the legislation’s removal to avoid a filibuster by conservative Republicans that would have blocked action on the defense bill. “In the interest of national defense, this bill must be acted upon by the Senate,” he said.

The Senate in June approved the hate crime legislation by a 57-42 vote, and the House last month voted, 232 to 192, to urge its negotiators to accept the measure.

Thursday’s action is likely to intensify the debate concerning hate crime legislation in the presidential and congressional campaigns.

The Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based gay and lesbian political organization, hopes to spotlight the issue in selected races. “While hate crime legislation still has a chance of passing in this Congress, the GOP leadership’s actions show that they are determined to kill the legislation--even if it means Republican colleagues will be hurt on election day,” the group said in a statement.

Conservative and religious organizations generally oppose the legislation, calling it unnecessary. They note that murder, assault and other acts of violence already are against the law.

“I think that most people think that all crimes are hate crimes,” said John Feehery, a spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

Existing federal law defines hate crimes as those motivated by bias based on religion, race, national origin or color. The measure to expand that definition also would give federal authorities greater power to aid local officials in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes.

The measure gained impetus after the October 1998 killing of Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming college student who was beaten and left to die tied to fence. The shooting attack in August 1999 on a Jewish community center in the San Fernando Valley also spurred calls for such legislation.

In April, Clinton met with relatives of the children wounded in that attack and pledged to work “until the last day of his presidency” to get the hate crime measure passed.