House to vote on Hate Crimes bill as early as Wednesday-- contact your Congressperson [Updated]
Today the House adopted a rule
on H.R. 1913, known as the Hate Crimes bill or, in previous Congresses,
as the Matthew Shepard Act. This means they can be expected to take up
and vote on the bill within the next few days-- and according to the Advocate will vote as early as tomorrow, Wednesday. (The Senate version
of the bill was also introduced today but may take longer to come to a
vote.) If this is an issue you're following, the time to contact your
Congressperson is now. You can do this easily by calling 866-346-4611, the House switchboard.
If you haven't been following this bill, you can find its text here. It does two simple things:
And just to be clear about this, because there's been a lot of misinformation about this bill: Yes, it has to be a violent crime-- assault or murder, or attempted assault or murder-- to fall under the classification of "hate crime". Nothing is illegal under H.R. 1913 which wouldn't have been illegal already.
H.R. 1913 is a big deal not just for what it does, but because it is the first salvo in a larger upcoming struggle over LGBT equality at the Federal level. The White House has laid out an aggressive agenda on LGBT rights, but up until this last week there has been silence from the Democratic leadership on implementing that agenda. That agenda is now finally being put into practice. Nancy Pelosi this week explained the schedule for this year, rephrasing a comment she has made several times this year, "we have the hate crimes legislation first and the ENDA [Employment Nondiscrimination Act] bill the next step after that". The other two big issues on the White House's gay rights agenda-- federal recognition of same-sex marriages and civil unions, and a removal of the ban on gays in the military-- are, according to both Pelosi and Barney Frank, on hold until next year.
This is a realistic schedule-- ENDA and Matthew Shepard are both bills with known support, both of which very almost passed into law in the last Congress and were stopped only due to maneuvering from the Bush White House and procedural errors by the House leadership, so it makes sense to prioritize those first. Still, it's going to take a lot of work to get these bills into law, especially given that the version of ENDA coming up in this Congress is more aggressive (i.e. trans-inclusive) than the one considered last Congress; and anyone who supports LGBT equality will need to keep on the Democrats in specific and the Congress in general to harness the momentum from these two bills into the more difficult fights over DADT and recognition of relationships next year.
UPDATE: C-SPAN is showing the house vote at 247-175 and completed. HR 1913 passes the House. Next hurdle is the Senate...
If you haven't been following this bill, you can find its text here. It does two simple things:
- Expands
the existing definition of a "hate crime" to include gender identity,
sexual orientation, and disability . (Under existing law, if someone
commits a violent crime against someone which is motivated by the
victim's race or religion, then that crime receives a harsher sentence
than it would otherwise. HR 1913 simply expands the classes protected
by this rule.)
- Gives federal law enforcement greater leeway
and resources to investigate and prosecute hate crimes, in case local
law enforcement lacks the resources to, or chooses not to, investigate.
And just to be clear about this, because there's been a lot of misinformation about this bill: Yes, it has to be a violent crime-- assault or murder, or attempted assault or murder-- to fall under the classification of "hate crime". Nothing is illegal under H.R. 1913 which wouldn't have been illegal already.
H.R. 1913 is a big deal not just for what it does, but because it is the first salvo in a larger upcoming struggle over LGBT equality at the Federal level. The White House has laid out an aggressive agenda on LGBT rights, but up until this last week there has been silence from the Democratic leadership on implementing that agenda. That agenda is now finally being put into practice. Nancy Pelosi this week explained the schedule for this year, rephrasing a comment she has made several times this year, "we have the hate crimes legislation first and the ENDA [Employment Nondiscrimination Act] bill the next step after that". The other two big issues on the White House's gay rights agenda-- federal recognition of same-sex marriages and civil unions, and a removal of the ban on gays in the military-- are, according to both Pelosi and Barney Frank, on hold until next year.
This is a realistic schedule-- ENDA and Matthew Shepard are both bills with known support, both of which very almost passed into law in the last Congress and were stopped only due to maneuvering from the Bush White House and procedural errors by the House leadership, so it makes sense to prioritize those first. Still, it's going to take a lot of work to get these bills into law, especially given that the version of ENDA coming up in this Congress is more aggressive (i.e. trans-inclusive) than the one considered last Congress; and anyone who supports LGBT equality will need to keep on the Democrats in specific and the Congress in general to harness the momentum from these two bills into the more difficult fights over DADT and recognition of relationships next year.
UPDATE: C-SPAN is showing the house vote at 247-175 and completed. HR 1913 passes the House. Next hurdle is the Senate...
