Thursday, December 13, 2007

Machers Blog

Posted By James Besser

Hate Crimes Bill Still Critical / Jared Feldman,

Policy Associate, Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA)

 

 

Last week’s decision not to include the hate crimes provisions in the Defense Authorization Conference Report was disappointing at best.  The Jewish Council for Public Affairs has advocated for this legislation for a decade.  Despite this setback, we are committed to move this bipartisan piece of legislation through Congress, onto the President’s desk and into the US Code. 

 

In May, the House of Representatives approved the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCPA).  Last September, the Senate added these same provisions as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill.  This marked the first time that both chambers of Congress approved this legislation in the same session.   A broad coalition of 210 civil rights, religious, civic and law enforcement organizations advocated for the smooth passage of the hate crimes bill.

 

Unfortunately, politics can derail good public policy.  Conservatives vowed to vote against the Defense Authorization bill because it contained the hate crimes provisions.  Liberals opposed the bill arguing against the Iraq War.  Advocates faced the daunting task of building a centrist coalition strong enough to overcome partisanship and large enough to muster a majority. 

 

Unfortunately the House Leadership decided it was too risky to include the LLEHCPA in the Defense Authorization bill. They feared the defense bill would be defeated on the House floor—a political cost unbearable.  Senators Edward Kennedy and Carl Levin insisted the Senate’s hate crimes amendment be retained. 

 

The passage of the LLEHCPA is essential to protect the rights of all Americans to live freely and safely.  Bias crimes are an anathema to the founding principles of United States and to Jewish values.  We must do what we can to prevent these crimes that victimize and paralyze entire communities at a time.  Just as importantly, we must ensure justice is justly pursued. We should expand federal law to protect victims of gender, gender-identity, sexual orientation and disability motivated violence in addition to that motivated by race, ethnicity, religion and national origin—more effectively reflecting our national diversity in our law.   We must provide resources to local authorities to effectively identify and prosecute hate crimes.  And lastly, we must give the federal government stop-gap authority to investigate and prosecute hate crimes when local authorities are unable or unwilling to do so effectively. 

 

Last week, the House Leadership stripped the hate crimes provisions out of the Defense Authorization Conference Report.  Ten years after the brutal killing of Mathew Sheppard, seventeen years after the Crown Heights Riots, a year and a half after the attack on David Ritcheson, and six months after his suicide, we still haven’t protected all Americans from violent hate and ensured the vigorous pursuit of justice.  Hopefully that will change in 2008.

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