News item from Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24978-2000Sep6.html
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Clinton Makes Hate-Crime Bill a Top Priority
By Juliet Eilperin and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 7, 2000; Page A05
President Clinton has privately informed congressional leaders that he will make federal hate-crime legislation a top priority of his final months in office, raising the profile of a sleeper issue and creating a new campaign issue for Democrats.
The move, which is sure to generate Republican opposition, also injects a note of uncertainty into final budget negotiations because the hate-crimes legislation could be used as leverage in the debates over spending bills. But Democrats believe that protecting gays and racial minorities from attacks motivated by bigotry will prove popular with voters, and Clinton, aides say, is motivated by a deep desire to strengthen civil rights during his administration.
The Senate passed the bill 57 to 42 in June, but it has been stalled in the House. If enacted, it would represent the first major expansion of hate-crimes law since the original bill passed in 1968.
The current law covers only crimes involving race, religion or national origin. The proposed legislation would add gender, sexual orientation and disability, and would broaden the circumstances under which federal prosecutors could get involved. It would also allow federal prosecutors to seek additional penalties for hate crimes in states that lack such laws and let state and local prosecutors apply for federal assistance of as much as $100,000.
"The president is fundamentally committed to an all-out effort to enact the hate-crimes bill before Congress adjourns," White House spokesman Joel Johnson said. "It is absolutely a top-tier priority."
On their flight back from Colombia last week, Clinton served notice to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) that Republican opposition would not deter him from fighting for the bill. But Hastert remained noncommittal, and his chief of staff, Scott Palmer, emphasized that the bill would anger the GOP's conservative base.
House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (Okla.) said the measure is not needed. "Anything that happens to any citizen in America today that's a crime, there's a law on the books to address it," Watts said.
In a private meeting with Democratic congressional leaders Tuesday, Clinton repeated his goal, drawing the lawmakers' support, aides said. Vice President Gore has strongly endorsed the legislation, while his opponent, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, an aide said, is "going to withhold judgment until he is part of the process in Washington."
The issue has received little public attention since late June, when the Senate approved the measure. But it has resurfaced on the campaign trail, where conservative Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), a candidate for the Senate, trumpeted his support for the bill in four campaign stops last week.
"I'm making a full-court press because I think this is the time to do it," said McCollum, who faces a tight race with Democrat Bill Nelson and has circulated a letter of support among his colleagues that he plans to submit to Hastert. "Hate crimes, by definition, isn't just a crime against an individual. It's a crime against a class of people."
House Democrats are encouraged by a recent national survey in which 66 percent of those queried said they would be less likely to support a candidate who voted against "strengthening the prosecution of violent hate crimes motivated by prejudice against race, religion, gender or sexual orientation." Pollster Geoff Garin said the issue is as popular as school construction and resonates particularly among voters in the West and in suburban districts, as well as among college-educated women and minorities.
"In blocking hate-crimes legislation, Republicans are putting themselves on the wrong side of a value that's important to people," he said. Norman Ornstein, a political analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, said election-year politics have changed the bill's prospects.
"There's a pretty strong chance that something will pass," he said. "You've got an awful lot of nervous politicians. They don't want to have commercials run against them that force them to explain why they're really against hate crimes" legislation.
Since 1997, Clinton has been pushing for stronger protections against hate crimes. Then in June 1998, James Byrd, a 49-year-old black Texas man, was beaten, sprayed with paint and dragged behind a pickup truck, his head and right arm ripped from his body. Four months later, Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay Wyoming man, died after he was lashed to a fence post in near-freezing weather, his skull smashed with a pistol butt. In August 1999, a man opened fire in a Jewish community center in Los Angeles, wounding five people. The man told the FBI he intended the attack "as a wake-up call to America to kill Jews."
At the Millennium March in Washington in June, Clinton told Shepard's mother that he was determined to sign a hate-crime bill before he leaves office, so her son's death will not have been in vain.
"It's very important to him," said Judy Shepard, who recalled how Clinton phoned her while Matthew lay dying in a hospital. "He's told us that repeatedly. It was a number one priority for him to get it through Congress."
The administration supported the legislation last year, but Republicans blocked it. This year, Democrats said, Clinton's support and the wide margin of passage in the Senate could make the difference.
"It's clearly enormously helpful to us that President Clinton's doing this," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), one of the leading proponents of the bill. "There is obviously real political pressure to do it."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24978-2000Sep6.html
////
Clinton Makes Hate-Crime Bill a Top Priority
By Juliet Eilperin and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 7, 2000; Page A05
President Clinton has privately informed congressional leaders that he will make federal hate-crime legislation a top priority of his final months in office, raising the profile of a sleeper issue and creating a new campaign issue for Democrats.
The move, which is sure to generate Republican opposition, also injects a note of uncertainty into final budget negotiations because the hate-crimes legislation could be used as leverage in the debates over spending bills. But Democrats believe that protecting gays and racial minorities from attacks motivated by bigotry will prove popular with voters, and Clinton, aides say, is motivated by a deep desire to strengthen civil rights during his administration.
The Senate passed the bill 57 to 42 in June, but it has been stalled in the House. If enacted, it would represent the first major expansion of hate-crimes law since the original bill passed in 1968.
The current law covers only crimes involving race, religion or national origin. The proposed legislation would add gender, sexual orientation and disability, and would broaden the circumstances under which federal prosecutors could get involved. It would also allow federal prosecutors to seek additional penalties for hate crimes in states that lack such laws and let state and local prosecutors apply for federal assistance of as much as $100,000.
"The president is fundamentally committed to an all-out effort to enact the hate-crimes bill before Congress adjourns," White House spokesman Joel Johnson said. "It is absolutely a top-tier priority."
On their flight back from Colombia last week, Clinton served notice to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) that Republican opposition would not deter him from fighting for the bill. But Hastert remained noncommittal, and his chief of staff, Scott Palmer, emphasized that the bill would anger the GOP's conservative base.
House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (Okla.) said the measure is not needed. "Anything that happens to any citizen in America today that's a crime, there's a law on the books to address it," Watts said.
In a private meeting with Democratic congressional leaders Tuesday, Clinton repeated his goal, drawing the lawmakers' support, aides said. Vice President Gore has strongly endorsed the legislation, while his opponent, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, an aide said, is "going to withhold judgment until he is part of the process in Washington."
The issue has received little public attention since late June, when the Senate approved the measure. But it has resurfaced on the campaign trail, where conservative Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), a candidate for the Senate, trumpeted his support for the bill in four campaign stops last week.
"I'm making a full-court press because I think this is the time to do it," said McCollum, who faces a tight race with Democrat Bill Nelson and has circulated a letter of support among his colleagues that he plans to submit to Hastert. "Hate crimes, by definition, isn't just a crime against an individual. It's a crime against a class of people."
House Democrats are encouraged by a recent national survey in which 66 percent of those queried said they would be less likely to support a candidate who voted against "strengthening the prosecution of violent hate crimes motivated by prejudice against race, religion, gender or sexual orientation." Pollster Geoff Garin said the issue is as popular as school construction and resonates particularly among voters in the West and in suburban districts, as well as among college-educated women and minorities.
"In blocking hate-crimes legislation, Republicans are putting themselves on the wrong side of a value that's important to people," he said. Norman Ornstein, a political analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, said election-year politics have changed the bill's prospects.
"There's a pretty strong chance that something will pass," he said. "You've got an awful lot of nervous politicians. They don't want to have commercials run against them that force them to explain why they're really against hate crimes" legislation.
Since 1997, Clinton has been pushing for stronger protections against hate crimes. Then in June 1998, James Byrd, a 49-year-old black Texas man, was beaten, sprayed with paint and dragged behind a pickup truck, his head and right arm ripped from his body. Four months later, Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay Wyoming man, died after he was lashed to a fence post in near-freezing weather, his skull smashed with a pistol butt. In August 1999, a man opened fire in a Jewish community center in Los Angeles, wounding five people. The man told the FBI he intended the attack "as a wake-up call to America to kill Jews."
At the Millennium March in Washington in June, Clinton told Shepard's mother that he was determined to sign a hate-crime bill before he leaves office, so her son's death will not have been in vain.
"It's very important to him," said Judy Shepard, who recalled how Clinton phoned her while Matthew lay dying in a hospital. "He's told us that repeatedly. It was a number one priority for him to get it through Congress."
The administration supported the legislation last year, but Republicans blocked it. This year, Democrats said, Clinton's support and the wide margin of passage in the Senate could make the difference.
"It's clearly enormously helpful to us that President Clinton's doing this," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), one of the leading proponents of the bill. "There is obviously real political pressure to do it."