House Nixes Hate Crimes

Frank faults strategy, calls for freestanding bill in ‘08
By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | Dec 6, 6:20 PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) Thursday morning acquiesced to requests by House Democratic leaders to drop a gay and transgender inclusive hate crimes bill from the National Defense Authorization Act, a knowledgeable Capitol Hill source said.

The decision kills the hate crimes bill for this year, but House Democrats, led by gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), are calling on the Senate to pass a freestanding hate crimes bill as early as February.

Senate Democrats had hoped to pass the DOD authorization bill with the hate crimes measure intact, saying it was the best strategy for discouraging President Bush from vetoing the hate crimes measure, which Bush opposes.

House Democratic leaders, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), supported the Senate strategy, but a block of about 30 liberal Democratic House members threatened to join Republicans in voting against the combined DOD-hate crimes bill, saying they could not support legislation advancing the president's Iraq war policies.

Republicans support the DOD bill but more than 150 GOP House members said they wouldn't vote for it as long as it was linked to the hate crimes bill, which they opposed. With the hate crimes bill removed, the finalized version of the DOD authorization measure is now expected to win easy approval in the House and Senate.

“I am pleased that we are moving forward with legislation to provide our military with the resources they need, including restoring readiness, a much-deserved troop pay raise, vital improvements to the DOD health system, and increased resources for military families,” said House Democratic Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), in a statement.

“I am also hopeful the Senate can pass a stand-alone hate crimes bill, as the House did nearly seven months ago,” Clyburn said. “I urge my colleagues in the Senate to help us usher into law this critical legislation that provides equal protection for all people, no matter their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.”

Frank broke publicly this week with many of the nation’s gay advocacy groups by questioning their request that House members back continued funding for the Iraq war in order to support the hate crimes bill.

Frank voiced his concerns over the strategy pushed by Senate Democratic leaders to pass the hate crimes bill as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act as news surfaced late Wednesday that many House Democrats opposed to the Iraq war were prepared to vote against a combined hate crimes/Department of Defense bill.

Capitol Hill sources familiar with the dispute said a whip count conducted by House Democratic leaders this week found that gay-supportive Democrats who oppose the war would join more than 150 Republicans who oppose the hate crimes bill to defeat the combined bill.

“House Democrats tell me, ‘Of course I support the hate crimes bill, but don’t tell me to vote for the war,’” Frank said.

“They’re saying why are you asking me to vote for the war in order to vote for this,” he said.

A source familiar with House-Senate negotiations over the hate crimes bill said Kennedy and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the two lead Senate negotiators on the DOD authorization bill, told House leaders on Wednesday that the Senate remained committed to keeping the hate crimes bill a part of the DOD bill.

Kennedy and Levin — who also oppose Bush’s Iraq war policies — reportedly said the DOD bill was certain to pass with or without a hate crimes bill attached, the source said. They reportedly argued that the 30 or so liberal House Democrats balking over voting for a combined DOD-hate crimes bill would not be hurt among their anti-war constituencies if they voted for the bill in order to save the hate crimes measure, the source said.

Pelosi, who also faces pressure from anti-war constituents, was sympathetic to passing the combined hate crimes DOD authorization bill, the source said, but she was reluctant to “twist arms” to press her liberal House colleagues to vote for a bill viewed by many as supporting the Bush war policies.

Although the National Defense Authorization Act doesn’t approve direct spending on the Iraq war, it authorizes various Pentagon programs that carry out the Bush administration’s Iraq war policies. Congressional opponents of the war say voting for the authorization measure would be a vote in support of a war they strongly oppose.

The House passed a freestanding version of the hate crimes bill on May 3 by a vote of 237-180. On Sept. 27, the Senate voted 60-39 to end a filibuster and add the hate crimes bill to the Defense Department’s authorization measure as an amendment.

The Senate acted at the request of Kennedy and Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), who said they chose to combine the hate crimes bill with the Department of Defense bill as a strategy aimed at discouraging President Bush from vetoing the hate crimes bill.

The White House has said Bush opposes the hate crimes measure because it expands the federal government’s authority to prosecute persons charged with hate crimes. Bush and other opponents of the bill have said such prosecutions should be left to state and local authorities rather than federal prosecutors.

The legislation, known informally as the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, would expand existing federal hate crimes laws to allow federal prosecution of violent hate crimes targeting persons on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender and disability. The bill would also provide federal grants to help state and local law enforcement agencies prosecute hate crimes of all types, a provision that enjoys widespread support among police departments across the country.

Although the bill explicitly limits enforcement to hate crimes involving violent acts, conservative religious groups have waged a nationwide campaign claiming it would subject preachers to prosecution for condemning from the pulpit homosexuality or “cross dressing."

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay political group, stepped up its lobbying efforts over the past week for the combined Defense/hate crimes bill, calling on members and supporters to make phone calls and send e-mails to their representatives, urging them to back the joint bill.

“Today’s decision is deeply disappointing, especially given the historic passage of hate crimes legislation through both Houses of Congress this year,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “However, we are not giving up on efforts to find another legislative vehicle, in the second half of this Congress, to move the Matthew Shepard [hate crimes] Act.”

Patrick Sammon, president of the gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans, said Log Cabin was disappointed that an undetermined number of House Republicans refused to vote for a DOD authorization bill that included a hate crimes provision. But he said Democrats must share responsibility for the failure by Congress to pass a hate crimes measure this year.

"We are now seeing anti-war sentiment by Democrats blocking gay rights legislation," he said. "We all know the defense authorization bill would pass, with or without the hate crimes amendment," he said. "So it's a shame some members put symbolism over gay rights legislation."

Frank said he and Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), the only openly lesbian member of Congress, urged fellow House members to support the combined bill. But Frank said many of his House colleagues who are longtime gay rights supporters have expressed strong objections to the Senate strategy of combining the two bills.

White House officials have said attaching the hate crimes bill to the defense bill most likely would not have deterred the president from vetoing it. Frank noted that if Bush did veto a combined bill, as expected by some political observers, it would come back to Congress within days, and House and Senate leaders most likely would drop the hate crimes bill and pass the defense measure.

He said gay advocacy groups should now call on the Senate to pass a freestanding version of the hate crimes bill early next year. Since the Kennedy-Smith hate crimes amendment received 60 votes, a freestanding version of the bill should also receive at least that many votes, Frank said.

This year’s House approval of the bill would carry over to next year’s session of Congress, Frank noted, and an early 2008 Senate approval of the bill could send it to Bush’s desk as soon as February or March.

Most of the bill’s supporters acknowledge that there aren’t enough votes to override a Bush veto. But Frank and other Democrats said approval of the bill by Congress next year would lay the groundwork for passing the bill again in 2009, when many supporters predict a newly elected Democratic president would sign a gay- and trans-inclusive hate crimes bill.

According to Frank, many House Democrats feel as strongly about defense bills backing the Iraq war as gays felt about the Federal Marriage Amendment, a measure proposed by anti-gay lawmakers calling for amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

Some gay activists had hoped the anti-war Democrats would express their opposition to the war by voting against a separate defense appropriations bill, which directly funds the war, while agreeing to vote for the defense authorization measure, which would serve as a vehicle for the hate crimes measure.

“If someone opposes the war they should vote ‘no’ on one bill that supports the war and 'yes' on another?” Frank said. “That’s like asking people to vote ‘no’ on the Federal Marriage Amendment with one bill and ‘yes’ on another bill. It makes no sense at all.”

“It’s a classic case of putting something together that doesn’t go together,” Frank said. “Why are gays not putting pressure on the Senate to pass a separate bill?”

HRC did not publicly respond to Frank’s call for a separate Senate bill as of press time this week. In recent weeks, HRC and most other national gay and transgender advocacy groups have said they were deferring to Kennedy’s strategy of combining the bills as the best strategy for avoiding a presidential veto.

A long list of mainline civil rights groups backed the Kennedy strategy as late as this week. In a Monday joint letter written on the letterhead of the nationally known Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, more than 120 civil rights, labor, progressive religious and gay rights groups urged Senate and House leaders to retain the hate crimes bill as part of the defense authorization measure.

Among those signing on to the letter, in addition to HRC, were the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Log Cabin Republicans, National Stonewall Democrats, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays (PFLAG).