Federal Hate Crimes Law & Pending Legislation

Current Hate Crimes Law

The Hate Crimes Statistics Act was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. This law mandates the attorney general to acquire data and publish an annual report on crimes committed based on prejudice of “race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity.”

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was signed into law by President Clinton in 1994. Based on this legislation, enhanced sentencing for hate crimes is permitted – after a person is found guilty of a violent crime, a judge may increase his/her sentence if the judge determines that it was motivated by “hate”. For purposes of this law, “hate crime” is defined as:

A crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.

Recent Hate Crimes Action

The Senate last voted on hate crimes in the 108^th Congress as an amendment to the defense authorization bill. It passed by a vote of 65-33 but did not become law. The House last voted on and passed hate crimes legislation in the 109^th Congress by a vote of 223 to 199. Rep. Conyers successfully attached it (the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act) to the Children’s Safety Act but we successfully avoided Senate consideration.

Pending Hate Crimes Legislation

On January 5, 2007, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee introduced H.R. 254. The definition of “hate crime” remains the same as passed in 1994, but this bill goes much further than the enhanced sentencing provided by the 1994 legislation. H.R. 254 establishes a new federal offense for hate crimes and mandates a separate federal criminal prosecution for state offenses with the possibility of life imprisonment for crimes motivated by “the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or disability of any person.”*

*Note, the House-passed version in 2005 also included crimes motivated by “gender identity.”

Major Concerns Hate Crimes Legislation

- It violates the concept of equal protection under the law by granting more government protection to certain classes of people.

- It is an overreach of federal power – allowing federal government intervention into local and state affairs.

- It paves the way to religious persecution through “hate speech”, in particular for Christians and other faith groups who hold traditional beliefs on homosexuality.