On September 25, the Senate continued debating the FY2008 Defense authorization bill (H.R. 1585). The Senate began its reconsideration of the bill last week (see The Source, 9/21/07).
During debate on the measure, the Senate approved, by voice vote, an amendment by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) to add the provisions of the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (S. 1105) to H.R. 1585, after agreeing, 60-39, to a cloture motion to end debate. The amendment would provide $5 million each year for FY2008 and FY2009 to assist states and tribal governments in prosecuting hate crimes. It also would extend the definition of hate crimes to include those based on the victim’s gender, disability, or sexual orientation. The penalty for committing a hate crime would be 10 years in prison, a fine, or both; if the victim were killed in the commission of the crime, the penalty could be life imprisonment.
Speaking in support of his amendment, Sen. Kennedy said, “Hate crimes challenge us to recognize the dignity of each individual at the most basic level. When victims are selected for violence because of who they are because of the color of their skin or sexual orientation it is a crime that wounds all of us. Each person’s life is valuable, and even one life lost is too many. No member of our society no one should be the victim of hate crimes. Today we can send a message that no one no one should be a victim of a hate crime because of their disability, their sexual orientation, their gender, or gender identity…[H]ate crimes seek to divide us, to reject whole communities by terrorizing their members. Hate-motivated crimes are the most destructive of the public safety and happiness and should be punished more severely than other crimes.” He continued, “Nobel Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel said: ‘Indifference is always the friend of the enemy. Indifference is always the friend of the enemy for it benefits the aggressor, never the victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she is forgotten.’ Today, we can take a strong stand against indifference and intolerance…Now is the time for Congress to speak with one voice and insist that all Americans will be guaranteed the equal protections of the law. I urge all my colleagues to support this amendment.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said, “The politics of this amendment is that this bill will get vetoed. The president is not going to agree to this social legislation on the Defense authorization bill, and we have to take responsibility for that action. Whether one agrees with him or not, we are going to put in jeopardy items the military does need. They don’t need a hate crimes bill to make it an effective fighting force. We already have disciplinary tools to discipline people. They need pay raises and MRAP [mine resistant ambush protected] protection, and this bill provides those items. Members of this body have different views about hate crimes legislation. We can argue those differences any time, anywhere, on any other piece of legislation. It can be brought up as a freestanding bill. But to put it on this bill is going to put in jeopardy items our men and women who are in combat and being shot at need. When I go to Iraq, I don’t have a lot of people coming up to me saying we need to pass a hate crimes bill…I think this is a very poor use of the legislative process knowing the end game. The end game is, we are going to hijack the Defense authorization bill [with] legislation not needed in the military, that is contentious, and that has an opportunity to be debated somewhere else. I hope reason prevails eventually.”
The Senate also approved, by unanimous consent, an amendment by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to implement the recommendations of the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health.
