This bill highlights a couple things. It highlights how bad Asian American discrimination has been during the pandemic and that it’s possible for Congress to work together when they choose. Also, Josh Hawley has to go.
The bill provides more funding and resources for hate crimes.
I’ve read a couple of articles, but none addressed why Hawley voted against the bill. Anyone know?
He’s a racist asshole.
Hawley, the senator who was seen raising a fist to pro-Trump insurrectionists just before the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, said he was against the bill because “it’s too broad.”
“As a former prosecutor, my view is it’s dangerous to simply give the federal government open-ended authority to define a whole new class of federal hate crime incidents,” he said in a statement.
His opposition to stopping hate crimes irked but apparently did not surprise critics, including his home state newspaper the Kansas City Star, which published an editorial titled “Of Course Josh Hawley Was the Only No on Anti-Asian Hate Crime Bill. That’s His Brand.”
He’s just showing how Trumpian he is. The little traitorous turd hopes he can be the next president by sucking off the same basket of dicks that the former guy did.
Go, Josh!! Someone has to stand up for hate crimes. /s
Because he thinks there are very fine people on both sides.
My guess is he’s nodding to his base in his home state. I hate to say it but the state where I was born is pretty goddamn racist at times - not uniquely so, but definitely so.
I reviewed the law and it did not define “a whole new class of federal hate crime incidents”, it uses an already existing class. Quote, S.937 Sec. 3,
“[…] hate crimes (as described in section 249 of title 18, United States Code) […]”
And Sec. 5(c)(1),
“[…] The term “hate crime” means an act described in section 245, 247, or 249 of title 18, United States Code, or in section 901 of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3631) […]”
~Max
He’s wrong about that too. How surprising. /s
It’s possible (but unlikely) that he didn’t bother to read the act. It does actually amend 18 U.S.C. 249, but only to add community service and education courses as an alternative sentencing scheme.
~Max
Someone had to stand up for the racists who don’t like education or community service.
This was likely a very carefully considered political move on Hawley’s part. His overriding goal is to be the Republican candidate for President in 2024. He needs a constituency, and it’s not enough for him to simply run as the heir to Trump – every Republican candidate is going to be running as a hard-core Trumpists, including several of his colleagues in the Senate. So he needs to find ways to draw contrasts between himself and the rest of the pack.
This vote certainly does that. A year from now when he’s gearing up his campaign and the shock of the Atlanta shootings has died down, he can frame this as how he was the one Senator who refused to give into political correctness and virtue signaling by opposing this do-nothing Democratic bill. In a 20 candidate field, it could get help get him enough of a following to get some plurality wins in early primaries and put him on the path to the nomination.
I think the bill is a very poor idea: hate crimes should be a crime no matter what the ethnic identity of the victim is.
I agree, I think he was pulling a page out of the Jeannette Rankin and Marjorie Taylor Green playbook. There’s no better way to make a famous name for yourself than to be the lone vote against something, especially if it’s a vote against something good.
The bill provides funding and direction for tracking of anti-AAPI hate crimes (and hate crimes generally in many cases) at a few different levels of government. The only change to crime and punishment is a provision allowing for alternative sentencing for all federal hate crimes, as noted here:
It is not creating a favored class.
“In a rare moment of bipartisan unity, Senators call on colleges and universities to end discrimination against Asian-American applicants.”
Well, not yet.
But it’d be nice to see.
It seems like this bill really does nothing. Reporting requirements, a hotline, a new bureaucrat to keep records. It is still just as illegal to commit violence against someone as it was last year and still a federal hate crime to target someone based on race, just as last year. “Efforts to expand public awareness”? Of what? That you shouldn’t commit violence against anyone? Because of race? Only against Asians?
Does anyone think that a single hate crime will be prevented because of this public awareness campaign? Some guy was going to go beat up an Asian guy with a baseball bat, but he sees a commercial on TV saying…something…and decides not to do it???
It was an easy vote for 94 senators to get some good PR.
These two sentences contradict each other, counselor.
~Max