Apr 25, 2008  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chair of the influential Senate Armed Services Committee, said he plans to introduce the hate crimes bill as an amendment to the fiscal year 2009 Defense Authorization Act, either in committee next week or on the Senate floor in late May.

Levin’s proposal is likely to trigger opposition in the House of Representatives from the same odd coalition of lawmakers — liberal, anti-war Democrats and anti-gay Republicans — that killed the hate crimes bill last year by refusing to agree to attach it to the 2008 defense authorization measure.

The hate crimes bill, known officially as the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, calls for authorizing the federal government to prosecute hate crimes targeting gays and transgender persons.

Levin and other Senate supporters of the bill said attaching it to the defense measure would be the best way of discouraging President Bush from vetoing the bill. The White House announced last year that the president would likely veto the hate crimes measure on grounds that enforcement against such crimes should be left to local authorities rather than the federal government.

Levin said on Tuesday that adding language protecting against hate crimes to the annual defense bill is “very appropriate” because it represents “one of the values of this country” that the military is charged with protecting, according to Congress Daily, which broke the story about Levin’s plans for the bill.

Dave Pollock, a spokesperson for Levin, said Levin disclosed his plans for the hate crimes bill in an interview with Congress Daily at the Capitol on Tuesday. Pollock said Levin has not released an official statement on his plans.

Pollock said Levin indicated he would either introduce the hate crimes language to the fiscal 2009 defense authorization measure during a committee mark-up hearing next week, which is closed to the press and public due to security issues, or on the Senate floor. The defense measure is expected to reach the Senate floor in late May.

The House and Senate last year passed separate versions of the hate crimes bill, with the House approving it as a stand-alone bill while the Senate passed it in the form of an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act of 2008. Senate supporters, led by Levin and Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), lined up 60 votes to break a Republican-led filibuster aimed at killing the hate crimes measure.

Gay activists expressed dismay last December when a group of about 25 or 30 gay-supportive House Democrats made it known they would vote against the Defense Authorization Act, even though it included the hate crimes bill, because it continued President Bush’s policies on the Iraq war. A similar number of conservative Republican House members who oppose gay rights threatened to vote
against the defense measure if the hate crimes language remained a part of the legislation.

House Democratic leaders, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), told Senate Democratic leaders during negotiations over the defense bill that the bill could not pass with the hate crimes language intact. Levin, Kennedy and Smith said they reluctantly acquiesced to the House opposition and agreed to drop the hate crimes language.

Pelosi said she supported keeping the hate crimes bill a part of the defense act but was certain the combined legislation would be defeated in a House vote.

“The Senate strategy is flawed, and the same thing could happen again this year,” said a House Democratic staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The Senate should pass hate crimes as a free-standing bill,” the staffer said.

“As we have stated previously, we are always interested in exploring every option available to move our legislative agenda forward,” said Brad Luna, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign.
 “And we continue to work with our allies on the Hill to advance pro-equality pieces of legislation, including the Matthew Shepard Act,” Luna said.