Hate Crimes Bill Passes House

Published Apr 29 2009, 01:58 PM by David S. Bernstein

[Update: OK, I was in error before. The House has NOW passed the bill, 249-175, with 18 Republicans joining the majority.]

The House of Representatives just passed HR 1913 -- The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 -- ~~on a vote of 234-190~~. The bill, which Obama has urged Congress to pass, would extend federal hate crimes laws to cover sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability, as well as race, color, religion, national origin, and sexual orientation.

~~Not a single Republican voted in favor.~~ 15 Democrats voted against.

In the floor debate before the vote, North Carolina Republican Virginia Foxx called it a "hoax" that Matthew Shepard's killing had anything to do with him being gay.

Ted Kennedy and Olympia Snowe will lead the effort for passage in the Senate later in the year.

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8 Comments

joe said:

so who were the Dems who voted against?

April 29, 2009 3:12 PM
Stacie H. said:

The Hate Crimes bill has not yet passed. There was a vote to continue debate on the House floor, which is going on now: cspan.org/.../C-SPAN_wm.aspx

April 29, 2009 3:29 PM
Joe.My.God. said:

This post is incorrect. At 330PM EST, the bill is still being debated.

The vote quoted above was a procedural vote to establish the debate period.

April 29, 2009 3:29 PM
Julien Woolley said:

Well finally equality is starting to win.

Religious bigotry has no place in modern society. Equality is for everyone, not just those who go to the right church!

April 29, 2009 3:33 PM
Kate B. said:

As other posters have said, sorry, but this is untrue. The debate on the bill is still occurring on the House floor as I write this. You can watch it live on C-SPAN.org.

April 29, 2009 4:11 PM
Joe.My.God. said:

NOW. This post is true, at least partially.

At about 5PM EST, the the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HR 1913) passed by a vote of 249-175. Democrats opposing: 17. Republicans in favor: 18.

At noted above, there WERE 18 GOP reps who voted on the side of justice.

April 29, 2009 5:03 PM