[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 139 (Thursday, October 14, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H10116]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HATE CRIMES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Hate 
Crime Prevention Act, and I strongly urge the Commerce-State-Justice 
conferees to include this important legislation in their conference 
report.
  Since I was first elected to Congress, I have been focusing on the 
issues of livable communities, how we can create better partnerships 
between the Federal Government, State and local governments, private 
business and individual citizens to make our communities more livable. 
This means, in sum, communities that are safe, healthy and economically 
secure. If people are not safe from discrimination, the community is 
definitely not livable.
  I have been a strong supporter of anti-discrimination efforts 
throughout my public service career. As a member of the Oregon State 
House of Representatives way back in 1973 I had an eye opening 
experience when I had the opportunity to chair the legislature's first 
hearing on the issue of gay rights. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act is 
an excellent opportunity for the Federal Government to continue a trend 
over the last 50 years of moving aggressively to deal with issues of 
antidiscrimination.
  Since 1969, the Federal Government has had the ability to prosecute 
hate crimes if that crime was motivated by bias based on race, 
religion, national origin or color and if that victim was attempting to 
exercise a federally protected right. The law has, in fact, proven to 
be a valuable tool in the fight against hate crimes, but unfortunately 
these hate crimes are still a part of the American landscape, and 
sometimes the language of the current federal statute is simply too 
narrowly drawn. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act would make a critical 
amendment to the law, removing the requirement that the activity be, 
quote, federally protected and adds sexual orientation, gender and 
disability as covered categories.
  As I said, there are still hate crimes among us. In 1997 there were 
over 8,000 that were reported.
  I have had the opportunity to witness firsthand that there are real 
faces attached to those statistics. One of the most searing experiences 
in our community occurred about 10 years ago when three Ethiopian 
immigrants were attacked in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, one beaten 
to death solely because of the color of their skin. I think our hearts 
all went out to the families of the victims, but there were more 
victims than the immediate family.
  Sadly I was acquainted with a family of one of the people, the skin 
heads, who were convicted of that murder, a young man who will spend 
the rest of his life behind bars, tearing up his family, and indeed the 
whole community was touched with the awful knowledge that something of 
that nature could occur in our midst.
  If we can send clear signals that hate crimes are not acceptable, we 
can do more than just convict those who are guilty. If with these 
strong signals we can prevent these horrible crimes from happening in 
the first place, we will be making our communities more livable.
  I hope that my colleagues will join in the cosponsorship of the Hate 
Crime Prevention Act and that they will all prevail upon the conferees 
of Commerce-State-Justice to move this important process forward by 
including the legislation in the conference report.

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