Attorney General Eric Holder will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next Thursday on the Senate’s hate crimes bill, Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said this afternoon.
Holder made repeated calls this week for Congress to pass hate crimes legislation following the recent murders of a U.S. Holocaust Museum guard, Kansas abortion doctor and an Arkansas soldier. The bill would streamline the prosecution of people who attack others because of their sexual orientation, gender or disabilities.
“I think the time is right, the time is now, for the passage of this legislation,” he said at a Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday.
We previously reported that the House has already passed legislation strengthening hate crimes laws, and Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said earlier this week at a press conference that he was “committed” to passing the Senate’s version of the bill by the August recess.
A hate crimes bill was first introduced almost 10 years ago after the murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard, according to Congressional Quarterly. The bill’s supporters have tried to attach it to the annual defense authorization bill since 2000, but it was always taken out before a final vote on the defense legislation, CQ said.
“This legislation has been pending for more than a decade, and we have fine tuned it after long and thoughtful discussions with leaders in the civil rights and human rights communities, law enforcement, religious organizations, and the Department of Justice,” said Leahy in a statement. “We cannot let more time pass before moving this bill toward final passage.”
