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365Gay.com
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Federal
Gay Hate Crime Bill Dies
From the
Web, December 6, 2007
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Washington -- The Matthew
Shepard Hate Crime bill was removed Thursday from defense authorization
legislation.
The Shepard Act would have added sexuality to the list of categories covered
under federal hate crime law.
It passed the House in May and the White House threatened to veto it.
In an effort to get around a veto the Senate version tied the measure to the
2008 defense authorization bill. It passed in September and then went to
conference where the two versions of the bill needed to be harmonized for a
final vote.
Since then the bill has been tied up.
Thursday Senate conferees reluctantly agreed to strip the Shepard Act from the
defense bill, realizing that they lack the votes to pass the measure.
In a private meeting Wednesday night, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)
and House Democratic Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.,
that if the Senate continued to insist on the hate crimes provision the defense
legislation would fail.
Levin, as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, oversees the defense
authorization bill, which covers the 2008 budget year.
The defense bill authorizes the military to spend some $150 billion in money for
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and provides detailed policy guidance on the
Pentagon's multibillion weapons programs.
Speculation had been mounting in recent days that the Shepard Act was in trouble
in conference -- the committee of the House and Senate where differing pieces of
legislation are harmonized for a final vote.
In addition to fears that the defense bill would not pass a final round with the
Shepard Act in it there was the certainty of a veto and the impossibility it
could be overridden.
The Shepard Act was one of three LGBT measures in Congress. The Employment
Non-Discrimination Act and Don't Ask, Don't Tell are likely to be put over to
the next session which begins in mid January.
On Monday 365Gay.com reported that ENDA and DADT could be pushed aside in 2008
in the midst of an election year.
If that becomes the case they would die on the order paper when the Congress
ends next fall and would have to be reintroduced in the next Congress.
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