There is still time to contact the conferees working on the Commerce/State/Justice (CJS) Appropriations bill to urge them to restore the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 (HCPA, originally S. 662). We posted this alert Wednesday indicating that the conferees had dropped this important bill from the final version; they have not finished work on the bill as yet. If you haven't had a chance to do so, please call the committee members to strongly urge that put the Kennedy Hate Crimes bill back into the CJS appropriations, making sure to include the provisions against sex-based hate crimes. The names of conferees are listed below; call even if these members are not from your state. We need hundreds of calls going to their offices within a very short period of time. So please act now.
The Senate passed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1991 in late July along with a watered-down hate crimes bill offered by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). The bill would adopt in federal criminal statutes three new categories of bias crimes -- sex-based, sexual orientation-based anddisability-based hate crimes. This was the first time in more than a dozen years that NOW and other advocacy groups have succeeded in getting Congress to act on this important bill. Pressure has been strong from Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Orrin Hatch to delete provisions related to sex-based and disability-based hate crimes. Hatch proposed instead a fairly meaningless bill that would simply study the problem of hate crimes. That bill, also adopted by the Senate, has been dropped from the final CJS appropriations bill as well.
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), HCPA's main sponsor and
a true leader in our cause, attempted to work out an agreement on sex-
and disability-based hate crimes with Sen. Hatch after meeting with NOW
and other advocates. But Hatch and Republicans may believe that they have
the votes to keep the entire bill out of CJS appropriations. We need
to show them otherwise.
For Democratic Members - Thank them for their support and ask them to take leadership to restore the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 to the CJS appropriations bill during the final conference committee meeting
Call at area code (202):
Sens. Robert Byrd (WV) 224-3954, Ernest "Fritz"
Hollings (SC) 224-6121, Daniel K. Inouye (HI) 224-3934, Frank Lautenberg
(NJ) 224-4744, Barbara Mikulski (MD) 224-4654 and Reps. David Obey (WI)
225-3365, Jose Serrano (NY) 225-4361, Julian Dixon (CA)225-7084, Alan Mollohan
(WV) 225-4172 and Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA) 225-1766.
For Republican Members - Urge them not to miss an historic opportunity to help solve our critical national problem of hate crimes. Ask them to restore the Hate Crimes Prevention Act to the CJS spending bill. This bill is a modest improvement in federal statutes that will help state and local law enforcement officials better investigate and prosecute hate crimes.
Republican members, all at area code (202), are:
Sens. Ted Stevens (AK) 224-3004, Judd Gregg (NH) 224-3324, Pete Domenici (NM) 224-6621, Mitch McConnell (KY) 224-2541, Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) 224-5922, Ben Nighthorse Campbell (CO) 224-5852 and Reps. Bill Young (FL) 225-5961, Harold Rogers (KY) 225-4601, Jim Kolbe (AZ) 225-2542, Charles Taylor (NC) 225-6401, Ralph Regula (OH) 225-225-3876, Tom Latham (IA) 225-5476, Dan Miller (FL) 225-5015 and Zach Wamp (TN) 225-3271.
Fax numbers and email addresses for each Member are listed on the website for Congress: thomas.loc.gov
Thank you for your prompt action on this alert!