Date: 2007-05-03
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. this is a serious issue. and people ought to recognize its a serious issue. .There is something called hate crimes. And in the past. the Supreme Court has looked at issues to try and differentiate between mere speech and speech connected with conduct and how you articulate a law in a proper way that does not offend the first amendment. which allows terrible speech. One of the prices of our democracy and one of the prices of this society is to allow terrible speech. not to say you accept it. but to allow it. And so the Supreme Court has carefully reviewed hate crime legislation. When I was attorney general of California. we issued an amicus brief before the Supreme Court to support one version of the hate crime legislation in one State that was similar to ours in California. We declined to do it in another State. And in that one in which we declined to do it. the Supreme Court found that it was afoul of the law. Thats why I think its very. very important how we carefully construct a hate crimes bill. The underlying premise -of this bill is that we should extend the already existing Federal hate crimes legislation. which has a Federal nexus. based on the individual victim or victims being involved in a protected Federal activity. This bill goes beyond that and suggests that the constitutional nexus with Federal activity is that hate directed against the particular protected classes here somehow restricts interstate commerce. And I would just suggest that the findings in the bill did not have evidence to back it up. And I think there may very well be a constitutional attack that is successful in the Court on that. Thats why we are concerned about the way this is written. Second. there are those who suggest that we will not have the concern become a reality expressed by some on this floor and by some outside this floor that this somehow will chill free speech. The suggestion is weve carefully crafted the legislation so thats not to be the case. I would just direct our attention to another section of the bill which calls for participation by the Federal Government in the investigation and prosecution of crimes at the State level which delineates the definition of hate crimes in the first two paragraphs but. in the third paragraph ays. or any other hate crime established by State law. So what we are doing is extending it beyond the carefully constructed definitions that we have in this bill. considering the constitutional questions and extended it far beyond that. That is another legitimate concern about this bill. And so I would just say that I hope w e dont get totally involved in the argument that there are no hate crimes and they. therefore. never should be involved in our criminal justice system. versus that they are the worst of all crimes. or they are so essentially different from others that those who are subjected to attacks because of.a random attitude by the perpetrator. or for reasons outside the protected class. somehow dont have the sufficiency of interest or the sufficiency of importance to be included. Hate crimes exist in our -society. Hate crimes are to be condemned in our society. As I said before. thats why 45 States have done so. most of them successfully in negotiating the shows of constitutional concern that are created by the first amendment. And thetefore. one might suggest that we need to review this in far greater detail than weve been allowed thus far.