May 29, 2009  |   By: Chris Johnson  |  COMMENTS   |     |   

U.S. House and Senate lawmakers apparently hold conflicting views on the best way to pass hate crimes legislation.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the longest-serving openly gay member of Congress, said in an interview May 22 with the Blade that supporters of hate crimes legislation in the Senate are considering attaching the measure as an amendment to the 2010 defense authorization bill, but House lawmakers are trying to convince the Senate to pass the legislation as a standalone measure.

The bill passed the House on April 29, 249-175, as a standalone measure. The legislation would allow the U.S. Justice Department to assist in the prosecution of hate crimes committed against LGBT people that result in death or serious injury.

Attaching the measure to the defense bill would echo what happened in 2007, when the Senate amended the defense authorization bill to include a hate crimes provision. Anti-war lawmakers and conservatives banded together to convince congressional leadership to remove the provision from the defense bill.

Frank said the Senate is considering passing hate crimes legislation in the same way this year because “they think they’ll have a hard time passing it because of Senate rules.” While it takes 60 votes in the Senate to end debate on legislation, amending a bill sometimes takes only a majority vote.

But while Frank said “there’s been some talk” about putting a hate crimes provision in the defense bill, House lawmakers are “trying to talk them out of it.”

“It becomes harder to get it passed here because then you got a defense bill that a lot of liberals want to vote against,” he said. “They may have the spine, but conservatives want to vote against the bill because it has hate crimes and liberals want to vote against it because it’s got defense. Sometimes people are more likely to vote ‘no’ than ‘yes’ when they find something they don’t like.”

Anthony Coley, spokesperson for Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), the lead sponsor of the hate crimes bill in the Senate, deferred comment on the matter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Coley earlier told the Blade that Kennedy hopes the legislation “will be considered sooner rather than later” in the Senate and “hopefully before the July 4 recess.”

Becky Dansky, federal legislative director for the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, confirmed that she’d heard the Senate is considering the passage of hate crimes legislation as an amendment.

“However, there’s no indication that that’s more likely to be a vehicle than something else,” she said. “It’s my understanding that they’re looking at multiple options at this time.”

Dansky said senators are looking at amending other bills — not just the defense authorization legislation — that could be used as vehicles for a hate crimes provision.

The defense bill “is not necessarily the best vehicle” for hate crimes, Dansky said. Some lawmakers wouldn’t want to vote for it because of items related to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, while other lawmakers wouldn’t want to vote for it because they feel a hate crimes provision doesn’t belong in defense legislation.

Dansky said there are both pros and cons with passing the hate crimes measure as a standalone bill or as an amendment.

“It would be nice to have a freestanding bill, because that’s what we were able to do in the House, and then you can avoid the controversy I mentioned when you attach it to something like DOD,” she said. “At the same, you run the risk of weakening amendments when you run it as a standalone bill.”

‘Don’t Ask’ repeal slated for next year

In discussing other LGBT-related bills in Congress, Frank said lawmakers are holding to previously reported timelines.

Despite increased public attention to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a law that prevents openly gay people from serving in the U.S. military, Frank said lawmakers still plan to address the issue next year.

Dansky said Congress “continues to plan to move on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ as soon they can,” but not until other LGBT-related bills pass. She said she expects Congress to enact a repeal “probably next year.”

“It’s not a lack of interest or a lack of support on this issue, it’s a lack of time,” she said. “Until some other things are kind of cleared off the table, there just isn’t room in the legislative calendar for it.”

Frank said the key to passing a repeal through Congress is locking down 60 Senate votes to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“But at this point, people have got to start lobbying,” he said. “They should have been ...