House passes domestic terrorism bill
WASHINGTON – The House passed legislation late Wednesday that would bolster federal resources to prevent domestic terrorism in response to the racist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York.
The 222-203, nearly party-line vote was an answer to the growing pressure Congress faces to address gun violence and white supremacist attacks – a crisis that escalated following two mass shootings over the weekend. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-ill., a member of the congressional committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol, was the lone Republican to vote in favor.
The House passed a similar measure in 2020 only to have it languish in the Senate. And since lawmakers lack the support in the Senate to move forward with any sort of gun-control legislation they see as necessary to stop mass shootings, Democrats are instead putting their efforts into a broader federal focus on domestic terrorism.
“We in Congress can’t stop the likes of (Fox News host) Tucker Carlson from spewing hateful, dangerous replacement theory ideology across the airwaves. Congress hasn’t been able to ban the sale of assault weapons. The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act is what Congress can do this week to try to prevent future Buffalo shootings,” Rep.
Brad Schneider, D-ill., who first introduced the measure in 2017, said on the House floor.
Replacement theory is a racist ideology that alleges white people and their influence are being intentionally “replaced” by people of color through immigration and higher birth rates. It’s being investigated as a motivating factor in Saturday’s supermarket shooting that killed 10 people in Buffalo, all of them Black. A grand jury has indicted an 18-year-old white man, Payton Gendron, on a first-degree murder charge.
Supporters of the bill say it will fill gaps in intelligence-sharing among the
Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and FBI to better track and respond to the growing threat of white extremist terrorism.
“As we took 9/11 seriously, we need to take this seriously. This is a domestic form of the same terrorism that killed the innocent people of New York City and now this assault in Buffalo and many other places,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-ill., who is sponsoring an identical bill in the Senate.
Senate Democrats are pledging to bring up the bill for a vote next week. But its prospects are uncertain, with Republicans opposed to bolstering the power of the Justice Department in domestic surveillance.
GOP lawmakers assert that the department abused its power to conduct more domestic surveillance when Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo in October aimed at combating threats against school officials nationwide. They labeled the memo as targeting concerned parents.
GOP lawmakers also say the bill doesn’t place enough emphasis on combating domestic terrorism committed by groups on the far left.
“This bill glaringly ignores the persistent domestic terrorism threat from the radical left in this country and instead makes the assumption that it is all on the white and the right,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-calif.