Hate-crimes bill debated in Georgia Senate
Hate-crimes legislation got its first hearing in the General Assembly in more than a year Thursday amid growing tension over how strongly to punish bias-motivated offenses and whether to include “gender” as a protected classification.
House Bill 426, sponsored by Georgia Rep. Chuck Efstration, R-Dacula, has been the source of contentious debate in recent days as lawmakers hurtle toward the end of the 2020 legislative session, with little time left to haggle over details.
Questions over the bill have centered on whether to designate hatecrimes offenses as standalone charges or as enhancements to separate crimes like assault or property destruction, which could affect the level of punishment for those convicted.
It also remains to be seen whether Senate lawmakers will keep language in the House bill that specifies the term “gender” as a category protected from hate-influenced acts.
The bill has languished in the Georgia Senate after passing out of the state House of Representatives on March 7, 2019. Its first airing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Jesse Stone, R-Waynesboro, was held Thursday night. Another hearing is set for Friday afternoon.
Lawmakers want to avoid passing a hate-crimes bill this session only to have it tossed out in court for being too broad, as happened in 2004.
That year, the Georgia Supreme Court struck down a law enacted in 2000 after ruling it did not clearly specify what a hate crime is, such as whether it depended on a person’s race, gender or other identifiers.
Efstration’s bill would designate a hate crime as an addition to a separate charge that prosecutors would have the discretion to bring. It specifies hate crimes as those targeting a victim based on “race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, mental disability or physical disability.”
Asked Thursday if his bill is too broad, Efstration said it would only apply to offenses that have a clear message of hate – not for more minor actions like generic graffiti.
“It applies to all Georgians if the elements fit,” Efstration said. “If the nature of the crime is the bias against the class of the victim.”
Efstration and supporters from both sides of the aisle – including Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, the General Assembly’s longest serving member – have urged swift passage of the bill after such a long delay in the Senate and with the clock ticking on the current session.
But the bill could see several changes as it winds through Stone’s committee in the Senate. Portions of a separate hate-crimes bill that was drawn up just last week by Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan could find their way into the House bill.
Duncan, who presides over the Senate, has pressed for a “comprehensive approach” to the legislation that would make hate crimes standalone offenses and increase potential prison time from two years to five.
He frames his version as tougher on hate-crime offenders and capable of putting teeth into state law, rather than just sending a message.
“There is a no way to ignore the sense of urgency, the desire and the immediate need for the strongest hate crimes law in the country to show up on our books here in Georgia,” Duncan said earlier this week.
But Duncan’s bill has drawn the ire of many lawmakers, particularly Democratic leaders, who worry the bill could gum up the legislative works so late in the session – and risk sinking Efstration’s bill.
Critics have also lambasted Duncan’s bill since it does not include the term “gender” in a list of 18 different personal, social and physical attributes that would be protected from hate or bias-motivated crimes.
Leaving the term “gender” out of Duncan’s bill could leave Georgians exposed to hate crimes motivated by a person’s gender identity, said Rep. Matthew Wilson, one of five openly gay members of the General Assembly.
“As we know, transgender men and women are one of the largest groups of victims of hate crimes and bias-motivated crimes every year,” said Wilson, D-Brookhaven. “So to say that that is a serious bill is incredibly offensive because the group that needs this law the most is not even included in this bill.”
Duncan’s office did not respond Thursday to a request for comment on why the term “gender” was not included in his bill.
Critics also highlighted other categories that were specified in Duncan’s
bill including people who are exercising their free-speech rights, which they argue waters down the protections by making them too broad.
Representatives from several nonprofit and advocacy groups urged lawmakers to keep “gender” in the bill during Thursday’s hearing. Sam Olens, a former state attorney general, said excluding the term could put transgender persons in danger.
“If you don’t put gender in this bill, folks that are transgender will have no protection,” said Olens, who served as Georgia’s attorney general from 2011 to 2016. “It is essential that sexual orientation remain in the bill, that gender be added to the bill.”
Opposition came from Cole Muzio, president of the Family Policy Alliance of Georgia, who wondered if Efstration’s bill would be too broad on the one hand and would not deter hate crimes on the other.
“What it does do is it does create thought crimes,” Muzio said. “And it does encourage us not to look at how we’re the same, not to look at how we’re all made in the image of God, but to look at how we’re the ‘other’.”