Pressure mounting for hate crimes laws in holdout states

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Long before a mass shooting killed 22 people at a Walmart in Texas, the threat of white supremacy was well known in neighboring Arkansas, where extremist groups over the decades have made their home in the mountains and dense woods of the state’s remote areas.

In the 1980s, a group known as the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord grew to more than 100 members before federal authorities raided its compound in the Ozarks.

The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and a “Christian identity” group that promotes racism have made their headquarters in the state. Just last February, prosecutors in Little Rock unsealed indictments against 54 members of the New Aryan Empire, a white supremacist group that began as a prison gang.

Nonetheless, Arkansas is one of only four states without a specific hate crimes law, declining over the years to follow the national legal trend for combating ethnic violence as it dealt with other priorities it considered more pressing.

Now that reticence is giving way, in one of the political tremors being felt across the nation after recent attacks. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who as a federal prosecutor wore a bulletproof vest to negotiate the end of the siege with the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord, has called on lawmakers to approve harsher penalties for crimes targeting people because of their race, ethnicity or religion.

“We have seen a resurgence of white supremacy dialogue, of conversation, and I know enough from the ’80s that when you have that conversation and increased dialogue some people are going to take it to the extreme and act on it,” Hutchinson recently told reporters.

Pressure for new legislation is also mounting in Georgia and

South Carolina, two other states without hate crimes laws. Wyoming is the other holdout.

A measure enacted in Indiana in April falls short of the standard recognized by the Anti-defamation League.

A hate crimes measure passed the Arkansas Senate in 2001 but failed before a House panel. A similar bill failed two years ago.