Dallas County Democrats
Hate Crimes Bill

News May 11, 2001:

Governor signs Hate Crimes bill!!

If you want to thank him or the Democratic Senators who voted for it, see the information below. THANKS to all of you who contacted him and urged him to do the right thing.

News May 10, 2001:

Hate Crimes Bill passes House!!

The House today voted to accept the Senate changes to the Hate Crimes bill, so it now goes to the Governor to sign or veto. Contact him and urge him to sign this bill!! See more details below:

News May 7, 2001:

Hate Crimes Bill passes Senate!!
Urge Governor Perry to sign it!!

(Please forward to Democratic friends around the state...)

The Texas State Senate finally passed the James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes bill by a vote of 20 to 10. All 15 Democrats voted for it. Five Republicans also voted for it. Of course that means that two-thirds of the Republicans voted against it. (One Republican, who I believe represents the place where Byrd was dragged to his death by racists, did not vote.)

The only Republican from this area who voted for it was Chris Harris of Arlington. That means that our other Republican Senators - Carona, Shapiro, and Nelson - all voted against it. We need to run Democrats against them next year and remind the voters of this. They may draw districts too gerrymandered to defeat them in, but the people need to have a way to tell them that what they did was morally wrong.

The bill as passed kept the specific listing of groups targeted by hate crimes. Prosecutors had said that current law was too vague to be used and might even be unconstitutional. This bill was much more carefully drafted to increase penalties for specific criminal acts already prohibited. Earlier concerns of civil libertarians that legislation should not establish "thought-crimes", as in the novel "1984", seem to have been covered by this.

It was the specific listing of victim groups, especially those targeted on grounds of sexual orientation, that right-wing hate groups had used as grounds for opposing the bill. The effect of efforts by people like Shapiro to drop this listing not only sanctioned these hate-mongers, but would have gutted the power and point of the law. George Bush's claim that "all crimes are hate crimes" tried to pretend there was no difference between a Klan lynching and a bar fight - or a burglary, and that spray-painting a swastika on a church or synagogue is just the same as writing the name of a high school on a bridge.

Because of some changes from the version passed by the State House, the bill will now go back there. House sponsors said they would ask the House to pass the Senate version and send it on to the Governor. That will leave it up to Rick Perry to decide whether he wants to stand up for justice and common sense, or to pander to the reactionaries. That was what George Bush did as Governor two years ago, making sure the bill was buried in the Senate so he wouldn't upset the far-right wing in the Republican primaries when he ran for President.

According to the Dallas News: " Gov. Rick Perry, who helped foil an earlier attempt to bring the bill to the Senate floor, was cautious but indicated that he now favors such a law. "I think it's time for Texas to come together and pass a piece of legislation that clearly sends the message that we're not going to allow for hateful acts against Texas citizens," Mr. Perry said. "I don't know if there's anything in that bill as written that would be totally and absolutely unacceptable. We'll just have to wait and see it in its final version," he said. "

Maybe Perry has finally read the polls showing overwhelming public support in Texas for this law, even including crimes against gays, lesbians, etc. Contact his office and urge him to do the right thing and sign this bill. You can reach his office as follows:

Phone: Citizen's Opinion Hotline: 800-252-9600
Main switchboard: 512-463-2000
Fax: 512-463-1849
Email (up to 200 words):
http://www.governor.state.tx.us/acgPERRY2001/e-mail.html
Mail: Office of the Governor, P.O.Box 12428, Austin TX 787811-2428

The phone numbers for the Senators are included below. To find out who your own senator is, visit www.capitol.state.tx.us/fyi/fyi.htm.

Note: The Senators marked below with RY after their name are the five Republicans who voted for the bill. The others are all Democrats who voted for the bill.

Republicans voting no were: Teel Bivins, Amarillo; J.E. "Buster" Brown, Lake Jackson; John Carona, Dallas; Troy Fraser, Horseshoe Bay; Tom Haywood, Wichita Falls; Mike Jackson, LaPorte; John Lindsay, Houston; Jane Nelson, Flower Mound; Florence Shapiro, Plano; and Jeff Wentworth, San Antonio.

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