Hate Crimes: Sketch of Selected Proposals and Congressional Authority

Publication Date: May 2002

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Justice

Type:

Abstract:

Hate crime legislation (S. 625/H.R. 1343), comparable to a measure which passed the Senate as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (but which was dropped prior to passage), has been introduced with a substantial number of cosponsors in both the House and Senate. It outlaws hate crimes, establishes a system of Justice Department and grant program assistance, and instructs the Sentencing Commission to examine adult recruitment of juveniles to commit hate crimes. It has been reported out of committee unchanged in the Senate, S.Rept. 107-147 (2002). An alternative (H.R. 74), more sweeping in its criminal provisions and more modest in its grant provisions, has also been proposed.

In both alternatives, the newly established federal offenses take two forms and are based on Congress' legislative authority under the commerce clause, the legislative sections of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendment. One species outlaws hate crimes committed on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or disability under various commerce clause circumstances and appears consistent with the Supreme Court's pronouncements in Lopez and Morrison. The other forbids hate crimes committed on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin. Although its claim to Congressional authority seems strongest when based on the Thirteenth Amendment and proscribing violence committed on the basis of race, its hold appears otherwise more tenuous.

This report is an abridged version of CRS Report RL30681, Hate Crimes: Summary of Selected Proposals and Congressional Authority, stripped of the footnotes, authorities, and appendices of that report; for additional related information, see also CRS Report 98-300, Hate Crime Legislation: An Update.