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Hate Crime Worries Dog Defense Bill

By Colin Clark Thursday, October 15th, 2009 4:21 pm
Posted in Air, Intelligence, International, Land, Naval, Policy, Space

With the Senate likely to vote next week on the defense authorization bill, concern is growing that one or more senators may filibuster the bill to make clear their displeasure or unease with hate crimes legislation that was attached to the bill.

“The big issue is, are we going to get cloture. If we don’t they could just tie it up for, well, a long time,” said one congressional aide.

Cloture, of course, is not closure, although the two can go hand in hand depending on which side you’re on.

Cloture requires the votes of 60 senators to stop debate on a bill pending before the Senate. Sen. John McCain, top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has made very clear his unease with the hate crimes language having been bundled into the defense bill.

In a Tweet McCain sent out on Oct. 7 he said it plain: “…strongly oppose the hate crime legislation that was added, but we must support our troops!”

In the end, that may be the path that Republicans take. Swallow hard and support the troops by voting for the bill. That may come after some substantial speechifying, but it is hard to imagine a Republican senator holding up the defense bill for a great length of time to make a point that would be probably be lost on most decent people. After all, the House has passed the bill and the hate crimes language cannot be stripped from it.

As the congressional aide noted, all anyone can do is delay the bill. They can’t change it.

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	Daniel Russ October 16th, 2009 at 12:35 am I hate the way bills are amended until they are no longer germane to the reason for passing the bill. Congress is somewhat screwed up with this, but then this is pretty much how every bill is passed. Respectfully, Daniel Russ Civilianmilitaryintelligencegroup.com
	Colonial-Marine October 16th, 2009 at 3:48 am Why is there a damn Hate Crime bill attached to this? And what is this Hate Crime bill supposed to do. Smells like typical liberal opportunist BS.
	soonergrunt October 16th, 2009 at 10:20 am Ahh, so now we see. This tactic is time-honored tradition in both parties for decades now, so it’s not like this is something new. I guess the conservatives hate teh ghey more than they love the troops. Of course, with as many closet-cases in their caucus as veterans, this doesn’t make any sense for them to be whining about it.
	Colonial-Marine October 17th, 2009 at 1:50 am How is that liberal cool-aid soonergrunt? Only a drone like yourself could support the Democrats shoving some idiotic hate crime amendment apparently drafted to please the gay lobby into this bill. A bill that is supposed to be providing funding for the troops on the ground, not an opprotunity to gather votes. If our country was managed this way in WWII we would all be speaking either German or Russian by now.
	dis-grunt-led October 18th, 2009 at 2:24 am I agree with you: But that would be either German or Japanese.….…
	jarhead October 18th, 2009 at 4:34 pm Read the hate crime part of the bill. It is way more than that. It strips the first ammendment away from pastors and anyone that doesn’t support their liberal agenda. Wake up people. Just because “it always happens” doesn’t make it right. This has nothing to do with defense and should not be in the bill. It should be criminal to put it in there.
	Jeff October 19th, 2009 at 11:14 am What are you talking about? This is talking about how Republican will ultimately support troops rather than try to oppose it due to the hate crime component of the bill. Anytime something has to be thrown into a bill, lumped in as an unrelated amendmant it should be scrutinized more than it otherwise would. When something like this happens it means a congressman doesn’t believe it could be passed on its own merrits. If it can’t be passed on its own merrits should it become a law? No, not at all. While this may have moral merrits those are not the same as the merrits by which laws are passed.
	R. Brown December 1st, 2009 at 5:54 am Sadly our country was managed this way during World War II. On the upside we somehow keep on muddling through.