Nearly All GOP Senators Oppose Defense Bill With Hate-Crimes Amendment

35 GOP Senators Vote Against Defense Bill With Hate-Crimes Amendment

It's not easy to get 35 Republican senators to vote against defense spending -- unless hate crimes legislation is involved.

The Senate narrowly invoked cloture on Thursday, 64 to 35, on the defense authorization package with the bill named for Matthew Shepard attached. The bill, named for a gay Wyoming teenager who was kidnapped and beaten to death in 1998, makes it a federal crime to assault someone on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Senate Republicans conceded that the Shepard bill swung their votes against the defense package. "The bill includes hate crimes legislation, which I firmly believe is unnecessary, irresponsible, and certainly not germane to this bill," Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said. "There is little evidence that indicates that violent crimes motivated by hate go unpunished in the United States. Every single state has criminal laws that prohibit the antisocial behavior addressed by hate crimes legislation, including laws against rape, assault and battery."

Those are states' rights issues, said Chambliss. "I do not believe the federal government should interfere with the criminal laws already on the books in our states," he said. LinkHere