In a surprisingly bipartisan vote, lawmakers passed legislation to improve hate crime tracking.
The Senate — in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote on Thursday — sent Congress’s strongest message yet condemning anti-Asian hate crimes by passing a bill aimed at improving data collection. The legislation, while somewhat narrow, intends to bolster hate crime tracking by designating a Justice Department official to specifically review potential hate crime incidents, providing grants for regional law enforcement agencies to set up reporting hotlines, and offering training to police on how to handle hate crime response. It ultimately passed 94-1 with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) as the lone vote against it. Hawley has previously said he opposed the measure because it was too “broad” even though the changes it proposed were relatively modest. Despite its limited scope, the bill is significant in that it marks a notable denouncement of anti-Asian racism, which has surged in the last year as Asian Americans have been scapegoated for the spread of coronavirus and as public officials including former President Donald Trump have used racist terms. According to a tracker from Stop AAPI Hate, nearly 3,800 incidents involving everything from verbal abuse and shunning to physical assault have been reported. Shootings in Georgia, which killed six women of Asian descent in March, as well as violent attacks on Asian American elders, have also renewed focus on the issue. The passage of this bill acknowledges this reality and makes some inroads to gathering better information about hate crimes in general: Currently, thousands of hate crimes go unreported each year, and federal data is also lacking since local law enforcement agencies don’t always keep tabs on or communicate their numbers.
