SC House passes hate crime bill with ease. Here’s why it got bipartisan support
The South Carolina House passed a hate crimes bill on Wednesday without any debate, putting the state one step closer to joining 47 other states with similar laws already on the books.
The bill, which passed by a vote of 79-29, could become law by the end of the year if it passes the Senate.
The legislation would specifically allow prosecutors to seek additional penalties for crimes committed on the basis of hate because of a person’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, national origin or physical or mental disability.
Under the bill, for violent crimes such as murder, assault, armed robbery or criminal sexual misconduct, the penalties could be increased by up to five years imprisonment and an additional fine up to $10,000.
Currently, South Carolina does not have its own hate crimes law. If a crime is committed on the basis of hate, state prosecutors can only prosecute the crime itself. However, federal officials could choose to step in and charge the offender under the federal hate crimes law, but that rarely happens except in the case of high-profile cases.
The bill has broad support from the business community, law enforcement and equality advocates. The University of South Carolina recently joined dozens of businesses who signed onto an effort by the S.C. Chamber of Commerce to urge lawmakers to pass hate crimes legislation.
While hate crimes bill in previous sessions haven’t been able to garner support from Republicans, the business community’s open advocacy for the bill turned the tides this year. Pushed to action by the Black Lives Matter protests that exploded across the country last summer, the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and dozens of businesses began advocating for hate crimes bill passage in December 2020.
The Chamber of Commerce celebrated the bill’s passage Wednesday.
“This is a huge step forward for South Carolina and will let the world know that our State is not a place that condones crimes motivated by hate,” SC Chamber President and CEO Bob Morgan said in a statement. “We thank Speaker Lucas for his leadership in moving the bill forward through the process. We also thank House Judiciary Chairman Murphy, House Judiciary Subcommittee Chairman Newton, primary bill sponsor Representative Gilliard, Representative Bernstein, the 40 other bill sponsors, and all of the 79 representatives who voted for the bill today. The SC Chamber looks forward to working with our partners to continue to build momentum and get the bill passed into law this year.”
While the business community wholeheartedly pushed for the measure, religious groups opposed the bill at every step in the legislative process, arguing it could be used to infringe on religious liberty.
On the House floor Wednesday afternoon, S.C. Rep. Weston Newton was the only person to speak on behalf of the bill. Newton applauded his colleagues for their work on the bill and their attempts to quell the concerns of the religious community in order to get the measure passed.
“Protecting against violent criminal acts motivated by hatred is not a liberal or conservative issue,” state Rep. Weston Newton, R-Beaufort, said on Wednesday. “It’s not a Black or a white issue, and it’s not a gay or a straight issue.”
Newton said it was essential for South Carolina to pass the bill so it would no longer be one of three states without a hate crimes bill. He said the business community had advocated hard for the bill to increase South Carolina’s competitiveness on the national and world stage.
“It’s important that we send a signal to those with hate in their hearts that we do not tolerate those actions,” Newton said.
House Speaker Jay Lucas, a powerful Republican who created the committee last summer that crafted the hate crimes bill, celebrated the initiative’s passage Wednesday afternoon.
“The passage of H.3620 marks an historic occasion and comes after months of hard work and bipartisan effort,” Lucas tweeted. “This legislation is a monumental step forward as SC joins 47 other states in ensuring that heinous, violent crimes committed and motivated by hate are justly prosecuted.”
The bill has gone through several revisions since it was first introduced.
In hearings, House members initially voted to strip out protections for the LGBTQ community. House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Chris Murphy, R-Dorchester, argued that protections for the LGBTQ community had to be removed in order to pass the hate crimes bill before the end of May, when lawmakers stop meeting for session in Columbia until the following January.
In committee, lawmakers voted to add protections based on sexual orientation and gender back into the bill after receiving backlash from the LGBTQ community.
Lawmakers, however, voted to remove a section of the bill that would have allowed prosecutors to charge criminals with hate crimes for committing crimes of stalking, harassment and property damage. The original bill said for stalking or imprisonment, the penalties could be increased to up to a $5,000 fine and three years imprisonment and, for malicious injury offenses, a fine up to $1,000 and an additional one year imprisonment.
Republicans pushed to strip out those sections of the bill after the religious community expressed concern with them, stressing again that the bill would likely not pass if those provisions were included.
Members of the religious community worry that the bill could be used to persecute someone trying to proselytize or preach under the harassment section of the bill. Religious leaders voiced that concern in subcommittee, but most of their worries were centered around a portion of the original bill that would have allowed someone to sue in civil court if they were the victim of a hate crime. That section of the bill was later stripped out.
Democrats pushed back in committee, saying that most hate crimes that are committed fall under the category stalking, harassment or property damage. If those were removed from the bill, judges couldn’t add additional penalties to cases, for example, of people spray painting racial or ethnic slurs on an African Methodist Episcopal church or a synagogue.
Despite stripping the harassment sections out of the bill, conservative groups are still expressing concerns about the hate crimes bill.
In an email, the conservative Palmetto Family Alliance said the bill could “could erode our religious liberty,” by forcing the state government to recognize classifications for sexual orientation and gender identity in state law.
This story was originally published April 7, 2021 at 3:22 PM.
