WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Wednesday acted to defuse what could be a politically damaging issue, instructing House negotiators to extend new protections to homosexuals and the disabled in the punishment of hate crimes.
The move came just hours after a somber President Clinton, flanked by a hate crime investigator and the widow of a victim of racial hatred, appealed to GOP House members to set aside qualms about the measure, passed in July by the Senate.
In pointed language, Clinton challenged the arguments made by many House Republicans and by presidential nominee George W. Bush, who have suggested that such new protections are unnecessary, as states should prosecute all violent crimes with equal vigor.
"It is not true that hate crimes are like other crimes," Clinton said. "And it is not true that every crime is a hate crime." Calling crimes motivated by hatred "an even more dangerous kind of infection" than other acts of violence, Clinton said that only Congress can provide the tools to stop its spread.
Voting 232 to 192, the House urged its negotiators to adopt the Senate's version of the hate crime measure when members of the two chambers meet to draft a compromise bill authorizing Defense Department spending for next year. The House motion passed with the support of 41 Republicans, including Brian P. Bilbray of San Diego, Mary Bono of Palm Springs, Elton Gallegly of Simi Valley, Stephen Horn of Long Beach and Steven T. Kuykendall of Rancho Palos Verdes.
Because Wednesday's vote is nonbinding, House negotiators still could buck the vote and send a bill to the House floor without the new protections sought by Clinton.
The president told an audience Wednesday in the East Room that "this is not a partisan issue" and challenged lawmakers to "send . . . me final hate-crimes legislation before they adjourn for the year."
But several Republicans, in the House and the Senate, clearly have calculated that there could be a high political price to pay for blocking the Senate hate crime language, which has become a priority for gay and lesbian activists. Before the vote, Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), long associated with conservative causes but now locked in a tight race for an open Senate seat, expressed his support for the legislation.
