Supposedly Bush Is Going to Veto This Bill...

The bill is HR 1592, and while the White House is indicating that there are serious constitutionality problems with a federal bill that seeks to punish purely intrastate crimes, but Bush has turned out to be such a liberal, and the pressure from within the Republican Party "to not appear homophobic" will be so strong, that I think contacting the White House to demand a veto would be a good idea.

There are so many reasons to veto this bill:

1. The constitutional problem. As even Dale Carpenter over at Volokh Conspiracy points out, the attempt to justify federal authority over hate crimes that do not involve any interstate commerce has already been found unconstitutional in U.S. v. Morrison (which struck down the Violence Against Women Act for not actually involving interstate activity).

2. The utter dishonesty of the law, which tries to use this absurd basis for claiming federal jurisdiction:

(6) Such violence substantially affects interstate commerce in many ways, including the following:

(A) The movement of members of targeted groups is impeded, and members of such groups are forced to move across State lines to escape the incidence or risk of such violence.

(B) Members of targeted groups are prevented from purchasing goods and services, obtaining or sustaining employment, or participating in other commercial activity.

(C) Perpetrators cross State lines to commit such violence.

(D) Channels, facilities, and instrumentalities of interstate commerce are used to facilitate the commission of such violence.

(E) Such violence is committed using articles that have traveled in interstate commerce.

I guess by the reasoning of (E):

Yup. Rapists often use knives, condoms, or rope that has traveled in interstate commerce. I guess we can make rape a federal crime.

Forgers use pens that have traveled in interstate commerce. I guess we can make forgery a federal crime.

People who get parking tickets are using vehicles that have traveled in interstate commerce. We can make that a federal crime, too.

Oh wait, the oxygen you breathe has at least crossed state lines--and some of it has traveled in an airliner--so that's interstate commerce! We can make everything a federal crime!

3. The fact is that a lot of hate crimes are faked. This bill not only adds homosexuality to the list, but dramatically expands the rationale for federal involvement, so a great many crimes that would be properly prosecuted under state laws now become federal--and I don't have much confidence in the integrity of federal prosecutors, especially in an area that is emotionally quite important to a lot of lawyers.

4. If there is a violence problem, prosecute these as violent crimes. If someone takes a baseball bat to a gay man (or someone he perceives as a gay man), that's aggravated assault--potentially attempted murder. If your state makes that into a serious crime (as Idaho does), you don't need additional laws. If you live somewhere like California, that regards violent crimes as only slightly worse than voting Republican, perhaps you should make violent crimes into something serious.

5. It is not clear that homosexuals suffer particularly high rates of hate crimes relative to their percentage of the population, as I pointed out here.