THE IMAGES are indelible: Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead in Wyoming; James Byrd, a black man dragged to his death in Texas by racists who tied him to the back of a truck; Jewish children terrorized by a white supremacist gunman in California.
Despite the public outcry surrounding these events, an effort to revamp and expand the federal hate crimes law failed last year, a victim of intense end-of-session bargaining between the White House and congressional Republicans.
But even in defeat, advocates for the measure are claiming a slight victory -- the measure became a stated priority for the White House and Democrats, who were successful at least in getting the bill through the Senate. And the legislation could re-emerge as a high-profile election-year issue, with Democrats vowing to push the issue at the expense of a GOP leadership less than eager to take up a civil rights measure conservatives oppose.
The hate crimes proposal, authored by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, would broaden the federal government's jurisdiction over perceived hate-based attacks, mostly by permitting the FBI and other federal agencies to investigate crimes committed against gays, women and the disabled. Current hate crimes law only covers race, religion and national origin.
Nearly one year after Shepard's death, the White House, under pressure from gay and civil rights groups, revived interest in the legislation in October after Republican leaders ordered it stripped from a Justice Department spending bill.
"After all we've been through in this country in the last couple of years, and all the hate crimes we've seen, I just don't see how we can possibly walk away from this session of Congress and not pass this," Clinton told reporters during an Oct. 25 news conference on the South Lawn. The president mentioned hate crimes in more than 30 speeches near the end of the congressional session and even went so far as to declare hate and intolerance "the biggest problem the world faces."
But the public declarations of support did not translate into tough behind-the-scenes deal making. As last-minute budget negotiations wore on, the hate crimes proposal never equaled the importance of spending for teachers or police on the White House priority list.
"In the end, it proved impossible to make a nonmonetary item non-negotiable," explained Maria Echaveste, the White House deputy chief of staff.
