An absolutely terrible piece of legislation, the “Leading Against White Supremacy Act of 2023,” would criminalize speech in a dramatically expanded manner. The legislation, put forward by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), would establish a new type of “hate crime.”
Hate crimes, already illegal federally, add additional charges for violent crimes committed because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin of the victim. That is, there must be a crime in order for a hate crime to exist.
Not if this new law passes!
According to Glenn Greenwald, the proposed law states that “a person engages in a white supremacy-inspired hate crime when white supremacy ideology has motivated the planning, development, preparation or perpetration of actions that constituted a crime or were undertaken in furtherance of activity that, if effectuated, would have constituted a crime.” (emphasis added) So the actual crime is no longer required. But that’s not all!
You can also be a conspirator in a hate crime even if you have no connection to the person doing the crime or “planning” actions that “would have constituted a crime.”
