Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer on Tuesday ramped up pressure on Republicans to allow a vote on a bill that would increase the reporting of hate crimes against Asian Americans.
Republicans say the measure would do little and that it is merely an attempt by Democrats to score political points.
“There is no reason, no reason why this shouldn’t be a bipartisan bill that passes the Senate without delay,” Mr. Schumer said at a press conference with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The legislation emerged in response to recent claims of an increase in attacks and harassment of Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. The coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan, China, in 2019. Ambiguous and incomplete statistics on Asian hate crimes, however, raise questions about whether the problem is getting worse.
“This isn’t some kind of gotcha legislation. This is legislation that our times demand,” Mr. Schumer said of the bill, which would, among other measures, issue nonbinding national guidance “to mitigate racially discriminatory language in describing the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, told reporters Monday that he considered the proposal “a messaging vote.” A day later, he said the bill’s fate would depend on the amendments to it.
A vote to open Senate debate on the bill is set for Wednesday. It will need the support of 10 Republicans before any amendment can be considered.
The bill — a similar version of which is moving through the Democrat-majority House — would impose scant requirements or mandates for action.
It would designate a Justice Department employee to conduct an expedited review of COVID-19 hate crimes reported to federal, state or local authorities.
It also would provide nonbinding guidance for state and local law enforcement agencies to establish online hate crime reporting in multiple languages and run “culturally competent and linguistically appropriate” public education campaigns to encourage the reporting.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat who sponsored the bill, acknowledged it would not mandate much. “If a state does not want to participate, they don’t have to,” she said.
Rep. Grace Meng, a New York Democrat and the sponsor of the House bill, said that even though the bill is voluntary, it would “give us more clear and accurate data” to help Congress decide what to do next.
Ms. Meng repeated a claim by the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate last month that there were nearly 3,800 incidents against Asian Americans in the past year, significantly higher than the 2,600 the year before.
The Stop AAPI Hate report is a self-compiled list of alleged hate crimes of which most are not categorized as crimes by law enforcement agencies. Nearly 90% of the incidents involved verbal harassment (68.1%) and shunning or deliberate avoidance of Asian Americans (20.5%).
Another 8.5% of the incidents were civil rights violations, and 6.8% were attributed to online harassment.
About 417 incidents, or 11.1%, of the hate crimes in the Stop AAPI Hate report involved physical assault, although the totals provided by the group indicate some overlap in the reported incidents.
A study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at the University of California, San Bernardino found that hate crimes directed toward Asian Americans increased by nearly 150% between 2019 and 2020. But it reported far fewer incidents than the Stop AAPI Hate report — 122 incidents last year compared to 49 in 2019, the study said.
Democrats on Tuesday, as they have done repeatedly, said that former President Donald Trump’s use of phrases such as “China virus” and “Kung flu” encouraged a range of incidents from name-calling to violent attacks. Republicans pushed back on the idea that Mr. Trump’s words instigated the incidents.
In an attempt to win Republican support for the bill, Mr. Schumer said he might be willing to allow a vote on an amendment to drop the provision about discriminatory COVID-19 language.
Mr. Schumer also said that he backs a bipartisan proposal being crafted by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, and Sen. Jerry Moran, Kansas Republican, to provide grants to state and local governments for hate crime reporting.
“As majority leader, it is my intention to make the first amendment a bipartisan one,” Mr. Schumer said. “But I can’t do that unless our Republican colleagues allow us to debate the bill.”
• Jeff Mordock and James Varney contributed to this report.
• Kery Murakami can be reached at kmurakami@washingtontimes.com.
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