Rand Paul stalls bill that would make lynching a federal hate crime

Amid the visceral national outcry for racial justice in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, a lone US senator is standing in the way of a bill that would make lynching a federal hate crime.

Rand Paul, a Republican with a reputation as a one-man awkward squad in the US Senate, has put the historic legislation into limbo, frustrating black colleagues and civil rights leaders, including the Rev Jesse Jackson.

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About 4,075 African Americans were lynched in 12 southern states between 1877 and 1950, according to a 2015 report by the Equal Justice Initiative. Some were watched by crowds, as if attending a form of public entertainment.

Ida B Wells, a crusading African American journalist, once said: “Our country’s national crime is lynching.”

The killing of Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes, caught on film and seen by millions, has been likened to a 21st-century lynching. It spurred more than two weeks of worldwide protests.

From 1882 to 1986, Congress failed to pass anti-lynching legislation 200 times, but this moment appeared to be different.

Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Tim Scott, the only three African American members of the Senate, led the unanimous passage of the legislation in that chamber in 2018 and 2019. The House of Representatives then passed it by a 410-4 vote in February but renamed it for Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy lynched in Mississippi in 1955.

That was the only change that returned the bill to the Senate, which makes Paul’s sudden objection all the more idiosyncratic.

The Democratic congressman Bobby Rush, who proposed the House legislation, tweeted: “The language of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act is IDENTICAL to the bill that was unanimously approved by the Senate. The only conclusion I can draw from Rand Paul’s sudden opposition is he has an issue with the House bill being named after Emmett Till.”

But Paul, a licensed doctor, is notorious for rousing colleagues’ ire by stalling legislation and for a life and career that are seldom conventional.

In 2017 he was physically assaulted by a neighbour while mowing his lawn; in 2018 he visited Russia and delivered a letter from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin; earlier this year he became the first senator to test positive for coronavirus, shortly after being the only one to vote against a bipartisan $8bn deal to provide emergency coronavirus funding.

He now argues that the anti-lynching legislation is drafted too broadly and could define minor assaults as lynching.

“The bill as written would allow altercations resulting in a cut, abrasion, bruise, or any other injury no matter how temporary to be subject to a 10-year penalty,” Paul said. “My amendment would simply apply a serious bodily injury standard, which would ensure crimes resulting in substantial risk of death and extreme physical pain be prosecuted as a lynching.”

He has previously worked with Democrats in pushing for criminal justice reform and taken a more progressive stance than many Republican colleagues.

On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported, while speaking with activists in Louisville in his home state of Kentucky, Paul criticised no-knock search warrants, such as the one used at the home of Breonna Taylor, who was shot dead by police in March, and the militarisation of police departments. And he said he is likely to support some form of federal legislation aimed at overhauling police procedures.

Challenged about his opposition to the bill, Paul called lynchings a “horror” of American history and said he supports the bill, the AP added, but reiterated that its language is too broad.

Last Thursday, as Floyd was mourned at a memorial service in Minneapolis, Paul proposed an amendment to the bill, which would require a vote of the full Senate and would send the bill back to the House – currently out of session – for additional consideration.

The amendment was defeated after emotions ran high on the Senate floor. Booker, of New Jersey, said: “One man, one man is standing in the way of the law of the land changing because of a difference of interpretation. Does America need a win today on racial justice?”

Appearing on The View on the ABC network, Harris described the senator’s contrarian stance as “insulting”, adding: “What Rand Paul is doing, which is one man holding up what would be a historic bill recognising one of the great sins of America – and it was on the day of George Floyd’s funeral which just added insult to injury and frankly made it so painful that on that day that’s what was happening.”

Although Paul is often an outlier, there are fears that the holdup could be indicative of wider Republican reluctance to tackle systemic racism in the police and embrace reforms. Moe Vela, a former senior adviser to Joe Biden, said on Wednesday: “My thoughts on it are very simple: birds of a feather.

“If Rand Paul somehow doesn’t believe we need an anti-lynching bill in the United States and his Republican colleagues can’t get him to release the hold, to me it says everything Americans need to know about the Republican party. Either you’re for lynching or you’re against lynching. It’s that simple.”

But Tara Setmayer, a political commentator and former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, was less critical, noting the consistency of Paul’s libertarian streak.

“I understand that he wants to strengthen the bill with certain language as an amendment,” she said. “He doesn’t want it to go away. He wants it to be strengthened from his perspective.

“But I think it’s a bit out of step with the political climate that we’re in … So he’s going to get the backlash, but Senator Tim Scott said he’s going to talk to him and see if they can work something out in the language. I think they will come to some type of agreement and it will eventually pass. I don’t see it being held up forever.”