LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – An effort to finally enact a hate crime law in Arkansas, a state with a history of white supremacy, seemed to have all the elements for success: a popular Republican governor who made it a priority, major corporations endorsing the idea and supporting communities where hate groups flourished.
But the chance to end Arkansas’s distinction as one of only three states without such a law is in jeopardy even before lawmakers return to the Capitol. Conservatives moved to defeat the bill in the Republican Party legislature, although similar measures have been passed in other red states.
In June, Georgia became the last to enact a bill, leaving Arkansas, South Carolina and Wyoming as the remaining outliers.
Prospects for the bill’s weakening threaten a legislative priority for Governor Asa Hutchinson, who, as a US attorney, sued racist militias, but without a specific hate crime law.
If victims are targeted because of their race, ethnicity or sexual orientation, “we have to express ourselves as a society that should not be tolerated and that we should have greater penalties for doing so,” Hutchinson told the Associated Press this week.
The Arkansas proposal would impose up to 20% additional prison terms or fines for targeting someone due to a variety of factors, including race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity. Prosecutors would have to prove that the victim’s attributes were a substantial factor in the crime being committed.
Similar proposals have been stalled over the years, but the idea gained new momentum after Hutchinson made it a personal cause and cited the threat of mass shootings, including one in a Texas Walmart in 2019 that federal authorities sued as a hate crime. .
Hate groups have long claimed Arkansas as a haven. Dozens of members of the New Aryan Empire, a white supremacist group that prosecutors said were involved in drug trafficking and the intimidation of witnesses, were indicted on federal charges in the state last year.
In the 1980s, as a US lawyer, Hutchinson wore a bulletproof vest to negotiate an end to an impasse with a white supremacist group in the Ozark Mountains. Hutchinson noted that the case was before a federal hate crime statute came into effect.
“I received a 20-year sentence for extortion against the leader of this group. I would love to have spent 25 years there with a good backup for hate crimes, “he said.
The bill has strong support from Democrats, but conservatives have pushed family objections to include LGBT protections.
“Unfortunately, this law creates more inequality by favoring special categories of people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and other characteristics,” said Jerry Cox, executive director of the Family Council, last year.
Hutchinson and outgoing Senate President Jim Hendren refused to remove sexual orientation or gender identity as categories of the bill. The bill also faced a broader complaint from critics, who say that increased penalties isolate certain groups.
“If you are going to do this for one group of people, why not do it for another?” Said Senate President Jimmy Hickey, who said he did not believe the bill could be approved.
The potential for hate crime laws to pass is mixed in the remaining states. In South Carolina, more than 80 companies signed a letter last month endorsing this move, but Republican South Carolina governor Henry McMaster, also a former prosecutor, questioned the need. Prospects are more uncertain in Wyoming, where the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shephard sparked a national movement for hate crime legislation.
“I think the three states realize that none of them want to be the state to have the distinction of being the last state to have a hate crime law,” said Aaron Ahlquist, director of the south-central region of the Anti-Defamation League.
Defenders in Arkansas hope business and community groups will help in their efforts. Bentonville-based Walmart and Springdale-based Tyson Foods also said they support the enactment of a hate crime law.
The city of Harrison and the outskirts of Boone County, where Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists have acted over the years, passed resolutions last year urging the legislature to pass a hate crime measure.
Supporters acknowledge the challenges, but said they remain hopeful that the bill could reach Hutchinson’s table.
“Whenever a bill has been defeated for 20 years, it takes time to turn that train around,” said Hendren, who is also Hutchinson’s nephew.
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Associated Press reporters, Mead Gruver, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Meg Kinnard, in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
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