Heller, colleague file bill to stiffen penalties for hate crimes
WASHINGTON — A recent spate of hate crimes at cemeteries and Jewish Community Centers nationwide, including one in Las Vegas, has prompted two senators to file a bipartisan bill to stiffen penalties and add $20 million to better safeguard faith-based facilities.
The legislation was filed after President Donald Trump used his primetime televised speech this week to denounce the recent wave of crimes targeting cemeteries, synagogues and Jewish Community Centers.
Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., introduced a bipartisan bill that would put $20 million into the State Homeland Security Grant Program and dedicate those funds to safeguarding faith-based community centers.
That program is under the Department of Homeland Security.
The legislation would also double the penalty from five years to 10 years for conviction of making false bomb threats.
Earlier this week, bomb threats were called into centers across the country, including the Jewish Community Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas.
“Anti-Semitism or any kind of discrimination should never be tolerated,” Heller said. “We must take measures to prevent these actions from occurring.”
Heinrich said that just this week there were “20 new bomb threats across 11 states. These threats aim to introduce fear into our communities and must not be tolerated.”
The bomb threat to the Jewish Community Center of Southern Nevada was a hoax, but Jolie Brislin, the Anti-Defamation League’s Nevada regional director, said bomb threats are “usually used as scare tactics to cause fear and panic in our community.”
The recent hate crimes have not been confined to Jewish facilities.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said that in the past two months, swastika graffiti was found in Southern Nevada at the Mexican consulate, a local high school where the majority of students are Latino and a synagogue.
Catherine Masto criticized the Trump administration for moving so slow in acknowledging and denouncing the hate crimes.
Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., also called on the administration to speak out more on the bigotry.
Rosen said she joined a bipartisan task force to combat anti-Semitism and signed onto a letter asking the Justice and Homeland Security departments to investigate “those who are behind these hateful anti-Semitic crimes.”
“We must prevent such shameful and disgraceful acts from causing our communities to live in fear,” Rosen said.
Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.
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