From the It's-All-in-the-Fine-Print Dept.: In D.C. hate crimes are out of the DoD funding bill; in California the GOP electoral-vote grab goes on hold

It's official. The hate-crimes legislation that was to be attached to the Defense Department spending bill, has been stripped out in House-Senate conference.

The reasoning is a little curvy, so make sure your seat belt is securely fastened. For once it appears that the problem is not the do-nothing Senate, but the House--even though the hate-crimes provision actually passed the House in this session as a stand-alone bill. In an official statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explains:

I am strongly committed to sending the hate crimes legislation,
passed by the House earlier this year, to the President for his
signature. Democrats have worked exhaustively with advocacy groups
and polled Members repeatedly, but it is clear that attaching the
language to the DoD authorization bill would not create a successful
outcome in the House.

House Democratic leaders will work with our Senate colleagues to make
certain that a hate crimes bill passes the Senate and goes to the
President's desk.

From the Senate Democratic side the following statement was issued jointly by Sen. Edward Kennedy, author of the hate-crimes legislation passed in the Senate, and Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee:

We are deeply disappointed that the House has decided not even to have a vote on the Conference Report on the Defense bill if it contains the hate crimes provision. With this decision, we've lost the best opportunity to enact hate crimes legislation in this Congress. This provision was adopted by the Senate with a vote of 60-39 during debate on the bill.

The inclusion of the hate crimes provision in the Defense bill was appropriate. Our military stands for America's ideals and fights for America's ideals. At a time when our ideals are under attack by terrorists in other lands, it is more important than ever to demonstrate that we practice what we preach, and that we are doing all we can to root out the bigotry and prejudice in our own country that leads to similar violence here at home. Now more than ever, we need to send a strong message here at home and around the world that we will strengthen our laws against hate crimes.

The hate crimes bill would have advanced those values and goals, and we're committed to getting it enacted. It's long past time for this measure to become law.

MEANWHILE IN CALIFORNIA, THE ON-AGAIN, OFF-AGAIN
ELECTORAL-VOTE-STEALING SCHEME IS OFF AGAIN . . .

But only for the June primary-election ballot.

As Julia Rosen is reporting on Calitics, the group that revived the previously defunct initiative to change the way California allots electoral votes in presidential elections, from winner-takes-all to a proportional system, has acknowledged that it has run out of time to submit the necessary signatures in time for vetting procedures that would qualify the initiative for the June ballot.

However, the 500,000 signatures already gathered can still be submitted in time to be considered for inclusion on the November general-election ballot. It's estimated that 700,000 signatures are needed to survive the vetting process and leave the necessary 500,000 valid signatures standing.

Opponents of the plan--which is clearly designed to undermine Democratic prospects by stripping away a near-certain bloc of electoral votes (with no prospect of offsetting gains in states where Republicans would continue to benefit from the standard winner-take-all electoral-vote arrangement)--argue the political pros and cons both ways.

Clearly the initiative will be easier to defeat in November, when voter turnout is expected to be massive, than in June, when turnout is likely to be light. On the other hand, the loss of the initiative in June, when its relatively high visibility might have driven turnout up, could be bad news in the fight against some nasty lower-profile initiatives that will be on the ballot.

You win some, you lose some, and sometimes it's a draw.

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