Last August Advance Indiana reported on Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi's intention of seeking legislation this year to increase penalties for crimes committed against a person or property out of hatred toward's a person's race, religion, sexual orientation and other bias motivations. Unfortunately, we have to report that no legislation has been filed in the Indiana General Assembly as of the filing deadline for bills in the House and Senate, which came and went last week.
Advance Indiana sent several e-mail messages to Prosecutor Brizzi's office seeking comment on the legislative development, but his office did not respond. Sadly, Indiana is just one of four states without a hate crimes law, being in the company of Arkansas, South Carolina and Wyoming. And that will likely remain the case for at least another year.
Presumably, Brizzi was either unable to find a sponsor for his legislation, or he was dissuaded from pursuing it by the anti-gay bigoted GOP leadership in the House. One would have thought that Indiana Equality would have found at least one friendly Democratic sponsor to keep the issue alive for the session but apparently not. How sad.
I may be wrong here -- but it is my understanding that in the House -- short session -- each member may only file five bills. Perhaps no one wanted to chance losing on this issues, to take that stand.
ReplyDeleteI'd wager that Brizzi could not find anyone in the Indianapolis area to carry water for this bill.