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FinalCall.com News
National News
Racial profiling ban makes way through Congress
By Hazel Trice Edney
Updated Apr 21, 2004 - 9:23:00 PM
WASHINGTON (NNPA) - The nation’s first federal racial profiling provision that would require every state to establish anti-profiling laws in order to receive certain federal transportation funds has been passed by the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives, but still awaits Senate action.
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), chief sponsor of the provision, said:
"I have gotten this through the worse House," says Ms. Norton, who pushed the bill through, with the backing of the entire Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). It is a part of a $275 billion transportation bill (HR-3550) that recently passed 357 to 65.
Her provision, attached to the "Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users," which generally provides funding for the nation’s highways and transportation systems, earmarks $60 million over six years for states to develop racial profiling laws and collect racial statistics on traffic stops.
The provision would require states and localities to make and enforce strong anti-profiling laws for use on federal highways in order to qualify for money to enforce certain kinds of traffic offenses, including drunk driving and speeding.
The provision will now be discussed in a conference between House and Senate members among other provisions in the transportation bill. Ms. Norton acknowledges that the measure, which she expects will be agreed upon, is only a start.
For at least the last two sessions of Congress, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the longest serving member of the CBC and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, has introduced an anti-police profiling bill that would become a mandatory civil rights law rather than a budgetary provision such as Del. Norton’s. It would prohibit federal funds for states or localities proven to be conducting traffic stops based on race.
Rep. Conyers has noted that Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (Wis.) has constantly blocked the measure from ever reaching the House floor for a vote.
"We are nowhere near to getting that from a Republican Congress," says Del. Norton, a co-sponsor of Rep. Conyers’ bill (H.R.3847). "We’re just going in the back door. [Conyers] wants to go in the front door."
She used her knowledge and savvy as former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Jimmy Carter to write the new provision.
"One of the reasons racial profiling remains widespread is because federal law has been silent, unlike the case with job discrimination and discrimination in other state and federal activities,’’ Del. Norton says.
"A state law shall prohibit, in the enforcement of state laws regulating the use of Federal-aid highways, a State or local law enforcement officer from using the race or ethnicity of the driver or passengers to any degree in making routine or spontaneous law enforcement decisions, such as ordinary traffic stops on Federal-aid highways," the provision states.
A state must also maintain public racial and ethnic statistics on each vehicle stop and provide proof that they are consistently enforcing racial profiling laws.
The question now is whether Pres. Bush will veto the entire bill. He has proposed $256 billion for the transportation programs, and has threatened to veto a $318 billion Senate version of the bill, passed in February. And he says the $275 billion House bill is still too costly during his election year in which he promises to cut spending and reduce the deficit.
