Michigan House Lawmakers Advance Hate Crime Legislation to Full House

Michigan House lawmakers took a significant step towards addressing hate crimes in the state by voting hate crime legislation out of a state House committee on Tuesday. Currently, Michigan does not have a specific law against hate crimes, with the closest being a 1988 law outlawing “ethnic intimidation.”

The bill package that moved out of committee aims to update the existing policy by adding protections for sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, age, ethnicity, and association with any of the listed groups. Representative Noah Arbit, a co-sponsor of the package, emphasized the importance of addressing hate crimes that target individuals based on their perceived identity.

The proposed legislation would set various punishments for hate crimes, with each violation considered a felony. Arbit, who had previously led another hate crime package through the House last year, assured that the new version of the package takes extra care to protect free speech while targeting criminal acts motivated by hate.

The new package explicitly bans using violence, causing bodily injury, stalking, damaging someone’s property, or making “true threats” based on the mentioned identities. A “true threat” is defined as a statement expressing an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence. The legislation would apply to communications made with reckless disregard, but not if the person was unaware that their words could be interpreted as threats.

The new hate crime legislation is now before the full House of Representatives for further action. Meanwhile, a similar version of the legislation that the Senate previously passed remains in a House committee, indicating progress towards addressing hate crimes in Michigan.