A bill that to create domestic terrorism offices in several federal agencies targeting so-called white supremacists and neo-Nazi was defeated following a vote in the Senate under concerns that it was designed explicitly to target police and members of the military ignoring far-left terror groups such as Antifa and BLM.
House Bill 350, otherwise known as the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, charged the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation with producing unique systems “to analyze and monitor domestic terrorist activity” and mandated “the Federal Government to take steps to prevent domestic terrorism.”
The systems would supervise of sending “an assessment of the domestic terrorism threat posed by White supremacists and neo-Nazis, including White supremacist and neo-Nazi infiltration of Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies and the uniformed services.”
In a 47-47 vote, the Senate voted against the step which had actually divided your house of Representatives along party lines recently..
The bill was at first presented in the US House of Representatives on Jan. 19, 2021, and was released from your home Committee on Homeland Security and your house Committee on Armed Services on April 21. Agent Brad Schneider of Illinois sponsored the bill.
The House then voted on the bill, days after a fatal shooting dedicated by an 18-year-old white guy in Buffalo, New York. It passed following a 222-203 vote with only one Republican– Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger– supporting the step.
Home Republicans argued that there are currently developed laws to help in the detection and prosecution of domestic terrorism. per CNBC.
Senate Democrats would require a 60-member majority to prevent a possible filibuster.
“The bill is so important because the mass shooting in Buffalo was an act of domestic terrorism,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the chamber’s floor before the vote. “We need to call it what it is, domestic terrorism. It was terrorism that fed off the poison of conspiracy theories like white replacement theory.”
Schumer eventually voted ‘no’ as “a procedural maneuver” in order to conserve the possibility of raising the bill once again in the future, noted CBS News.
The majority whip, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, argued on the flooring that no brand-new criminal activities would be developed or extra federal authority approved because of the bill..
“What we’re doing is asking the federal agencies who have the responsibility of national security to give us timely reports on the incidents of domestic terrorism,” Durbin said.
No Republicans spoke or voted in favor of the bill. The senatorial party members” voiced concerns that the bill could open the door to improper surveillance of political groups and create a double standard for extreme groups on the right and left of the political spectrum,” reports The Hill.
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky stated H.B. 350 was an “insult” to military members and police due to the fact that it was successfully a “Democrat plan to name our police as white supremacists and neo-Nazis.”
“I met policemen throughout Kentucky and I’ve not met one policeman motivated or consumed with any kind of racial rage,” he said. “What an insult it is to put a bill before the House and say our Marines are consumed with white supremacy and neo-Nazism.”
H/T Timcast
