Club Q in Colorado Springs. Tops grocery store in Buffalo. The spa shootings in Atlanta. The Tree of Life synagogues in my Pittsburgh district. The Sikh Temple of Wisconsin. Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. The Pulse bar in Orlando. The list goes on and on and on, and these are just the attacks that make global news headlines. Individuals and groups in America are targeted every day for who they are, how they look, or who they love.

These hate-based attacks are becoming more frequent and more violent, but Pennsylvania still does not have adequate laws to address them.

The Commonwealth saw a sharp increase in hate crimes in 2021, with 255 reported last year, according to data maintained by the Pennsylvania State Police. That’s more than any other year since cases began being tracked in 1997 and almost as many as the previous three years combined. It’s also thought by law enforcement to be an undercount.
 
The Department of Homeland Security recognized in a 2020 threat assessment that white supremacist extremists are, and will remain, “the most persistent and lethal threat to the Homeland.”

Soon, I plan to introduce a package of legislation intended to modernize our laws to address hate crimes and ethnic intimidation.

These bills would align Pennsylvania’s protected classes with those included at the federal level: individuals or groups targeted because of their race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or disability.

Please join me by co-sponsoring these important pieces of legislation. Together we can send a message loud and clear to those who would have our most vulnerable groups live in fear: Hate has no place here.
 

Statutes/Laws affected:
Printer's No. 1021: P.L.1176, No.143, P.L.882, No.111
Printer's No. 1835: P.L.1176, No.143, P.L.882, No.111, P.L.1701, NO.214
Printer's No. 2224: P.L.1176, No.143, P.L.1701, No.214