Louie Gohmert: “First, I want to address a bill that we voted on this afternoon, one of the three bills under the suspension of the…”

“First, I want to address a bill that we voted on this afternoon, one of the three bills under the suspension of the rules, H.R. 35, to amend section 249 of title 18, United States Code, to specify lynching as a hate crime act. I was in the Judiciary Committee when we took up the hate crimes act. I know there were people who said because of James Byrd, the African American who was drug behind a truck by three individuals, that that was a poster case that demanded hate crime legislation. Actually, I was quite comfortable if all three of the defendants in that case had gotten the death penalty. In Texas, we do have the death penalty for such a crime as that. Two of the three got the death penalty. One got life in prison. And I felt like the death penalty, from everything I had read, was appropriate. I am someone who has looked two defendants in the eye and sentenced them to death. It is a very somber, serious thing to do, but the crimes justified it in those cases. I was talking to my friend, Congressman Bobby Rush, a man who has been fighting injustice and unfairness, seems like, his whole life. He is absolutely one of the kindest, most decent people to talk to and deal with here in Congress. He is just a real gentleman. This was Congressman Rush's bill. And I mentioned to him after the vote--I did vote ``no'' on this. Now, there are some great findings for the first six pages. But at page 7, we finally get to actually what the act does.…”