INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -
Gov. Eric Holcomb asserted Thursday that he'll be in the middle of the
Legislature's potentially contentious debate over adopting a state hate
crimes law.
The Republican
governor told reporters just before state lawmakers gathered in the
Statehouse to start their 2019 session that he was hopeful a bill would pass
after conservatives blocked similar proposals in recent years.
When asked how
active he would be in lobbying the GOP-dominated Legislature for the bill,
Holcomb replied "uber."
Indiana is one of
just five states without laws specifically against crimes fueled by biases
regarding race, religion and sexual orientation.
Holcomb repeated
his stance that adopting a law is "the right thing to do," but emphasized
the situation was hurting Indiana's attempts to recruit businesses to the
state.
"There's no reason
why we can't be on the same list as our competitors like Florida and
Tennessee and Virginia and Texas," he said. "We need to get on the right
list and off the list that's holding us potentially back."
Repeated efforts
for an Indiana law have failed amid fierce opposition from conservatives who
maintain it would unfairly create specially protected classes of victims and
wrongly restrict free speech.
Hate crime laws in
other states vary to some degree but generally allow for stiffer sentences
to be given to people who are convicted of crimes motivated by hatred or
bias. Only Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina, Wyoming and Arkansas do not.
A key question in
the Indiana debate will be whether an Indiana law should include sexual
orientation and gender identity. Democrats strongly support such provisions,
but the lopsided Republican majorities - 67-33 in the House and 40-10 in the
Senate - mean social conservatives could again derail the bill.
Republican House
Speaker Brian Bosma said he expected a few weeks could pass before
legislative committees are ready to take action on the issue. But he makes
similar economic arguments to Holcomb for adopting a hate crimes law.
"Employers are
asking about this issue now," Bosma said. "They weren't two years ago or
three years ago as they decide where to locate their employees."
Bosma has warned a
drawn-out debate could lead to Indiana facing national derision as it did
over the 2015 religious objections law that critics widely panned as a
sanctioning of discrimination against the LGBT community and resulted in the
state facing boycott threats.
Holcomb is taking a
stronger stance after doing little public lobbying in seeking a hate crimes
law during his first two years in office - and is calling for a law that
includes sexual orientation and gender identity as the state employee
anti-harassment policy has done under Holcomb and his Republican
predecessors Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence.
"Nothing could be
easier than getting this passed and signed into law, just like the
employment policy that I have and have had in this executive branch since
2005," he said.