Michigan Rep. Noah Arbit (D-West Bloomfield) speaks in support of his hate crime legislation in Lansing, Michigan on Nov. 13, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)
With the lame duck session underway in the Michigan Legislature, the Democratic-led House moved forward legislation on Wednesday to enact tougher hate crime prohibitions.
House Bills 5400 and 5401 would update Michigan’s 1988 “ethnic intimidation” statute to add sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability or age as characteristics that would be considered a hate crime if they were the basis of violent or threatening behavior.
The bills passed 57-52, with one Republican, state Rep. Tom Kuhn (R-Troy), joining all Democrats in approving the legislation. The bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Noah Arbit (D-West Bloomfield), gave an impassioned speech, rebutting remarks that argued the bills could infringe free speech interpreting non-threatening behavior as a hate crime.
Those remarks were made by Rep. Josh Schriver (R-Oxford), who was stripped of his office staff, funds and committee assignment earlier this year by House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) after Schriver posted to social media what was termed a “sustained campaign of racist rhetoric and hate speech.”
As an example of his objection to the bills, Schriver laid out a scenario of a tailgate party in which one person roots for one team, and another person says they are “gonna kick your butt,” alleging it could be perceived as a threat, and that person ending up facing fines and felony jail time.
“This is an affront to America, our Constitution, our First Amendment, our right to free speech,” said Schriver. “And believe me, I believe in love speech, but at the same time, we cannot be a nanny state that is going to continually create situations where we’re monitoring each other and trying to catch up certain individuals in certain situations, to punish them. And for this reason, and many others, I urge a no vote on this piece of legislation.”
Arbit said he had to respond.
“I was not planning to speak today. I did not want to speak today. We have better things to do,” he said. “But I had no choice, because, once again, in trying to pass anti-hate crime legislation, unscrupulous actors have already begun to spread misinformation and lies about what this legislation will do.”
Arbit referenced a previous version of the legislation which was attacked by opponents as trying to criminalize misgendering someone, which he said was a “ridiculous lie,” noting the word misgender isn’t even in the text of the law.
“Misgendering someone intentionally or not is not a hate crime. It’s not even a crime. It isn’t in the bill, and it never was,” said Arbit. “Even the worst hate speech, while dangerous and corrosive to society, is protected under the First Amendment. Any claims to the contrary are risible. The misinformation and lies about this bill, the garbage about misgendering pronouns, the rest of it, those things aren’t hate crimes.”
Arbit then listed several recent incidents he said were hate crimes, including a 7-year-old Muslim girl having her throat slashed at a Detroit park, the Jewish Federation building in Bloomfield Township being vandalized with antisemitic graffiti, and a Black mail carrier being threatened with a knife and called the n-word in Farmington Hills after delivering a political mailer for the Vice President Kamala Harris campaign.
“All of these terrible crimes happened recently in Michigan, and somehow the argument by some people is that we should do nothing, that we should let an old law from 1988, seven years before I was even born, stand useless and unamended, crime victims be damned? Truly, I just cannot understand the logic.”
Arbit said the bill is supported by all 83 county prosecutors, the vast majority of whom are conservative Republicans, stating they do so because they believe it will help increase public safety in Michigan.
“It is time to stop playing politics with the safety of our community and the safety of all communities across Michigan. Enough,” he said.
The bills now move on to the Michigan Senate for consideration. Even though Democrats retain their majority there, they would still need to be passed before the end of the year before the new Legislature convenes in January.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.