WASHINGTON — Nearly two years after Sen. Rand Paul objected to legislation that would make the brutal act of lynching a federal hate crime, the Kentucky Republican signed on as a co-sponsor of a revised version that is now set to become law.
Paul celebrated passage of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, which the Senate cleared by unanimous consent Monday. But it was he who held up the bill in the spring of 2020, leading to a tense rhetorical exchange with two Black Democrats, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and then-Sen. Kamala Harris of California, about the scope of their proposal.
Now Booker is hailing Paul for his work on amending the bill to create “the bipartisan backing that we have to finally meet this moment and help our nation move forward from some of its darkest chapters.”
Paul’s initial objection to the bill was rooted in language he believed would have led to more minor crimes being characterized as lynching, a heinous act of violence that originated in the Jim Crow South.
“This bill would cheapen the meaning of lynching by defining it so broadly as to include a minor bruise or abrasion,” Paul said on the Senate floor in early June of 2020. “Our national history of racial terrorism demands more seriousness of us than that.”
Harris replied that it was “ridiculous” to define lynching in the most literal sense.
“It should not require a maiming or torture for us to recognize a lynching when we see it and recognize it by federal law and call it what it is, which is that it is a crime that should be punishable with accountability and consequence,” she said.
Booker, who was similarly incredulous at the hold-up during a period of racial strife throughout the country, also castigated Paul for his opposition at the time.
But once tensions diminished and after Joe Biden ascended to the White House, Paul reengaged with Booker and another new co-sponsor, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia.
Paul moved to tweak the original version of the bill so it wouldn’t include crimes — such as defacing a church — as lynching. He wanted lynching severely punished, but lesser crimes dealt with in proportionate manner. Paul wrote that Booker, the New Jersey senator, recognized his sincerity and agreed to the amendment.
Charles Booker, the Democrat running to unseat Paul this November, did not offer as gracious an interpretation.
“The Emmett Till Antilynching Act was blocked by Rand Paul in 2020,” Booker said. “Now as the historic bill finally passed with unanimous consent, Rand Paul has the gall to applaud himself for not blocking it again. I will block him from returning to the Senate next year.”
The Emmett Till Antilynching Act is named after a teenage boy from Chicago who was killed in Mississippi in 1955 while visiting family. The legislation would make lynching punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
The measure cleared the U.S. House in late February by a vote of 422-3.
GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Northern Kentucky was one of the three Republicans voting against it.
Massie questioned the constitutionality of the new law, saying that individual states should prosecute crimes.
President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill into law later this week.
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