Minnesota Lawmaker Concerned Over Bill Allowing Government to Track Alleged ‘Hate and Bias Incidents’

The state Capitol building of Minnesota in St. Paul, on Aug. 17, 2013. Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images

Minnesota state Rep. Walter Hudson has taken aim at a bill that would update the way the state government responds to and tracks “hate and bias incidents,” in which no crime may have actually been committed, calling it “problematic.”

The bill, HF 181, was first introduced in January this year by Rep. Samantha Vang, a member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, in an attempt to address what she said are “hate and bias incidents” that have soared during the COVID-19 pandemic against “Black Indigenous and people of color communities including Asian Americans.”

Under the bill, Minnesota’s “peace officers” would receive extra training to identify, respond to, and report crimes “motivated by bias.”

Additionally, the bill would allow community organizations, school districts, charter schools, and individuals to report crimes that they believe are “motivated by the victim’s or another’s actual or perceived race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, familial status, or disability.”

Such crimes could also be reported over the victim’s “actual or perceived association with another person or group of a certain actual or perceived race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, or disability.”

The bill would allow data to be reported and developed on the nature and extent of the crimes motivated by bias.

Such crimes typically fall outside of the hate crimes that are collected and reported annually by the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, according to the St. Cloud Times.

Bill Language Is ‘Problematic’

However, Hudson told Fox News Digital that he is concerned about “problematic” language in the bill that refers not only to race but also to sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

The Republican lawmaker said he fears such language could ultimately have a negative impact on religious liberty and noted that the bill contains the words “incidents” as well as “crimes” and the term “actual or perceived” identity.

Hate “incidents” do not always constitute a criminal offense.

“It’s a very insidious and conniving way to get the camel’s nose under the tent of expanding the scope of government scrutiny of speech beyond crimes and assault,” Hudson said. “The intention of whoever is being accused of exhibiting bias is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is how the person making the report feels.”

“If the person making the report feels as though they have been the victim of an incident of bias, then they have been the victim of an incident of bias. And we’re going to create a database of all of these subjective, arbitrary, whimsical feelings that people have had, not anything objective or tangible at all,” Hudson continued. “It seems very clear, based upon their focus on motivation, that they’re more concerned about what’s going on in people’s heads, which is protected speech, and that’s thought crime.”

Hudson had earlier raised concerns over the bill to Rebecca Lucero, commissioner of the state Department of Human Rights, who has supported the bill, as well as Vang, during a committee hearing in January.

Bill ‘Not Necessarily a Crime Situation’

The Republican said he believes the bill would allow for the creation of a “database of incidents that have no objective standard determining whether or not they violated the law, whether or not they had anything distinct from just normal speech.”

“So if someone were to post on social media a particular Bible verse that defined marriage or spoke of God’s institution of marriage as being between one man and one woman, or a Bible verse that spoke in condemning terms regarding certain sexual proclivities, would that posting of a Bible verse be considered an incident reportable under your bill?” he asked.

Vang defended the bill, saying that it was important to inform the Minnesotan community that “hate and bias incidents” would not be tolerated and that “we support communities that [have] been harassed, intimidated, and abused.”

Meanwhile, Lucero responded that the state is “already investigating incidents around discrimination” in a “neutral” manner and that the bill “is not necessarily a crime situation here.”

Instead, she said the bill would allow the state to have a “better understanding of what is likely going on out there” so that it can be used to provide things such as additional educational outreach to schools that report an increased number of hate and bias “incidents.”

“It’s helpful to know,” Lucero added.

Announcing her bill in January, Vang said the measure will “go a long way toward giving us the data and full understanding needed to track our rising hate crime problem so we can actively work to put an end to hate.”

“I urge my colleagues to join us in advancing this vital safety measure,” she added.