In November, the FBI reported that more than 450 hate crimes were committed in Michigan in 2017, a 30% increase over 2016. The Anti-Defamation League has continued to report a surge in white supremacist bias and propaganda, with 60 confirmed cases in Michigan in 2018-2019 alone.
Nationally, the United States has seen a marked increase in hate crimes. In just the past two months, Passover worshippers were gunned down in San Diego, an occupied mosque in Escondido, California, was attacked by an arsonist, and three black churches were torched in Louisiana.
Given today’s dangerous environment, it would seem to be common sense to approve of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s new hate crimes unit, and to support Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s call to increase Nessel’s overall budget by $2 million. So why has Michigan’s Republican-led legislature ignored the governor's request, and instead proposed cutting Nessel’s budget by more than $5 million?
One answer might be found in the grilling that Nessel, a Democrat, received in April from Republicans on the state Senate’s Oversight Committee. Nessel was called before the committee to justify her creation of the hate crimes unit. According to a Detroit Free Press report of the April 23 hearing, Republican state Sen. Ed McBroom asked whether the rise in hate crime numbers was due to “much more robust” reporting, and added that “we should also be looking at if there's also been an increase in false allegations."
McBroom also questioned whether or not a suspect’s past hate speech might be used to determine whether or not a violent act that that person committed would be charged as a hate crime. And after the hearing, according to the Free Press, he told reporters that the hearing would be “potentially helpful in helping people” decide whether or not to cut Nessel’s budget.
Democratic state Rep. Jon Hoadley, who serves as the vice chair of the state House Appropriations subcommittee, called the proposed budget cut “overtly political.” Hoadley added that he believes Nessel’s hate crimes unit is just one reason that the state’s Republican legislators are “looking to tie her hands” through the budget process.
“I think the fact that she wants to make sure that folks that commit hate crimes are held accountable is one reason, or maybe it's because she's also cracking down on wage theft, going after predatory lenders … I mean, she's taking on some big, tough fights, and they are looking to tie her hands, and it is overtly political,” Hoadley told Daily Kos. He also challenged McBroom’s characterization of the hate crimes trends as being due to more reporting. “Sen. McBroom can ask any question he wants, but I think it is obscuring the fact that we know that there has been a rise in hate crime incidents, and we know that the Trump administration is giving folks a free pass to be using violent and hateful rhetoric,” he said.
Carolyn Normandin, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Michigan office, said, “I have confidence that we are not overstating or overreporting on anything.” Normandin’s confidence in the figures stems from the fact that her organization strictly vets every complaint it receives to decide whether it rises to the level of a bias incident.
Normandin said that, if anything, hate incidents are actually underreported. “I can't even tell you the number of times the person on the other end of the phone is saying, ‘This happened three times on my street, I just didn't say anything yet.’” Normandin, whose office issued a letter to Michigan’s Senate Oversight Committee supporting Nessel’s new hate crimes unit, added that she has “full confidence in Michigan’s local, state, and federal law enforcement” regarding those agencies’ ability to vet complaints and bring accurate charges when hate crimes occur.
Dan Olsen, a spokesperson for Nessel, told Daily Kos that the attorney general “isn’t going to try and get in the heads of the lawmakers who are opposed to upholding a law that has been on the books for more than 30 years.” (Michigan’s Ethnic Intimidation Act was passed in 1988.) “What I can say is that the attorney general is committed to serving and protecting all our state’s residents and this new unit is part of that commitment.”
And while the state’s Republicans may worry that Nessel and others are working to suppress hate speech that sometimes sounds very much like things said by their president, everyone involved in the effort to protect Michiganders is clear that their goal is to either prevent or prosecute actual hate crimes. “Nobody at ADL or anywhere in any of the organizations that look at civil rights are going to stop people from having their freedom of speech,” Normandin told Daily Kos. “Although I don't like what certain people say, ADL's a civil rights organization and we will staunchly defend a person's right to free speech.” Normandin and the ADL take that stance, she said, even though “We know for sure there’s a correlation” between hate speech and actual hate crimes.
During her April hearing before the Oversight Committee, Nessel herself strongly defended Michiganders’ rights to engage in hate speech. According to the Free Press report of the hearing, Nessel informed the senators that, “While some people in this state may choose to exercise their right to free speech by thinking hateful thoughts, saying evil words or associating with hateful people, as attorney general, it is my job to protect that right and not prosecute, even if I vehemently disagree with those thoughts, words, or associations."
Tell Legislators Not to Cut Attorney General Nessel’s Budget
Residents of Michigan: Call your state representative and senator and ask them to approve Gov. Whitmer’s proposed $2 million budget increase to help fund Attorney General Nessel’s work protecting Michiganders from hate crimes, predatory lenders and employers, and other criminals—and tell them that this is not the time to cut the attorney general’s budget.
Click here to find contact information for your state representative and senator, courtesy of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters.
You can also call:
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey: (517) 373-5932
Republican Speaker of the House Lee Chatfield: (517) 373-2629
Dawn Wolfe is a freelance writer and journalist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This post was written and reported through our Daily Kos freelance program.