Gaines And Wiedower Vote For Modified Hate Crimes Bill

Oconee County’s two state representatives, Houston Gaines and Marcus Wiedower, reversed course on Tuesday and voted with the majority in approving a modified version of House Bill 426, referred to as a Hate Crimes Bill.

Both Gaines and Wiedower had voted against the original version of the bill when it narrowly passed the Georgia House of Representatives in March of last year.

Each said on Wednesday that the revised version of the bill overcame his objections and he was glad to support it when it came back to the House for vote following the Senate modifications.

Sen. Bill Cowsert, who represents Oconee County as well as parts of Clarke and Walton counties, had been at the center of negotiations in the Senate to bring the bill up to vote and back to the House.

The original bill set stiffer sentences for crimes where the defendant “intentionally selected any victim or any property as the object of the offense because of such victim’s or group of victims’ actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender mental disability or physical disability.”

The modified version of the bill passed on Tuesday spelled out the meaning of misdemeanor, modified the sentence for felonies, and set up a procedures for law enforcement officers to file a “Bias Crime Report” with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for hate crimes.

For more on the story, please go to Oconee County Observations.