Gohmert Votes Against Anti-Lynching Bill
Posted/updated on: February 28, 2020 at 2:36 pm
WASHINGTON, D.C. — East Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert was one of only four votes against a bill to make lynching a federal hate crime. He says he couldn’t support a ten-year prison term for lynching as outlined in the bill. Gohmert said, “That’s ridiculous. First of all, I have trouble with the federal nexus of…lynching. I’d rather — like in the James Byrd case, I preferred those defendants be tried under Texas capital murder (statute) rather than under federal hate crimes law.” Two of Byrd’s killers received the death penalty. The other received a life sentence in the notorious 1998 Jasper dragging death.
