Charlottesville hate groups

Senate resolution to force Trump's hand on condemning Charlottesville hate groups

By SEUNG MIN KIM

The Senate is preparing to force President Donald Trump to go on record to officially condemn the deadly white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville last month.

Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats, along with Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, plan to formally roll out a Senate resolution later Wednesday that forcefully condemns the violence in Charlottesville while “rejecting white nationalists, white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other hate groups.”

The Senate routinely takes up nonbinding measures commemorating people and institutions in the form of concurrent resolutions and simple resolutions – which are both purely symbolic and not submitted to the White House for the president’s signature.

But backers of the Charlottesville resolution have strategically chosen to introduce their measure as a joint resolution, which means it will be sent to Trump to sign into law.

“Let there be no mistake: what happened in Charlottesville was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by a white supremacist, one that tragically cut short the life of a young woman, Heather Heyer, who was speaking out against hatred and bigotry,” Warner said in a statement introducing the measure. “We will be pressing our colleagues to swiftly and unanimously approve this resolution in order to send a strong message that the United States Congress unconditionally condemns racist speech and violence.”

Kaine added: “During the violent white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville last month, our country lost three brave Virginians in Heather Heyer and Virginia State Police officers, Lieutenant Jay Cullen and Trooper Pilot Berke Bates. This resolution honors their lives while supporting the Charlottesville community as it heals and rightfully calls on us all, including President Trump, to do better as we combat acts of hate.”

The five-page resolution not only honors the victims of the deadly clashes and condemns the hate groups, but also urges the Trump administration to “use all available resources to address the threats posed by those groups.” The measure calls white supremacy and neo-Nazism “hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of the United States.”

Trump fueled an uproar and widespread condemnation from both political parties last month for his response to the deadly white nationalist protests in Charlottesville by blaming the “hatred, bigotry and violence — on many sides” and arguing that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the Aug. 12 clash in the Virginia city. The protests killed Heyer, 32, in addition to Cullen and Bates, who had been responding to the scene.

Gardner, who also serves as chairman of the National Senatorial Campaign Committee, is a notable GOP sponsor. The Colorado senator was the first Senate Republican to urge Trump directly to condemn the acts of white supremacy, saying “we must call evil by its name” and calling the violence in Charlottesville an act of “domestic terrorism.”