House, Senate panels differ on future of hate crime grants
Source: Roll Call
Posted July 25, 2025 at 10:55am
House and Senate appropriators are divided in their fiscal 2026 spending bills on whether to zero out funding for grants authorized under two laws focused on addressing hate crimes. The Trump administration, in its budget request, proposed cutting all funding for grants authorized under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act.
A Republican-controlled House appropriations subcommittee stuck with White House’s request, approving a Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill last week that would provide no money for grants authorized under those acts. Senate appropriators took a different approach. Their version of the bill would keep the appropriated funding level in fiscal 2026, with $17 million going to grants authorized under the Shepard-Byrd law and $9 million for grants under the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act.
The Justice Department’s budget summary did not provide a specific reason for its request to zero out the grant money. But a White House document said their budget request proposes the elimination of grant programs “that are duplicative, not aligned with the president’s priorities, fail to reduce violent crime, or are weaponized against the American people.”
On Capitol Hill, the push to go after hate crime prevention grants has drawn criticism from some Democrats. Rep. Grace Meng of New York, the top Democrat on the House Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations subcommittee, said the push to zero out the grant money was “outrageous” and would hurt communities. “I don’t know why they’re targeting these bills, these programs, in a time when hate crimes are going up against many of our communities, whether it’s anti-Asian hate crimes, whether it’s anti-semitism,” she said.
Read more: https://rollcall.com/2025/07/25/house-senate-panels-differ-on-future-of-hate-crime-grants/