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Dear John,
After two decades of hard work and tenacity, both chambers of Georgia’s legislature with strong bipartisan support passed Hate Crimes legislation — HB 426, and today Governor Brian Kemp signed that bill into law.
Allison Padilla-Goodman, ADL’s Vice President of the Southern Division and a lead advocate for the bill, was on site for this historic moment as Governor Kemp’s signing of HB 426 sent the resounding message that all Georgians’ identities are a valuable part of the State.
Allison Padilla-Goodman, ADL Southern Division VP
For almost four decades, ADL has been a national leader in countering and responding to hate crimes, crafting a model hate crime penalty enhancement law on which the majority of the 46 state hate crime laws are based.
HB 426 provides stronger penalties for individuals who target victims because of their actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, mental disability or physical disability. It also requires local law enforcement agencies to collect data on hate crime investigations and provide “Bias Crime Reports” to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is essential for effective enforcement of the new law.
The Hate Free Georgia coalition, led by ADL’s Southeast regional office and composed of our partners at the NAACP, Georgia Equality, and Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce among 35 other non-profit organizations advocating for better hate crime laws in Georgia, is both celebrating and charting next steps as a collective. While we are thrilled at the important passage of this bill, we also must recognize that there is still so much work to be done to build a just and inclusive Georgia — especially as we look back at the horrific murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks these past few months in the state.
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This statement from our good friends at the Georgia NAACP and Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, is an important indication of the pain enveloped in this big win, and the tremendous work we have before us.
We thank the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and House and Senate leadership for working across party lines to get the bill across the finish line. ADL is hopeful that this spirit of bipartisanship will continue because the hate crimes law is not an end to itself, but a critical step towards addressing systemic racial injustice in Georgia and bias and injustice in our system.
We also couldn’t have done this without YOU — thank you for calling, tweeting, signing petitions and mobilizing to help us get this bill signed into law!
We continue this work together.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Greenblatt
CEO and National Director
ADL
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