H EADLINES
Hate some other areas with respect
to hate crimes that we thought
needed to be strengthened and
addressed. So this package
went beyond just the amend-
ments to the Pennsylvania
Ethnic Intimidation Act, and
went further.”
In 2019, Frankel was one of
the co-sponsors of a hate crime
package — House Bills 2010,
2011, 2012 and 2013 — that
sought to:
Continued from Page 1
crime legislation might be
worth a closer look is on
people’s minds.

“It’s been timely, for a lot of
reasons,” Frankel said.

Frankel, who is Jewish,
represents a district that
includes Squirrel Hill, the
Pittsburgh neighborhood
where a gunman murdered
11 congregants at the Tree
of Life synagogue building
in 2018. His hate crime bills
were originally introduced in
2019, but his eff orts to expand
and strengthen hate crime law
began much earlier.

In 2002, the state legisla-
ture passed an amendment
to the Ethnic Intimidation
Act, adding LGBT people as a
protected class. Challenges to
the amendment came quickly,
according to Th e Philadelphia
Inquirer, aft er fi ve people
protesting a gay rights festival
were charged with hate crimes
in 2004.

In 2007, the Commonwealth
Court struck down the expan-
sion, and the state Supreme
Court upheld the decision the
following year. Since then,
State Rep. Dan Frankel represents a district that includes Squirrel Hill, the
Pittsburgh neighborhood where a gunman murdered 11 congregants at the
Tree of Life building in 2018.

Courtesy of PA House of Representatives
• Impose stiffer penalties
for those convicted of hate
crimes, including those
targeted because of their
sexual orientation, gender
or gender identity;
• Mandate
educational courses for those on proba-
tion or parole for ethnic
intimidation; • Provide more training for
police offi cers to properly
identify hate crimes;
• Require
postsecondary institutions to off er anony-
mous online reporting
options for students and
employees. Frankel has been a part of a
Th e 2018 mass shooting
group of legislators trying to at Tree of Life “reinvigorated
Frankel was the primary
get LGBT people back under this eff ort,” Frankel said. “In sponsor for 2010, 2011 and 2013,
state protection.

addition to that, we looked at while state Rep. Ed Gainey, of
LEGAL DIRECTORY
Allegheny County, sponsored
2012. In the Pennsylvania
Senate, similar bills have also
stalled. Stiff er penalties for hate
crimes, Frankel said, would
make it clear that such crimes
are committed not only against
an individual, but against
whole groups.

“For instance, somebody
who just put some graffi ti on
a stop sign at an intersection,
versus somebody who spray-
paints a swastika on a mosque
or a synagogue, that needs to
be diff erentiated very, very
clearly in terms of the penal-
ties,” Frankel said.

Th ough the bills had support
from then-Pennsylvania
House Speaker Mike Turzai,
the COVID-19 pandemic
rearranged the priorities of the
legislature. Frankel’s bills were
not among them.

He gave it another roll in the
fall of 2020, but his push was
unsuccessful. “Hateful actions continue
to be perpetrated against our
neighbors simply because of
who they are,” Frankel told the
Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle in
See Hate, Page 26
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