Josh Hawley Explains Why He Was Sole Vote Against Anti-Asian Hate Crime Bill

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) took to social media on Thursday to explain why he was the only senator to vote against a bill aimed at combatting hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

The bill, called the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support in a 94-1 vote.

Its lead sponsor Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI), who was the first Asian American woman elected to the Senate, said the passage showed the Senate "rejects anti-Asian hate."

Hawley took to Twitter to explain his vote, after being the lone holdout opposing passage through the upper chamber.

"My big problem with Sen Hirono's bill that Senate voted on today is that it turns the federal government into the speech police - gives government sweeping authority to decide what counts as offensive speech and then monitor it," Hawley wrote.

"Raises big free speech questions."

In a previous statement, he said: "It's too broad. As a former prosecutor, my view is it's dangerous to simply give the federal government open-ended authority to define a whole new class of federal hate crime incidents."

Hirono said the bill was of major importance to the AAPI, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, community "who have often felt very invisible in our country, always seen as foreign, always seen as the other."

The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act is a response to the rise in hate crimes against members of the AAPI community that has been reported since the beginning of the pandemic.

The act would instruct the Department of Justice to expedite reviews of hate crimes related to COVID that are reported to law enforcement. The bill also seeks to introduce measures, such as an online reporting mechanism for anti-AAPI hate crimes.

The bill would also require the attorney general and the Department of Health and Human Services to create best-practice guidelines aimed at mitigating the use of racially discriminatory language in describing the COVID pandemic, according to NBC News.

There have been a number of serious incidents involving attacks on Asian Americans in recent months, including the killing of six women of Asian descent at spas in Atlanta, Georgia last month. The women's names are listed in the bill.

"Today, the US Senate rejects anti-Asian hate," Hirono tweeted on Thursday. "This historic, bipartisan vote on the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act is a powerful message of solidarity to our AAPI community. Now, I urge the House to swiftly pass this legislation so President Biden can sign it into law."

The House is set to consider a very similar version of the bill introduced by Representative Grace Meng of New York. This will likely be reviewed in May and the House and Senate will have to reconcile their two bills before the proposed measures can become law.

"For more than a year, Asian Americans all across our nation have been screaming out for help," Meng said, adding that the passage of the Senate bill showed "they heard our pleas."

Newsweek has contacted the offices of Hawley and Hirono for further comment.