The House, as early as Tuesday evening, is expected to approve a resolution condemning the violence at the white nationalist rally in Virginia last month and urging President Trump to speak out against racist hate groups.
The joint resolution passed the Senate by unanimous consent Monday and will go to the White House for Trump’s signature should it pass the House.
Two House aides not authorized to speak publicly about legislative scheduling confirmed plans for a voice vote Tuesday.
The text of the resolution was negotiated on a bipartisan basis by the members of Virginia’s congressional delegation, and versions were introduced in both the House and Senate last week. It denounces “White nationalists, White supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups,” but does not single out left-wing counterprotesting groups such as Antifa for equivalent opprobrium the way Trump did in the days after the Aug. 12 Charlottesville violence.
The authors of the legislation purposefully introduced it as a joint resolution, which is sent for a president’s signature, rather than as a simple or concurrent resolution, which do not.
The House version was introduced by Reps. Thomas Garrett (R-Va.) and Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), and co-sponsored by the other members of the Virginia House delegation. The Senate version was introduced by Virginia Democrats Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine.
“The first thing it’s going to do is give some real comfort for these families,” said Kaine, referring to the deaths of a counterprotester and two Virginia State Police troopers who had been patrolling the rally in a helicopter that later crashed.
“No. 2, I think it’s great for [Democrats and Republicans] to be able to make a moral call that white supremacy’s not acceptable, and I want the president to have to sign it,” he added. “We wouldn’t have had to add in that point had he not demonstrated this moral equivocation at the time, but I think it would be a really good thing.”
The resolution calls on Trump to “speak out against hate groups that espouse racism, extremism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and White supremacy” and also “use all resources available to the President and the President’s Cabinet to address the growing prevalence of those hate groups in the United States.”
It also calls on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to “investigate thoroughly all acts of violence, intimidation, and domestic terrorism by White supremacists, White nationalists, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and associated groups” and to “improve the reporting of hate crimes” to the FBI.
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