Rep. Rick Lewis on MCRA

Oregon Representative Rick Lewis was a member of the Oregon House Committee On Emergency Management, General Government, and Veterans on September 23, 2024, when this conversation occurred.

Transcript

Logan M. Isaac: I won't take too much of your time. I'm meeting with Representative Tran after this. But I'm interested in Oregon becoming the first state in the Union to pass a comprehensive law protecting civil rights for soldiers and vets. The reason for that is we don't have any. The federal level has certain rights that are either poorly enforced or poorly written.

The earliest was 1972 they passed a law. called Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act and it was affirmative action for vets But it only protects 80 percent of the, of our community. It excludes peacetime non disabled veterans from protection and it turns out in 2007 there's a veteran who had filed a complaint with the DOL, got a quote unquote investigation that didn't go his way and it went up to retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor Who said that Vera was [00:01:00] so poorly written that it re, that it was represented no law at all.

The nutshell version is there's no enforcement mechanism by which a, a meaningful standard can be applied for judicial oversight. The only requirement is a prompt investigation. Their manual suggests it's supposed to be in 90 days. I foia the data for from 2000 2020. The DOL received more complaints from veterans for employment discrimination than any other complaint class.

But veterans were denied those claims a disproportionately high number of times. In 2009, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act named after Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Dedicated an entire section to service members, their families similar protections to hate crimes. Not identical, but they expired those protections five years after discharge.

It's the only civil rights law that expires. ADA, [00:02:00] you might be disabled part of your life, but every moment of your life that you're disabled, you're protected by ADA. HCPA expires after five years, and it does so in a weirdly worded way. But when I started asking questions as to how and when it's being enforced, the Department of Justice seems to have no knowledge it even exists.

They contain no means of reporting for service members who have experienced hate crimes. I've called, I've made test calls to FBI offices. They don't know the law. In law, it's Title 18, Section 1389. And the United States Commission on Civil Rights, when they, in 2019, did a 10 year anniversary report on the state of hate, they excluded the Soldier's Amendment and made no mention of service members.

During that same time pretty simple Google searches. Turned up a large number of criminal activity by American citizens targeting service members. One of which was a Cincinnati gentleman guardsman. [00:03:00] Was targeted by another American citizen for beheading, which would be televised. His wife was to be beheaded, as was his children.

And then they would blow themselves up at a local police station. The hate crimes was not applied. And it isn't typically applied because domestic terrorism. is an easier confession or conviction. The nature of hate crimes is an enhancement, however, it's explicitly intended to protect the community.

That Cincinnati person got protection. The FBI intervened, put them in protection, affecting the readiness of his unit. But I didn't receive protections when that occurred in 2016. And it's not the only one. Go ahead. Are

Rick Lewis: you currently serving as service members or are you

Logan M. Isaac: They're mostly currently serving service members. Just about

Rick Lewis: Why in Oregon? We don't even have any bases.

Logan M. Isaac: We have one in, on July 4th of [00:04:00] 2010. The year after it was signed into law, less than 12 months. The Albany American Legion post was burnt to the ground. ATF was involved, bringing in federal jurisdiction. No questions were asked as to whether or not it was a hate crime.

The entire community, now that the Albany Legion is still recovering financially from the fire. because the rebuild was more expensive than the worth. No no enforcement mechanism was applied. No national attention was leveraged. Even the rest of the Legion probably doesn't even seem to know what happened.

And that's because service members and veterans defend everybody else's rights while they are deprived of the same rights themselves. As I mentioned, employment discrimination is a non law. We are not protected by EEOC. We are not protected by housing. We are not protected by U. S. C. R.

And part of the reason that we're here, the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s Martin Luther King's second in command, Ralph Abernathy, was a World War II platoon sergeant. And [00:05:00] they came home, they fought, the Civil Rights Movement was born on the backs of black veterans returning from World War I and II, and in 64, they managed to pass the Civil Rights Act.

Ralph wrote in his autobiography that they considered their work complete, and so they started moving to economic justice, and that was in sixty seven. Or sixty four, I'm sorry. As they're working for economic freedom, King, uh, comes out against the Vietnam War, and a week later, another one of his lieutenants, James Bevel, created another organization called the MOBE, and they staged a protest in October of 1967 at the Pentagon and Lincoln Memorial. That same protest where we get the photo of a protester putting a flower in some, in a 82nd Airborne soldier rifle. New York Times reported that same protest was the first time the national news outlet reported that civilians were spitting on soldiers.

It peaked in the [00:06:00] 70s but if Ralph and Martin had known, Ralph could be targeted for his military service. I think they would agree that their work wasn't complete. Ralph, and any veteran, now has less rights than a civilian counterpart. If a landlord were approached by Ralph they could say, I'm fine with black people, I just hate all you baby killing veterans.

There's not a law in the entire nation that would protect them. I think that's patently unjust. In fact, Dred V. Scott the Dred the Chief Justice Taney said that the plaintiff did not get freedoms and rights because he did not serve in the military. Taney also didn't serve in the military, but fundamental to our union and our sovereignty is the fact that if you fight for our rights, you should be receiving them.

And this has not been the case for at least a generation and a half. I'd like Oregon to be the first state to introduce a Military Civil Rights Act. Because in a lot of ways, [00:07:00] especially with progressives where the West Coast goes, so too does the nation. I spent 116th, 117th Congress pounding pavement in D.C. and the federal members almost uniformly told me they didn't give two shits unless I had a major V. S. O. on board or more numbers. I now find myself a permanent resident of Oregon and I think it's I think it's a ripe time and place. to have the conversations that weren't welcome at a federal level.

Yeah, those are for you. Yep. This morning I was speaking with Senator Thatcher. I was supposed to be meeting with Senator Gelser Blauen, who's my local rep. Now I meet with Bossart Davis as well. But the committees, I know any bill would go through the committee, and so I'm hitting [00:08:00] up all the members, especially veterans like yourself to make sure that we, at least we have some situational awareness about the black and white kind of rights that we do and don't have.

Currently in Oregon, there's a veteran's preference in hiring which Boley is having difficulty enforcing. Other than that, there's no civil rights that the state grants. And the federal rights that we're supposed to have just don't trickle down. And I'm of the belief that drugs and therapy are part of the equation for suicide prevention.

I think if we don't have human dignity, and we know we can be trampled upon and will always be expected to shut up and drive on. Shutting up begins to look appealing. I think that's unfortunate that we don't have how to have these conversations across the civil military divide. But I'm, like I said, of the belief that it's right there and, yeah, I think it's a fundamental problem that we haven't really turned our attention to.

Rick Lewis: I'll have to go through all this stuff and find out. [00:09:00] Just by virtue of being a veteran doesn't deprive you of civil rights. Every citizen's got civil rights.

Logan M. Isaac: That's not correct.

Rick Lewis: Of course it is.

Logan M. Isaac: It's not correct.

Rick Lewis: What, alright, so what type of things are you talking about?

Logan M. Isaac: The example I gave earlier, Ralph Abernathy, a black veteran.

He can be, unless he can prove that it was because he was black, a someone, a landlord could explicitly say, I'm not going to rent to you because you're a veteran. There's no law that says that landlord has to be. No agency that protects someone like Ralph or you or me that has the enforcement ability to make sure that we have rights.

So I, I'm sorry, it's not true.

Rick Lewis: So if a landlord refuses to rent to somebody, you're saying that they should have a civil rights claim?

Logan M. Isaac: It's discrimination. It's lawful discrimination.

I'm meeting with Representative Tran next. I'm going to be asking her to have, to dedicate some time to this in December and January. I know on the Senate side they, Senator Thatcher seems very interested in meeting with Senator Manning on Wednesday. Yeah, I'd like to see some kind of movement. I don't know what that is.

Thatcher suggested a resolution because at the federal level, it might take some amendments. I'm working with Senator Wyden's office to do that. Eric Davis and his office up in Portland. But at the state level, we don't have laws to amend. So I'm, I think it may require a bottom up bill. But like I said, it would be the first in the union, and I think it's a common sense thing that other states, should they be made aware that this is the case, would probably follow suit.

It's an excellent opportunity for Oregon to be a leader in ways that it hasn't been before.

Rick Lewis: I'm not sure it's something, I would support. I'll take a look at all of [00:11:00] this stuff.

Not at this point. Not right now.

I don't know enough about it. I gotta look. Hate crime laws are on the books already for everybody.

Logan M. Isaac: They're not.

Rick Lewis: Sure they are.

Okay. Thank you for coming by. Oh,

Logan M. Isaac: I'm sorry, you can't see the facts.

That's surprising.