HR 4187 — Stop Hate Crimes Act of 2025

Summary

Clarifies the Federal hate crime statute by changing "because of" to state that a protected characteristic must be "a contributory motivating factor" for the crime.
Specifies that prosecutors do not need to prove the victim's protected characteristic was the sole or primary motive, only that it was one contributing factor in causing injury.
Applies the clarification to both violent hate crimes and conspiracy charges under the Federal hate crime law.

AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.

Sponsor (1)

Rep. Lieu, Ted (D-CA) [#36]

7 cosponsors

Del. Norton, Eleanor Holmes (D-DC) [At-large]
Rep. Hayes, Jahana (D-CT) [#5]
Rep. Johnson, Henry C. "Hank" (D-GA) [#4]
Rep. Krishnamoorthi, Raja (D-IL) [#8]
Rep. McBath, Lucy (D-GA) [#6]
Rep. Panetta, Jimmy (D-CA) [#19]
Rep. Velázquez, Nydia M. (D-NY) [#7]

Money behind the sponsor

Top reported contributors to Ted Lieu’s campaign committee (2024 cycle) — who funds the bill’s sponsor, not a claim about this bill. Data from FEC.

NOT-EMPLOYED $255,097
Employer not reported $21,050
COTCHETT, PITRE & MCCARTHY, LLP $13,200
TRENDNET $13,200
NETFLIX $13,200

Organizations whose employees gave the most — itemized individual contributions grouped by the donor’s reported employer (FEC Schedule A). Full finance for Ted Lieu → · Outside spending →

Actions (2)

Jun 26, 2025 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. · house
Jun 26, 2025 Introduced in House

Related bills (2)

Similar bills (6)

Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.

Text versions (1)

Introduced in House · Jun 26, 2025

Only one text version is on file, so there’s no earlier version to compare against yet.

Full text

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

June 26, 2025

Mr. Lieu (for himself, Mrs. McBath, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Mr. Panetta, Ms. Norton, Mr. Krishnamoorthi, and Ms. Velazquez) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

A BILL

To amend title 18, United States Code, to clarify the causation element in the Federal hate crime statute, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Stop Hate Crimes Act of 2025”.

SEC. 2. CLARIFICATION AS TO CAUSATION ELEMENT IN HATE CRIMES.

Section 249(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended—

(1) in paragraph (1), in the matter preceding subparagraph

(A)—

(A) by striking “because of” and inserting “if”; and

(B) by inserting after “origin of any person” the following: “was a contributory motivating factor for causing or attempting to cause such injury”; and

(2) in paragraph (2)(A), in the matter preceding clause

(i)—

(A) by striking “because of” and inserting “if”; and

(B) by inserting after “disability of any person” the following: “was a contributory motivating factor for causing or attempting to cause such injury”. <all>

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