House Democrats Seek Committee to Combat White Supremacy - New York Times

WASHINGTON — A coalition of House Democrats is urging Speaker Paul D. Ryan to establish a select committee on “the rise of white supremacy and domestic terrorism.”

The lawmakers, in a letter sent Wednesday to Mr. Ryan, argued that Congress needed to study an “outbreak of hate” brought on by last year’s presidential election, as well as the threat that white supremacist groups pose to “the security and stability of our nation.”

Representative Joseph Crowley of New York said he had broached the idea of the select committee after watching Mr. Trump praise the “very fine people on both sides” of the deadly violence at a rally of white supremacists in Virginia.

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“A young woman lost her life as a result of what took place in Charlottesville,” Mr. Crowley said in an interview. “That cannot be understated, and that life ought to not go without recognition by the Congress.”

Mr. Crowley called the new prominence of neo-Nazis and other groups like the Ku Klux Klan “a national crisis” and said he hoped that the committee could offer bipartisan solutions. He signed the letter along with Representatives Nancy Pelosi of California, Linda T. Sánchez of California and James E. Clyburn of South Carolina.

It is unclear whether Mr. Ryan will agree to establish the committee. Some conservatives have resisted efforts to shine a spotlight on right-wing extremists that is equal to the one on Islamic terrorists, even though studies have linked right-wing extremists to far more deaths in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.

Under a Department of Homeland Security program known as Countering Violent Extremism, the Trump administration has ended grants to groups combating white supremacy, while keeping funding for organizations fighting Islamic terrorism.

In their letter to Mr. Ryan, the lawmakers cited the Department of Homeland Security and other authorities in writing that there is “substantial energy behind the white supremacist movement, with traffic on leading websites soaring over the past year alongside a wide-reaching effort to recruit young people on college campuses.”

“Given the surge of support for terror,” they wrote, “a more focused effort is needed to understand what is happening and how we can work together to protect our fellow Americans.”

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