CONGRESS TARGETS RACIAL PROFILING

Bush Support Helps Drive To Outlaw Focusing On Suspects Based On Race

WASHINGTON -- Encouraged by the Bush administration, lawmakers who tried
last year to launch a nationwide study of racial profiling are now moving
to outlaw the disputed law enforcement practice nationally.

With state legislatures around the country grappling with the issue, some
say Congress should stand back rather than jump in.

Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's delegate to the
House of Representatives, has proposed withholding some highway funds from
states that do not ban racial profiling, the practice of targeting suspects
based on race or ethnicity.

A group of Democrats led by Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Rep. John
Conyers of Michigan is preparing legislation that would make grants to
police departments contingent upon how they monitor and stop racial profiling.

Federal efforts to combat racial profiling got a boost in February when
President Bush declared, "It is wrong, and we must end it.''

Attorney General John Ashcroft then endorsed legislation, proposed in the
last Congress by Feingold and Conyers, requiring state and local law
enforcement agencies to collect traffic stop data.

David Harris, a law professor working with Feingold and Conyers, said the
lawmakers no longer want to settle for studying whether racial profiling
happens.

"There is wide acknowledgment that this is a reality faced every day by
people of color,'' said Harris, who teaches at the University of Toledo in
Ohio. "The question now is, how can we approach it in a concrete way that
will make a difference?''

Convening a hearing on the topic Tuesday, Congressional Black Caucus chair
Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, said she hoped ``to create the necessary
will for this Congress and this administration to immediately end the
practice of racial profiling.''

At least 15 states have taken action to stop or study racial profiling, and
20 others have legislation pending.

California, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Oregon have banned the practice.

Susan Parnas Frederick, director of the law and justice committee of the
National Conference of State Legislatures, said Congress should continue to
let states address the issue.

"To have this strong arm of the federal government come and squash all
those efforts just doesn't seem fair,'' Frederick said.