Yesterday Congress gave
final passage to Senate Joint Resolution 49 (
full text) "condemning the violence and domestic terrorist attack that took place during events between August 11 and August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia." The Joint Resolution, that now goes to President Trump for his signature, reads in part:
Congress ... urges— ... the President and his administration to—
(i) speak out against hate groups that espouse racism, extremism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and White supremacy; and (ii) 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; and
[urges] the Attorney General to work with (i) the Secretary of Homeland Security 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 in order to determine if any criminal laws have been violated and to prevent those groups from fomenting and facilitating additional violence....
Politico reporting on the action by Congress adds:
Though resolutions are often passed to offer the sense of the House or Senate on various issues, they rarely head to the president for consideration. But backers of this measure structured it as a "joint resolution," a move ensuring that passage would require Trump to weigh in on an issue that has dogged his presidency for weeks.
