Democrats Present Police Reform Bill Amid Nationwide Protests
Democrats proposed a sweeping police reform bill, hoping to turn energy from the nationwide protests into concrete legal changes.
(Bloomberg) -- House and Senate Democrats proposed a sweeping police reform bill on Monday, hoping to turn energy from growing nationwide protests over racial injustice and police misconduct into concrete legal changes that could make it easier to prosecute and sue law enforcement officers.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top Democrats, before presenting the legislation at a news conference, knelt for 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence to honor George Floyd, whose death at the hands of Minneapolis police has sparked weeks of protest.
“The martyrdom of George Floyd gave American experience a moment of national anguish as we grieve for African Americans killed by police brutality,” Pelosi said. Now it is “being transformed into a moment of national action,” she said, adding, “We cannot settle for anything less than transformative structural change.”
Senator Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat and a co-sponsor, welcomed the protests building in cities and towns around the country, but stressed that concrete action was necessary.
“Empathy and sympathy and words of caring for those who have died and suffered is necessary but not enough,” Booker said. “We must change laws and systems of accountability.”
Co-sponsor Senator Kamala Harris of California, a potential choice to be Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s vice presidential pick, said, “We are here because black Americans want to stop being killed.” Even so, she said, “reforming policing is in the best interest of all Americans.”
Biden’s campaign said in a statement on Monday night that he applauded “Democrats on Capitol Hill for stepping up and proposing a meaningful reform package,” though the statement did not specifically endorse one of its measures, rolling back “qualified immunity,” which broadly shields officers from liability for civil damages over rights violations in civil lawsuits.
The Justice in Policing Act would change the definition of criminal misconduct for police, so instead of “willfully” violating constitutional rights, an officer could be charged after doing so with knowing or reckless disregard. It would also curtail qualified immunity.
The next step is hearings and votes in the Judiciary Committee. The full House is scheduled to return for floor votes on June 30, but could come back earlier if the bill is ready for a vote.
The bill faces an unclear path through the Republican Senate or the White House. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hasn’t ruled out Republican support for some type of police reform legislation, although the GOP has resisted some proposals in the past.
“It’s something we need to take a look at,” McConnell said last week. On the Senate floor Monday, he said calls to defund police were “outlandish” and added, “well-trained law enforcement officers are an important part of creating safe communities, not something to defund or abolish.”
House Republicans led by the Judiciary Committee’s top GOP member Jim Jordan are working on their own policing bill and aim to release it this week, said a Republican aide.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a letter to members of Congress Monday, urged them to “come together and, informed by experts, enact bipartisan policing reforms before Labor Day.”
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said President Donald Trump hasn’t yet reviewed the Democratic proposal. “But there are some non-starters in there, I would say, particularly on the immunity issue,” she said.
Attorney General William Barr said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” he opposes efforts to make it easier to sue police, arguing it would result in “police pulling back.”
Trump has seized on calls by some protesters to cut funding for police in order to attack Biden. The president held a roundtable discussion with law enforcement officials later Monday, while Biden met with members of Floyd’s family in Houston.
Congressional Democrats and Biden are so far not embracing calls to “defund” or “abolish” the police. Instead they are looking to create incentives for improvement by tying existing funding to changes.
“I can’t imagine that happening at the federal level,” said Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Karen Bass when asked about defunding the police. There is a need to provide more social spending in distressed communities, and cuts to the defense budget could be a way to fund that, she said. Her bill does not have any new funds for police.
“We want to work with our police departments. There are many that take pride in their work,” Pelosi said when asked about cutting funding.
Push for More Stimulus
The speaker is separately pushing for nearly $1 trillion in state and local aid to make up for revenue lost during the Covid-19 pandemic and has argued that failure to enact the funding would lead to job losses.
The bill would place new limits on federal funding for local and state police by requiring bias training and the use of de-escalation tactics in order for grants to be approved. It would curtail the transfer of military weaponry to state and local police, and give subpoena power to the Justice Department’s civil rights division to investigate abuses at the state and local level.
The proposal would ban federal law enforcement from using choke-holds like the one used by police in the death of Floyd last month, as well as no-knock warrants such as the one that led to the death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville in March. It also seeks to curtail the use of racial profiling and would set a national standard on the use of force.
Lynching would be made a federal crime for the first time. The measure would require federal officers to wear body cameras, and it would create a national registry of police violations.
Bass and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York are sponsoring the bill in the House.
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