Senate GOP Drafting Police Plan to Counter Democrats’ Broad Bill

(Bloomberg) -- Senate Republicans are weighing proposals to improve police practices in response to massive protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, including racial bias training, increased use of body cameras and finally enacting the first federal anti-lynching law.

A task force that will write the GOP proposal will be led by Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black member of the Senate’s majority party.

“Absolutely I think it’s important to have a response,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday. Except for Scott, “none of us have the experience of being an African American in this country and dealing with discrimination,” McConnell said.

“We’re still wrestling with America’s original sin,” McConnell said.

Banning Chokeholds

He and other Republicans spoke a day after Senate and House Democrats unveiled a broad proposal Monday that would could make it easier to prosecute and sue officers. It also would ban federal officers from using chokeholds, create a national registry for police violations, and require local police departments that get federal funds to conduct bias training and use de-escalation tactics.

Massive demonstrations -- which spread across the U.S. and abroad after Floyd’s death in police custody on May 25 -- are putting pressure on Congress and local governments to rein in police brutality, especially against African-Americans. A memorial service was held for Floyd in Houston on Tuesday.

Yet with party leaders in both chambers moving ahead with different plans, and election-year politics coming into play, some warn that no accord may be reached.

“I think there’s going to be a Republican proposal and a Democratic proposal,” GOP Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said, adding that that usually means “an impasse or nothing.”

Still, there does seem to be some GOP momentum. Senior White House officials -- including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner -- went to Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon to meet with Scott about his ideas, said White House spokesman Ben Williamson. Scott also outlined proposals at a Tuesday lunch meeting of all Senate Republicans.

Scott said many provisions are under discussion, including one that would require all law enforcement agencies to report uses of force that lead to death and serious bodily injury. He said Republicans want the number of police departments using body cameras to “grow significantly” and to set penalties for not using them.

He said the GOP likely wouldn’t seek to ban chokeholds but instead might provide resources for training. He also said he would propose more reporting about the use of “no-knock” search warrants, in contrast to the House bill that would bar them for federal law enforcement officials.

“I basically shy away from telling local law enforcement ‘you shouldn’t do that’ and ‘you can’t do this,’” Scott said. He said the Democrats are trying to “nationalize” things too much.

Another GOP task force member, John Cornyn of Texas, questioned whether Democrats are serious about reaching an agreement, contending their proposal is “more a political statement and grandstanding than it is a serious effort to solve the problem.” Still, Cornyn said he supports a ban on chokeholds.

The Senate Judiciary Committee plans a June 16 hearing on police practices.

Second-ranking Senate Republican John Thune of South Dakota said Republicans want to take advantage of ways to influence what state and local governments do, including by using reporting requirements and conditions on receiving federal funds.

“I’m hoping we can find some things that we can do that suggest we hear what people are saying,” Thune said. “We want to do better at this, realizing that a lot of this is state and local jurisdiction.”

Cornyn questioned Democrats’ proposal to lower the legal threshold for charging officers with misconduct, saying that could create unintended consequences.

House Republicans may unveil their own proposal by Friday in an effort led by Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top GOP member of the Judiciary Committee.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said Democrats are open to looking at Jordan’s ideas and voting on them in committee next week as part of the consideration of the Justice in Policing Act. He announced that the House will return to Washington on June 25 for possible votes on the proposal, rather than on June 30, as previously planned.

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