Republican senators are pushing forward with their own police reform proposal following the death of George Floyd, declaring the far-reaching legislation offered by Democrats dead on arrival in the Senate and setting up a clash with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“The House version is going nowhere in the Senate. … We have no interest in that,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
McConnell seemingly dared Democrats to oppose the bill being drafted by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.). It will need support from at least seven Democrats to advance on the floor.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at another Tuesday press conference that it would be “premature” to comment before Scott officially unveils his bill on Wednesday.
But other Democrats have been vocal in their skepticism about the GOP measure because it does not include explicit bans on law enforcement techniques like chokeholds and no-knock warrants, which were used by police in the deaths, respectively, of George Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky.
“I worry in this moment that we will repeat history, that this is the movie ‘Groundhog Day,’” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a co-sponsor of his chamber’s Democratic proposal, lamented during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on police use of force on Tuesday.
“That here we are again, in a nightmare, not a comedy, with a reform package that talks about doing more studies, as opposed to doing something,” Booker added. “Will we meet this moment and actually do something real?”
The GOP bill also would not end qualified immunity for law enforcement as Democratic lawmakers and the activists marching for change in nationwide protests have called for. The legal doctrine gives police officers a broad liability shield in court, making it all but impossible to successfully sue them over claims of wrongdoing.
Conservative organizations and even some Republican lawmakers have also been vocal in calling for reforms to the doctrine of qualified immunity. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) told reporters on Tuesday that he was “disappointed” that qualified immunity reforms wouldn’t be in the GOP bill. He added that he intended to introduce his own legislation on the matter.
But other Republicans are warier about the idea.
“It is hard to be a cop. Let’s make sure that we don’t destroy the ability to be a cop in the process of trying to fix things that need to be fixed,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said on Tuesday.
The divide in Congress over how big a role federal versus state levels of government should play in addressing police brutality echoes the debate over previous failed attempts to reach consensus on immigration reform, health care reform and gun control.
Still, there is room ― and significantly more public pressure ― for common ground this time around. Both sides, for example, support increasing the number of body-worn cameras, de-escalation and anti-bias training, and the gathering of more data on the use of force by officers.
The momentum is clearly on the side of reform. On Monday, in a rare reversal, Senate Republicans said they hoped to vote on a police reform bill before the chamber’s scheduled July 4 recess, after initially casting doubt on that timeline.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said during a Tuesday event at the White House that he was committed to working with Congress on police reform.
“Hopefully, they’ll all get together and they’ll come up with a solution that goes even beyond what we are signing today,” the president said moments before signing an executive order on policing.
Trump’s order seeks to create a federal database of police officers with a history of using excessive force and to ban chokeholds “except if an officer’s life is at risk,” according to the president.
Democrats immediately panned the move as insufficient, calling for more extensive changes in law. In a statement, Pelosi said the order lacked “meaningful, mandatory accountability measures to end misconduct. During this moment of national anguish, we must insist on bold change, not meekly surrender to the bare minimum.”
House Democrats are expected to vote on their bill, titled the Justice in Policing Act, sometime next week.
