CONGRESS
House passes sweeping police reform bill
The vote on Democrats' bill comes one day after the
Senate failed to advance a narrower GOP proposal.
By SARAH
FERRIS, HEATHER CAYGLE and JOHN BRESNAHAN
06/25/2020
12:05 PM EDT
Updated:
06/25/2020 08:55 PM EDT
The House
passed a sweeping police overhaul bill Thursday, one month after the killing of
a Black man by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a nationwide movement for
systemic reforms of the criminal justice system.
Every Democrat
voted for the package, which was drafted by the Congressional Black Caucus in a
matter of days amid multiracial demonstrations in dozens of cities seeking
justice for George Floyd’s death. Ultimately just three Republicans — moderate
Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas), Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) —
backed the measure.
Speaker
Nancy Pelosi took the rare step of casting her vote and announcing the 236-181
tally.
The bill
would crack down on excessive police force and ban chokeholds, enforce national
transparency standards and push accountability for officer misconduct with a
national database to track offenses.
“To the
protesters: we hear you, we see you, we are you,” House Democratic Caucus
Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in an impassioned speech on the floor
just before the vote.
Jeffries,
one of the most senior Black members in Congress, said he first learned of
Floyd’s death from his young son, who told him, “‘Dad, it’s happened again.
What are you going to do about it?’”
“I say to
him, and I say to all those other Black children throughout America: We are
here today as House Democrats to do something about it,” Jeffries said.
The three
Republicans who ultimately supported the bill defied direct instructions from
the White House to oppose it, handing a minor victory to Democrats, who can now
say they passed a bipartisan police reform bill. Still, Democrats’ success
likely ends there as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has signaled he
will not take up the package, leaving virtually no hope it will become law.
“Exactly
one month ago George Floyd spoke his final words, 'I can’t breathe,' and changed
the course of history,” Pelosi said on the steps of the Capitol before the
vote. “When we pass this bill, the Senate will have a choice: to honor George
Floyd’s life or to do nothing.”
Thursday’s
vote comes one day after the Senate failed to advance a narrower policing bill
— leaving the two chambers at a stalemate even as the nation faces a reckoning
on race and police brutality.
Sen. Tim
Scott of South Carolina, the Senate’s only Black Republican, was the lead
author of the Senate’s police reform bill. But many Democrats dismissed the
legislation, calling it a “sham” that only paid lip service to the systematic
changes they say need to take place.
“The Senate
bill is [a] sham, fake reform,” said House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.)
alongside Pelosi. “It gestures, using some of the same words, but it does
nothing real.”
Other
Democrats, like Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, a former CBC chairman, were
slightly gentler in their criticism.
“I have a
lot of respect and admiration for Tim Scott … and so I believe that he tried to
get as good a bill as he thought he could get with the Republican-led Senate,”
Cleaver said in an interview.
“I think he
did the best that he could with the Republican legislature,” he added. “I just
don’t think many people in the Senate quite understand the magnitude of this
time.”
But
Democrats, particularly senior members of the CBC, say the passage of their
bill is a monumental step forward for a Congress that has allowed legislation
to ban chokeholds or demilitarize the police to languish for years. In one sign
of the enormity of the moment, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — who represents
Minneapolis, including the block where Floyd died after a police officer put
his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes — presided over the House
floor earlier in the day.
“Thank God
for the activists. Thank God for the screaming from the streets that has awoken
a lot of people to how the severe disregard for life and racism has been
playing out every day in America,” Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) said in an
interview. “We need transformational change.”
The House
bill has won endorsements from a slew of prominent advocacy groups, from the
NAACP to the AFL-CIO to the American College of Physicians. A long list of
entertainment industry celebrities have signaled support as well, from Lizzo to
Justin Bieber to Ariana Grande. On Thursday, the measure also earned backing
from another set of powerful voices: the parents of African Americans killed by
police.
“The unjust
killing of a loved one, especially at the hands of law enforcement, is a pain
too many families have been forced to endure," said Gwen Carr, John
Crawford Jr. and Samaria Rice — the parents of Eric Garner, John Crawford III
and Tamir Rice, respectively.
Backers of
the bill noted that Rice would have turned 18 on Thursday. "We are proud
to support this effort because it’s the right thing to do."
Some
Democrats and Republicans had initially hoped to send legislation to President
Donald Trump’s desk before the July Fourth holiday — a scenario that is now
unlikely.
Democrats
have refused to scale back the central components of their bill, such as
banning chokeholds or abolishing the “qualified immunity” doctrine that
protects police officers from lawsuits. Republicans, meanwhile, have said they
will simply move on to the rest of their summer agenda until Democrats signal a
willingness to back down on some of those elements.
Several
Democrats had been quietly working with moderate Republicans like Hurd, Upton
and Fitzpatrick in the last few weeks in a behind-the-scenes effort to garner
their support for the bill.
Still, most
Republicans voted against the policing bill with several citing one major issue
as the primary reason for the stalemate: whether police should be held
personally liable for misconduct on the job. Trump also publicly urged GOP
lawmakers to oppose the bill, and few in the party are eager to cross him.
Within the
Democratic Caucus, the package ran into remarkably little resistance, which has
historically faced some internal divisions between its moderate and progressive
factions. Some
Democrats
in swing districts had initially been hesitant to support the bill for fear of
blowback from powerful police unions, but all supported the bill in the end.
“The people
in the streets are saying, ‘We are not going to go away, this issue is not
going to fade,’” Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) said in an interview.
“I think
our moment is going to continue, like I said,” he added. “If the Senate refuses
to negotiate, that will reverberate against them, I believe, in the November
elections.”
Kyle Cheney
contributed to this report.
Amid national crisis on police brutality and
racism, Congress flails
A historic moment for the country has devolved into an
ugly, partisan blame game on Capitol Hill.
By JOHN
BRESNAHAN, SARAH FERRIS, HEATHER CAYGLE and MARIANNE LEVINE
06/25/2020
09:03 PM EDT
As the
United States faces its biggest crisis over civil rights in decades, Congress
is poised to do nothing. Again.
What could
have been a searing, soul-searching moment where America’s political leaders
helped establish a new national accord on race and the role of police in
society has instead devolved into a frenzy of political posturing, campaign
sloganeering and ugly partisan fights.
The House
on Thursday passed a sweeping police reform bill that would ban chokeholds, end
the use of “no-knock” warrants, create a national registry for officers accused
of misconduct, and make it easier to prosecute officers. Yet Democrats picked
up only a few GOP votes, guaranteeing the proposal has no chance of moving in
the Senate.
And the
Senate can’t even agree to begin debate on a police reform bill, with Democrats
blocking efforts to take up a proposal drafted by Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), one of
two Black Republicans on Capitol Hill.
“It’s
really unfortunate,” Scott said. “You’d like to think that we’re all willing to
get together on something as consequential as police reform in a moment like this.”
Rather than
restart their efforts to find a solution, party leaders are pointing fingers at
the other, suggesting Washington's latest attempt at reform is all but
finished. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP senators were
infuriated when Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Republicans are “trying to get away
with murder, actually. The murder of George Floyd.” They demanded she
apologize. Pelosi refused.
Then Sen.
John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) angered Democrats when he suggested Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had “a chokehold” on the Republicans’ version of police
reform. Democrats said that comment showed GOP leaders weren’t serious about
addressing the issue of police brutality.
Things
aren’t much better down Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House didn’t make any
effort to broker a compromise; instead, senior aides whipped House Republicans
against the Democratic bill, according to GOP sources.
President
Donald Trump, trailing badly in the polls, has turned to repeatedly tweeting
out “Law and Order!,” a clear sign that he isn’t interested in anything
Democrats were proposing. The president instead has threatened to use
“overwhelming force” to end protests, urged “long-term prison sentences” for
anyone caught tearing down statues, and accused the country’s first Black
president of “treason.” Eric Trump, the president’s son, called Black Lives
Matter protesters “animals” at a rally last week, to cheers from the crowd.
"There’s
not one single conversation between a Democratic member and a Republican member
in order to achieve a bipartisan bill in the House."
Rep.
Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.).
It’s a
level of nastiness between the two sides that’s become common in the Trump era,
grinding non-essential legislative work to a halt and sapping any energy to
move big bills, be it on immigration and infrastructure, or gun control and
policing.
The
exception, of course, was the trillions of dollars that Congress approved this
spring to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and stave off an economic
meltdown — dual crises that forced both sides into rare bipartisan action.
Although that, too, only came after weeks of theatrics from both parties. And
with the explosive issue of police brutality and racism, what little
opportunity there was for compromise quickly faded.
“It’s bad,”
said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). “The last three and a half years, the
president’s tried to divide this country and he’s done a pretty effective job
of it, and he’s divided the Democrats and Republicans to almost a toxic
environment.”
“There’s
not one single conversation between a Democratic member and a Republican member
in order to achieve a bipartisan bill in the House,” complained Rep. Patrick
McHenry (R-N.C.). “At this moment of a presidential election year, a divided
America, an economy in chaos, the health crisis, and layer on top of that we
can’t physically be with one another to work things out, it makes the outcome
this screwed up and awful.”
In the days
after Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, there seemed to be an opening for real
action — a groundswell moment that would force Democrats and Republicans to set
aside their differences and deliver something to a restive and angry American
public.
But in
recent weeks, the prospect of a bipartisan compromise has dissipated. Each
party has refused to amend their version of the bill, even as they deliver
soaring speeches from the House and Senate floor about the need for action and
show up to demonstrations talking about getting something done.
“We’re just
going to sit here and take shots across the building with a Senate bill and a
House bill and no resolution. And then we’re going to fly home tomorrow,” said
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). “In what universe is that the right thing to do?”
For many
senior lawmakers — particularly Black members who led this fight for decades —
it’s exactly what they were afraid would happen from the beginning.
“My fear
was that we might end up in a stalemate over significant legislation, maybe
some of the most important legislation to come to the floor in my 15 years,”
said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), a former chairman of the Congressional Black
Caucus.
“What I
hope the American public will understand is that follow-through matters as it
relates to credibility,” Cleaver added.
Rep. Brenda
Lawrence (D-Mich.), another member of the CBC whose district has erupted in
protests in recent weeks added: “It doesn't matter if you have the best bill in
the world if it never gets passed.”
Frustrated
rank-and-file members say they cast blame in both parties, with senior
Republicans and Democrats working on their own separate tracks from the start.
And it has infuriated many of the freshmen who rode a wave in 2018 vowing to
end the Washington gridlock.
Many
lawmakers left town after the House vote on Thursday disappointed in the failure
to act and worried about how the country will react to the breakdown.
“It’s just
too important to simply pass and move on to the next item. This is what we’re
here for,” Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who has frequently lamented that
leaders of both parties don’t work toward consensus. “It’s always been my
expectation, and frankly, dream, that [bipartisanship] starts in the very
beginning But I think we do it in reverse here, too often.”
“It’s kind
of symptomatic of what’s wrong with this place in general, and that’s kind of
evolved over a long period of time,” added Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.).
Yet Rep.
Karen Bass (D-Calif.), the CBC chairwoman who led the effort on the House
Democratic bill, still believes that some kind of deal can be reached.
“We’ll be
talking, I spoke to Sen. Scott last weekend. I plan to call him today. I don’t
see this situation as over at all,” Bass insisted. “I have a long list of my
Republican colleagues from Judiciary who expressed opposition to all sorts of
things in the hearing. I think that leaves a basis from which to talk.”
Also
optimistic was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the high-profile freshman
Democrat who has urged her own party to embrace more ambitious policy solutions
to endemic problems of poverty and inequality.
“I think
the amount of people in the street and the pressure has created a unique
circumstance where I do believe both parties are feeling the heat to pass
something,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“I think
that people are working with the failures of institutions,” she added. “They’re
working around it in order to push through the changes they’re looking for.”
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