After an 11-hour session last night, the House Judiciary Committee finally approved the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, co-authored by Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and Crime Subcommittee Chair, on a party-line vote sending it to the full House.
The reason the hearing took so long is because the Proud Boys from the GOP House Freedom (sic) Caucus tried to turn the hearing into a sideshow circus, proving that they are not serious about policing reforms. House panel approves expansive policing bill to ban chokeholds and make it easier to prosecute officers for misconduct:
Republicans used their debate time to rehash arguments about the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation, abortion and the liberal movement to “defund the police,” … In the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Cedric L. Richmond (D-La.) grew angry with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) over the GOP focus on the far-left network known as antifa, though there is no evidence the group is driving the nationwide protests.
“It’s not about the color of your kids. It’s about black males, black people in the street that are being killed. . . . If one of them happens to be your kid, I’m more concerned about him than you,” Richmond said.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Gaetz shouted.
Wow, I find myself saying this every time this white privileged rich kid punk with a DUI arrest record (mug shot, right) opens his big mouth. You can bet that he never would have got the treatment that Rayshard Brooks got from Atlanta police officers. Gaetz would have played the privilege card, “Do you know who I am?,” and the cops would have called his daddy to come down to the station to get him and to apologize for having dared to arrest his son. This is how white privilege works, folks. And this white privileged rich kid punk went on to buy himself a congressional seat, and to hang out on Fox News with his Proud Boys brethren. This punk deserves a good ass whuppin’, and not only the electoral defeat kind.
“It seems like we keep having these conversations about nothing that has to do with this bill,” said Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif).
That was exactly the point. Republicans are not serious about governing, they only do fever swamp conspiracy theory propaganda for the GOP crazy base in the conservative media entertainment complex.
The provisions of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act have been years in development, and are culled from other pieces of legislation. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerold Nadler explains in a press release:
House Judiciary Committee Democratic Members called for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. During the markup of the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act, House Judiciary Republicans offered non germane amendments to distract from the need for real police reform. Rep. Cedric Richmond countered with a powerful statement on why this issue is so important and why we need to pass the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act.
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020:
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- Prohibits federal, state, and local law enforcement from racial, religious and discriminatory profiling, and mandates training on racial, religious, and discriminatory profiling for all law enforcement.
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- Bans chokeholds, carotid holds and no-knock warrants at the federal level and limits the transfer of military-grade equipment to state and local law enforcement.
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- Mandates the use of dashboard cameras and body cameras for federal offices and requires state and local law enforcement to use existing federal funds to ensure the use of police body cameras.
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- Establishes a National Police Misconduct Registry to prevent problematic officers who are fired or leave on agency from moving to another jurisdiction without any accountability.
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- Amends federal criminal statute from “willfulness” to a “recklessness” standard to successfully identify and prosecute police misconduct.
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- Reforms qualified immunity so that individuals are not barred from recovering damages when police violate their constitutional rights.
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- Establishes public safety innovation grants for community-based organizations to create local commissions and task forces to help communities to re-imagine and develop concrete, just and equitable public safety approaches.
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- Creates law enforcement development and training programs to develop best practices and requires the creation of law enforcement accreditation standard recommendations based on President Obama’s Taskforce on 21st Century policing.
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- Requires state and local law enforcement agencies to report use of force data, disaggregated by race, sex, disability, religion, age.
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- Improves the use of pattern and practice investigations at the federal level by granting the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division subpoena power and creates a grant program for state attorneys general to develop authority to conduct independent investigations into problematic police departments.
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- Establishes a Department of Justice task force to coordinate the investigation, prosecution and enforcement efforts of federal, state and local governments in cases related to law enforcement misconduct.
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Full text of the legislation is available here.
A section-by-section summary of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 is available here.
A fact sheet on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 is available here.
The Post continues:
Across the Capitol, Senate Republicans unveiled legislation that avoids mandating certain changes in police practices. It would establish a commission to lead a comprehensive review of policing tactics to establish best practices for officers and encourage de-escalation training.
An old axiom: when you want to kick the can down the road and do nothing, form a commission. There already have been numerous commissions on policing to issue reports over the past 50 years; they are collecting dust on the shelves of the Library of Congress.
The Democratic bill would ban chokeholds and certain no-knock warrants. The Republican bill does not prohibit those practices, but rather encourages local police and law enforcement agencies to curtail such practices with the threat of a loss of federal funds.
The Republican bill also does not end, nor even limit the scope of qualified immunity for police officers, as the Democratic bill does.
McConnell, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and other leading Senate Republicans promoted the bill at a morning news conference and urged Democratic senators — whose help would be needed to advance the measure — to at least allow a floor debate to proceed when GOP leaders introduce the legislation next week.
“We’re serious about making a law here,” McConnell said. “This is not about trying to create partisan differences. This is about coming together and getting an outcome.”
The “Grim Reaper” of the “legislative graveyard” in the Senate exposed this lie earlier this week: McConnell said the Democratic bill, which has 227 co-sponsors in the House and 36 in the Senate, is “going nowhere” in his chamber… because “states rights!”
Sorry Mitch, Nancy Pelosi has the votes to pass the House bill, and you do not have 60 votes for cloture on the Senate’s watered-down weak tea bill. Pelosi is negotiating from a position of strength, you are not. So guess which bill Congress is going with if you are serious about (you’re not) “coming together and getting an outcome.” Pelosi Gives McConnell A Taste Of His Own Medicine By Killing Senate Policing Bill:
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) made it clear that Mitch McConnell’s watered-down faux policing bill is DOA in the House.
Pelosi said in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA:
House Democrats hope to work in a bipartisan way to pass legislation that creates meaningful change to end the epidemic of racial injustice and police brutality in America. The Senate proposal of studies and reporting without transparency and accountability is inadequate. The Senate’s so-called Justice Act is not action.
In contrast, Democrats’ George Floyd Justice in Policing Act contains real, structural legal reforms to end court-created barriers to accountability, provisions for independent investigations of misconduct, increased pattern and practice investigative authority, and a transparent national registry of police misconduct that is accessible to the public. The Democratic proposal will fundamentally and forever transform the culture of policing to address systemic racism and put an end to shielding police from accountability.
During this moment of national anguish, we must insist on bold change to save lives.
The Senate Republican bill doesn’t require any major reforms to policing. It is more like Republicans are asking the police if they would kindly consider not killing innocent African-Americans with chokeholds.
House Democrats have put forward a true reform bill, while Mitch McConnell and his Senate Republicans are posing and pretending.
As Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and Crime Subcommittee Chair, who led the Democratic effort said, the GOP approach “definitely mimics parts of our [bill] but without the teeth.” It is all about creating the illusion of doing something, when it actually does very little. Senate GOP proposes police changes, less sweeping than Dems:
Senate Republicans unveiled proposed changes to police procedures and accountability Wednesday, countering Democrats’ far-reaching overhaul with a more modest package[.]
The White House signaled President Donald Trump’s support as Republicans embraced a new priority with the “Justice Act,” the most ambitious GOP policing proposal in years [only because there has been NONE] in response to the massive public protests over the death of George Floyd and other black Americans.
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell promised speedy action next week, when the House will also be voting on the Democratic plan. That puts the two bills on a collision course, but the momentum of suddenly shifting American attitudes is driving both. Half of adults now say police violence is a serious problem, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll.
The outlook is extremely fluid, as both parties see a need to meet the moment after graphic cellphone videos and a public outcry over police killings sparked a worldwide movement against racism and police violence.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized the GOP package as “inadequate.” But she also said House Democrats “hope to work in a bipartisan way to pass legislation that creates meaningful change to end the epidemic of racial injustice and police brutality in America.”
In the Senate, McConnell is pushing the Republican bill ahead of other priorities, all but daring less-than-satisfied Democrats to block the debate.
This is just false bravado. He doesn’t have the votes for the Senate GOP’s watered-down weak tea bill.
“We are serious about making a law,” said the GOP leader, whose home state of Kentucky has faced unrest over the officer-involved killing of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor.
The two parties’ bills take similar but far-from-identical approaches to the core issues of police accountability and procedures as Congress delves into the problem of excessive use of force and the treatment of people of color.
Central to both packages is a beefed-up database on use-of-force incidents, so officers’ records can be tracked even when they transfer from one department to another. It’s also a priority for Trump, who signed an executive order this week on a similar plan.
The GOP legislation would increase requirements for law enforcement to compile use-of-force reports under a new George Floyd and Walter Scott Notification Act, named for the Minnesota man whose May 25 death sparked worldwide protests over police violence, and Scott, a South Carolina man shot by police after a traffic stop in 2015. Scott is not related to the senator.
It would also establish the Breonna Taylor Notification Act to track “no-knock” warrants, named for the Louisville woman who was killed when police used a no-knock warrant to enter her home.
The Democratic bill would go further by changing the federal statute governing police misconduct to include officers engaging in “reckless” actions.
Both bills would seek to change police procedures — doing away with chokeholds, which are already banned by many departments, or mandating the use of body cameras — and bolster training to prevent officers from engaging in excessive force or racial profiling.
While the Republican package simply encourages many of the changes in policing tactics, by either taking away funds if departments fail to comply or providing funds to implement changes, the Democratic bill often would make the changes mandatory.
The GOP package also establishes a “duty to intervene” protocol in response to Floyd’s death. Other officers stood by as Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into the man’s neck.
But Democrats roundly criticized the Republican legislation, with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer saying it “does not rise to the moment” and would provide less accountability than the House Democrats’ version. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler called the GOP bill a “sham.”
One key area of disagreement is over ending “qualified immunity” for officers to make it easier for those injured by police to seek damages in lawsuits. The Democratic bill includes the provision, but the White House has said it is a line too far that Trump will not support.
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Despite the differences, the GOP effort seeks to reach across the aisle to Democrats in several ways. It includes one long-sought bill to make lynching a federal hate crime and another to launch a study of the social status of black men and boys that has been touted by Pelosi.
So are Republicans promising to lock Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) in the cloak room closet for the vote on the anti-lynching bill this time? Frustration and Fury as Rand Paul Holds Up Anti-Lynching Bill in Senate.
The Republican package — dubbed the “Just and Unifying Solutions To Invigorate Communities Everywhere Act of 2020” aka JUSTICE Act — also includes a bipartisan Senate proposal to establish a National Criminal Justice Commission Act and extends funding streams for various federal law enforcement programs, including the COPS program important to states.
The package includes a mix of other proposals, including tapping the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture to create a law enforcement training curriculum on “the history of racism in the United States.” Another closes a loophole to prohibit federal law enforcement officers from engaging in sexual acts with those being arrested or in custody.
Expenditures for the bill would be considered on an emergency basis, so as not to count against federal deficits. [Oh great, a budget deficit gimmick to boot].
Look, if you want real policing reforms, contact your members of Congress and tell them to pass the House bill George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and if there are good elements in the Senate GOP bill, amend the House bill to include those good elements. Let’s get this done. But enough with Mitch McConnell’s bullshit gamesmanship. It’s time to send him back to his old Kentucky home.