Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked a Republican police reform bill, saying it didn’t go far enough to address national unrest over the killing of George Floyd by a Minnesota cop.
The JUSTICE Act, drafted by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), failed to gain the 60 votes needed for consideration, failing 55-45 in a mostly party-line vote.
“My friends on the other side just said no,” said Scott, the only black Republican senator, after the vote failed. He said Democrats rejected an offer to hold amendment votes to consider changes.
The bill contains incentives for local departments to restrict use of chokeholds, purchase and use body-worn cameras and keep information on use-of-force incidents and no-knock raids.
The GOP bill also would make lynching a federal crime, create a commission to study conditions of black men and boys and fund efforts to recruit black police officers.
The outcome was a foregone conclusion as Democrats pushed for further reforms than the bill addressed.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the bill “a cul-de-sac cynically designed by [Senate Majority] Leader [Mitch] McConnell so that he can say that he can do something but do nothing.”
In a Tuesday interview with CBS News Radio, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), using very inflammatory language, accused Republicans of “trying to get away with murder actually — the murder of George Floyd.”
McConnell (R-Ky.) blasted Pelosi for the “unhinged” remark and said Democrats wanted to preserve a “live campaign issue” rather than actually pass reforms.
“Two weeks ago, it was implied that the Senate would have ‘blood on our hands’ if we didn’t take up police reform. Now Democrats say Sen. Scott and 48 other senators have blood on our hands because we are trying to take up police reform,” McConnell said.
Democrats are pushing a competing “Justice in Policing Act,” with the House expected to vote Thursday on the bill.
The Democratic bill favors stronger federal rules, rather than incentives, on policies such as chokeholds and would additionally ban federal officials from conducting no-knock raids when serving drug warrants, curtail the transfer of surplus military equipment to local and state police agencies and lower the threshold to federally prosecute officers if they exhibit a “reckless disregard” for someone’s life.
Scott argued there’s “an overlap of 70 to 75 percent” on Republican and Democratic ideas.
President Trump last week signed an executive order to create a national system for tracking police misconduct, encourage departments to send social workers on some nonviolent police calls and incentivize officer training programs that teach a ban on chokeholds in most instances.
White House officials have expressed hope for an ultimate bipartisan bill akin to the successful criminal sentencing and prison reform First Step Act of 2018, Trump’s first major bipartisan legislative achievement.
“Let’s start on all of the things that we agree [on], and get those things done because they can be very beneficial,” White House adviser Ja’Ron Smith said last week.