Dueling policing bills to go before Congress
WASHINGTON — The House and Senate will take up competing partisan policing overhaul bills this week, but there are no signs of a bipartisan deal coming together that could get to President Donald Trump’s desk.
The Democratic House measure is more expansive than the Republican Senate offering but both seek to increase reporting of use-of-force incidents, improve training protocols to emphasize deescalation and incentivize states to ban chokeholds and use body cameras.
The House will vote on its policing bill when it returns to session on Thursday. It is expected to pass because a majority of members have already signaled their support, with 230 Democrats cosponsoring the bill.
It’s unclear how the three Democrats who have not signed on as cosponsors of the bill will vote. The three are Reps. Anthony Brindisi of New York, Jared Golden of Maine and Ben McAdams of Utah.
Few, if any, House Republicans are expected to support the bill. None did during the Judiciary Committee markup last week.
Provisions in the House bill that are not in the Senate measure include a ban on racial profiling; a national standard that use of force should be used as a last resort; a relaxation of the qualified immunity doctrine that shields police from lawsuits for actions performed on the job; a ban on no-knock warrants in federal drug cases, and grants for jurisdictions to use independent counsels to investigate and prosecute police misconduct.
The Senate starts its week considering the nomination of Cory T. Wilson of Mississippi to be a U.S. Circuit Judge for the 5th Circuit before turning to its policing bill on Wednesday.
The Senate bill includes some provisions not in the House measure, such as ones instituting a 20-year maximum sentence for officers caught falsifying police reports and creating a national commission to conduct a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system.
Both measures would withhold grant money for jurisdictions that don’t ban chokeholds, but the House measure goes further and makes use of the tactic a civil rights violation. Both bills use grant money to incentivize state and local jurisdictions to use body cameras, but only the House bill requires federal law enforcement to use them. And both measures require jurisdictions receiving federal grant money to report use-offorce data to the federal government, with the Democrats’ legislation requiring the Justice Department to set up a centralized database and the GOP measure relying on an existing FBI database.
Senate Democrats, who’ve panned the GOP bill as inadequate, have not yet said whether they will vote to cut off debate on the motion to proceed, the first procedural step needed to allow the Senate to even begin debate on the bill.
“If we pass a bill that’s ineffective and the killings continue and police departments resist change and there’s no accountability, the wound in our society will not close,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said in floor remarks Monday.
The New York Democrat criticized the GOP bill as “piecemeal and halfhearted” and “deeply and fundamentally flawed” but did not say whether his caucus would oppose beginning debate on it.
Alabama Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, who is the most vulnerable senator up for reelection this year according to CQ Roll Call’s most vulnerable incumbents rankings, said on MSNBC on Sunday that he is inclined to vote for the motion to proceed despite not being a fan of the GOP bill so that the chamber can have an open discussion.
“That doesn’t mean I’ll necessarily vote for the final passage on that bill,” Jones, a former U.S. attorney, said. “I’d like to see it changed. I’d like to see it strengthened, because I think the American people want something to happen; they want something good, something bold, something dramatic.”
Another big item on the House agenda for the week is a bill to make the District of Columbia the 51st state. Under the measure, just a 2-square-mile enclave encompassing the White House, Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court and other federal buildings would remain under federal control.
The bill, up for a vote on Friday, is expected to pass since it has 225 co-sponsors, all Democrats. This will be the first time a statehood bill has passed either chamber of Congress, a significant step for the movement. But the Republican-led Senate is not expected to take up the bill.
The House on Friday will also attempt to override Trump’s veto of a joint resolution providing congressional disapproval of the Department of Education’s borrower defense rule.