Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
House bill on policing OK’d along party lines
McConnell says it won’t clear Senate
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House approved a Democrats-crafted police overhaul bill — the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act — Thursday evening in a vote heavy with emotion and symbolism.
A divided Congress has struggled to address the global outcry over the deaths of Floyd and other black Americans at the hands of police officers.
The 236-181 vote was largely along party lines, with three Republicans joining Democrats in favor of passage.
Lawmakers who have been working from home during the coronavirus crisis were summoned to the Capitol for an emotional, hours-long debate. Dozens voted by proxy under new pandemic rules.
The bill, backed by the nation’s leading civil rights groups, is one of the most ambitious proposed overhauls of police procedures and accountability in decades. But its odds of becoming law are low.
President Donald Trump’s administration has said he would veto the bill. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the bill will not pass in the Republican-held Senate.
The vote played out in the partisan manner that has epitomized the polarized debate in recent weeks, despite public polling that shows broad support for some restrictions on law enforcement.
Meanwhile, Trump lashed out at the Black Lives Matters movement in tweets Thursday, accusing one of its members of treason and lamenting reported plans for a new mural in front of Trump Tower in Manhattan to honor the cause.
His comments were among his most aggressive on the movement that rose up in recent years — and has found new urgency in recent weeks — against racial profiling and police violence.
Most Republicans have indicated support for a narrower proposal offered by Senate Republicans.
That GOP proposal hit a procedural roadblock Wednesday when Senate Democrats opposed it, leaving Congress at a standstill on an issue that has dominated the public mindset for the past month.
The partisan outcome underscored the election-year struggle in Congress to find consensus in the face of a national crisis over race and policing.
Neither bill goes as far as some activists want. Those activists favor defunding the police and shifting resources to other community services.
The House bill is named for Floyd, the 46-year-old black man whose killing in Minneapolis while in police custody last month sparked the nationwide outcry and demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality.
Three parents of victims in other cases of police violence that have drawn national attention threw their support behind the House bill Thursday.
The legislation would ban chokeholds, establish a national database to track police misconduct and prohibit certain no-knock warrants, among other initiatives. The bill, which has more than 200 Democratic co-sponsors, contains several provisions that would make it easier to hold officers accountable for misconduct in civil and criminal court.
Many of the proposals were crafted long ago but are receiving renewed attention in the wake of Floyd’s death.
During the debate Thursday, Democrats argued that the measure was long overdue, and some black lawmakers recounted their own experiences.
“We have a national problem of police brutality. … It requires a national solution,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., one of the highest-ranking black lawmakers in Congress. “Here in America, every black mother and every black father has to have the talk with their child about what to do when approached by police. Any encounter can turn deadly, not because of criminal conduct but because of the color of their skin.”
Jeffries said he had the talk with his two sons — and it was similar to the talk he had with his father decades ago. “Nothing has changed,” Jeffries said.
Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said hundreds of thousands of people “in every state in the union” are marching in the streets to make sure Floyd “will not be just another black man dead at the hands of the police.”
Republicans countered that federal mandates go too far and that the bill failed to include GOP input. Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., said most police are “good, honest people trying to help our community” and that lawmakers should not “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., criticized the Democratic measure. “They don’t want to talk about it when white people are killed,” he said, later asking, “what’s going to happen when we have a timid, neutered police force?”
Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., said it’s time to stand with law enforcement, the “men and women in blue.” House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California decried the “mob” of demonstrators.
At one point Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., stood up to say he just didn’t understand what was happening in the country. One black Democratic lawmaker after another rose to encourage him to pick up a U.S. history book or watch some of the many films now streaming about the black experience in America.
At a news conference Thursday morning outside the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Bass and other Democrats hailed what they considered a transformative measure.
“Exactly one month ago, George Floyd spoke his final words — ‘I can’t breathe’ — and changed the course of history,” Pelosi said. She said the Senate faces a choice “to honor George Floyd’s life or to do nothing.”
The House bill, Pelosi said, “will fundamentally transform the culture of policing to address systemic racism, curb police brutality and bring accountability to our police departments. It will save lives.”
In a national Associated Press-NORC survey this month, a majority of respondents said they support changes such as requiring officers to wear body cameras and prosecuting officers who use excessive force.
But Trump has argued that the bill goes too far. On Wednesday, he accused Democrats of wanting to “weaken our police” and “take away immunity.”
After Democrats blocked the Senate measure Wednesday, no signs of new talks emerged.
“It’s really up to the Democrats, honestly. They have to come to the table on something,” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the lead sponsor of the GOP proposal, told reporters Thursday.
Scott expressed concern that the momentum for compromise was fading. “It’s dissipating as we speak,” Scott said. “And they know it. They are playing a dangerous game of politics that they can afford to wait until November or next year. That’s a dangerous game.”
Pelosi defended Senate Democrats for blocking Scott’s bill, saying it would “defang” the bill that her chamber advanced. “That isn’t anything they believed in, that they could vote for. I’m very proud of them,” the speaker told reporters Thursday.
In addition to leading civil rights organizations, the House bill has been endorsed by the Brady gun control group, major city mayors and more than 750 entertainment-industry artists.
On Thursday, three people who have firsthand experience with police violence also joined the list of endorsers. In a statement, the mothers of Tamir Rice and Eric Garner and the father of John Crawford III expressed their support for the bill.
McConnell, R-Ky., delivered a floor speech in which he excoriated Democrats for blocking Scott’s bill.
“The American people know you do not really want progress on an issue if you block the Senate from taking it up,” McConnell said. “They know that most police officers are brave and honorable, and that most protesters are peaceful. And they know our country needs both.”
But at the Capitol news conference Thursday morning, Bass of the Congressional Black Caucus said the House bill marked a momentous occasion.
“On May 25, 2020, our world changed,” Bass said. “This time was different. This time, the video just couldn’t be questioned. The slow murder of George Floyd that took place over eight minutes and 46 seconds was just not up for speculation.”
TRUMP TWEETS
Trump, who has said he supports peaceful protesters, has increasingly articulated disdain for the protests that continue across the country after Floyd’s death.
“Black Lives Matter leader states, ‘If U.S. doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it.’ This is Treason, Sedition, Insurrection!” Trump tweeted.
A minute later he wrote: “Told that NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to paint the fabled & beautiful Fifth Avenue, right in front of Trump Tower/Tiffany, with a big yellow Black Lives Matter sign. ‘Pigs in a Blanket, Fry ‘Em Like Bacon,’ referring to killing Police, is their chant. NYC Police are furious.”
The first tweet seems to be a reference to a Fox News interview with Hawk Newsome — identified as the president of the Greater New York Black Lives Matter — that has been replayed many times on the network since it aired Wednesday.
Pressed on whether he believes violence is necessary to achieve the movement’s goals, Newsome answered, “If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. All right? And I could be speaking … figuratively. I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation.”
Trump’s second tweet appears to refer to a story published in the New York Post on Wednesday that claims de Blasio, a Democrat, wants to commission a mural on Fifth Avenue in front of Trump Tower similar to the one District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser had painted on a street that leads to the White House.
The chant, “pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon,” was heard at a Black Lives Matters protest in 2015 and has been a source of controversy ever since. The protest organizers at the time denied that it was intended to incite violence and was rather a commentary on police who kill civilians.
Information for this article was contributed by Felicia Sonmez, Paul Kane, Rhonda Colvin, Seung Min Kim and Colby Itkowitz of The Washington Post; and by Lisa Mascaro, Laurie Kellman, Andrew Taylor, Darlene Superville and Jill Colvin of The Associated Press.