Pelosi: Police overhaul talks possible
After House passage, Speaker wants Senate to adopt its own version
Washington — Passage of the House Democrats’ far-reaching police overhaul bill returned attention to the Senate on Friday, as the divided Congress struggles to address the global outcry over the killings of George Floyd and other Black Americans.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled she’s willing to negotiate if the Senate is able to approve its own bill. But she said Democrats have no interest in engaging with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Republican-only package, which collapsed this week after Senate Democrats blocked it from debate.
“The Senate has to do better,” Pelosi said.
The House approved the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act late Thursday in a vote heavy with emotion and symbolism. It was one month to the day after Floyd’s death, which sparked a national reconsideration of policing tactics and racial injustice.
The legislative package from Democrats is perhaps the most ambitious set of proposed changes to police procedures and accountability in decades. Backed by the nation’s leading civil rights groups, it aims to match the moment of demonstrations that filled streets across the nation. It has almost zero chance of becoming law.
President Donald Trump’s administration said he would veto the bill. McConnell has said the bill would not pass the Republican-held chamber.
After the GOP policing bill stalled this week, blocked by Democrats, Trump shrugged.
“If nothing happens with it, it’s one of those things,” Trump said. “We have different philosophies.”
Congress is now at a familiar impasse despite protests outside their door and polling that shows Americans overwhelmingly want changes after the deaths of Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others in interactions with law enforcement. The two parties are instead appealing to voters ahead of the fall election, which will determine control of the House, Senate and White House.
In the month since Floyd’s May 25 death, funeral services were held for Rayshard Brooks, a Black man shot and killed by police in Atlanta. Thursday was also what would have been the 18th birthday of Tamir Rice, a Black boy killed by police in Ohio in 2014. In New York, prosecutors this week filed criminal charges against an officer who put a Black man in what they said was a banned chokehold.
Even though the proposals from Congress share common ground, they diverge widely. One main difference is that several of the changes proposed by Republicans — such as restrictions on police use of chokeholds, which are already prohibited in many jurisdictions — are banned by Democrats.