VOTES IN THE U.S. SENATE
BLOCKING REPUBLICAN POLICE BILL
Voting 55 for and 45 against, the Senate on Wednesday failed to reach the 60 votes needed to advance a Republican-drafted bill aimed at improving federal, state and local policing. Democrats called the measure much weaker than their party’s proposals in the Senate and House (above). Both parties would use federal funding of law enforcement as a lever to encourage state and local compliance.
The Republican bill would prohibit chokeholds as narrowly defined, in contrast to broader Democratic language in both chambers that would outlaw the use of a range of restraints on blood flow and breathing.
The GOP bill would establish one federal commission to study policing issues especially affecting black males, and another to recommend criminal justice reforms. The bill also sought to make lynching a federal crime; require police officers to wear a body camera; establish a federal database of officers fired for misconduct in order to make it difficult for them to get rehired elsewhere; require local departments to submit details on their use of force causing death or serious injury to a federal database, and fund diversity hiring and deescalation training.
The Republican bill omits Democratic provisions to bar or scale back the qualified immunity defense in civil lawsuits against police officers, and to give the Department of Justice and state attorneys general more power to investigate local police departments for “pattern and practices” abuses. The Republican bill does not include a proposed ban on racial profiling that Democrats put in their bill, nor would it scale back the militarization of local police departments.
While the GOP bill requires local police departments to submit data on their use of no-knock warrants, Democrats would prohibit no-knock warrants in federal drug cases. In another difference, Republicans would require most information in a newly established FBI database on police misconduct to be shielded from public view, while both Democratic measures would open the database to the public. A yes vote was to advance the GOP bill to debate and votes on amendments. Yes: Pat Toomey, R
No: Robert Casey Jr., D
CONFIRMING JUDGE CORY WILSON
Voting 52 for and 48 against, the Senate on Wednesday confirmed Cory T. Wilson, a state judge in Mississippi, for a seat on the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over federal trial courts in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. President Trump has now appointed 53 federal appeals judges, about one-fourth of the circuit court total. While Republicans praised Wilson’s conservative views, Democrats criticized him over his opposition to LGBTQ rights and the Affordable Care Act and support of Mississippi’s voter ID law and the carrying of concealed, loaded guns on public property including college campuses in his state.
Yes: Toomey
No: Casey