Even if chokehold ban passes, police might not comply

WASHINGTON — The national outcry over the deaths of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans at the hands of police has Congress moving with unusual speed to debate sweeping reforms such as bans on chokeholds and noknock warrants.

The bill House Democrats are expected to bring to the floor Thursday goes farther than the version Senate Republicans plan to call up this week. But even if the chambers can agree on a final measure, it's a real question as to whether state and local law enforcement agencies will go along. The proposals rely on the threat of a loss of federal funding for many of the suggested changes. When that's been tried in the past, federal oversight has been slow and some states have determined that the funding cuts are smaller than the cost of complying.

“We already have examples of penalties leveraged,” said Chris Asplen, executive director of the National Criminal Justice Association, which represents state, local and tribal governments on crime control issues. “I would suggest they are not as effective as I think the originators would have liked them to be.”

Six years ago, activists pleaded for police reforms after Eric Garner, a 43-yearold Black father of six, died after New York City officer put him in chokehold and a Ferguson, Mo., officer fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old Black man. Congress responded by requiring law enforcement agencies to report deaths that occur during custody.

But at the beginning of this year, the Justice Department still hadn't adopted uniform procedures to collect reliable data or penalized any state for not complying.

In another example of the limits of Congress' power, fewer than half the states are certified as being in full compliance with a 2003 federal law to prevent sexual assaults in prisons. Only 18 have substantially implemented a sex offender registration program, created by a 2006 law, despite the threat of a cut in Justice Department grants for not participating.

The loss of federal dollars is one of the few cudgels the federal government has over state and local law enforcement as regulation is an area the Constitution generally entrusts to the states.

“If you think about the inability to have any grants, if your department has chokeholds, that frankly is, by default, a ban on chokeholds,” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said when Senate Republicans introduced their proposal Wednesday.

Congress most recently approved about $900 million in funding for the two grant programs that would be used as leverage, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

That's a significant amount but it's less than 1% of what's spent on justice systems at the state and local level. The budget of the New York City Police Department alone is nearly $6 billion.

Under t he House a nd Senate proposals, grant funding would not just be reduced, as has been threatened in some of the past efforts. States and local law enforcement agencies could be barred from receiving anything from top grant programs unless they adhere to some of the proposed new rules.