Lawmakers grapple with response
New York’s Congress members weigh options for law enforcement reform
Being a black man in America has often meant tears for U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado, Drhinebeck, the first person of color to represent upstate New York.
The image of another black man, George Floyd, who died after his neck was kneeled on by a Minneapolis police officer last week, “sets off fits of rage I know in my heart do no one good,” he wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
As protests continue around the country, Delgado, who declined to be interviewed, and other members of Congress are grappling with how to respond to a nation in anguish over deepseeded issues of race and police use of force in the middle of a global pandemic.
Rep. Paul Tonko, D-amsterdam, attended the protests in Albany on Saturday and said he is resolved to address “systemic inequities.”
“While I never condone the use of violence or destructive acts, my heart is broken that we have reached this point as a people and as a nation,” Tonko said. “In these grim days, we must resolve ourselves to address the historic injustices that continue to shatter us but also to do so in ways that are forceful, urgent and nonviolent.”
Tonko has supported a new House resolution condemning police brutality. The nonbinding measure states: “The House of Representatives condemns all acts of brutality, racial profiling and the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers and calls for the end of militarized policing practices.”
The resolution would not change the country’s laws. For that, Congress is looking at other measures. Many lawmakers said they realize that addressing centuries of racism through legislative changes will be difficult.
In the op-ed, Delgado affirmed that he still believes voting, lawmaking and protesting can make a difference.
“If you want to change training practices and use-of-force policies to prevent unjust outcomes, then you need to vote for local officials who will make these changes and negotiate contracts that bring about real accountability,” Delgado wrote.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., called on the Senate Tuesday to pass a law enforcement reform bill before July 4, and Democrats in both chambers will be proposing ideas for that this week.
Senate Democrats plan to propose a piece of “comprehensive” legislation this week to address policing. It’s unclear what the response from Senate Republicans will be, although many have condemned Floyd’s death at the hands of the police. The Senate Judiciary Committee will also hold a hearing on June 16 on the relationship between law enforcement and black communities.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle Tuesday said President Donald Trump should not use federal troops to quell protests. Both parties have said they oppose violence and looting disrupting peaceful assembly.
“As our nation grieves together, I support the constitutional right to peacefully protest,” said U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-schuylerville. “I do not support the anarchy, looting, destruction of property, and violence that we are seeing across the country. I agree
with George Floyd’s family that this violence and destruction debases the call for justice for George.”
Speaking in the White House Rose Garden on Monday evening, Trump strongly urged governors to deploy more National Guard forces to “dominate” the streets, warning them if they did not, he would send the military in. As he spoke, federal troops used flash-bombs and rubber bullets to clear Lafayette Square, which abuts the White House, of peaceful protesters.
Then, at 7:01 p.m., at the conclusion of his remarks and just after Washington, D.C.’S curfew order took effect, Trump walked out of the White House, across the forcibly cleared square to St. John’s Episcopal Church, where he held up a Bible, posed for photos and declared the U.S. is the “greatest country in the world.” He then walked back to the White House.
“When the president of the United States — who is charged with faithfully executing our laws — deploys the military domestically, and uses tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protesters, he is not just attacking these individuals,” Delgado said. “He is also attacking our very democracy, and our commitment as a nation to ensure that no one person should ever rise above the law and rule with tyrannical authority. I condemn this breach of duty to our country with every fiber in my American bones.”
Tonko called it a “horrifying attack” and said Trump should take a look in the Bible he held “as a prop.”
“In it, he would find a verse from Micah 6:8: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Tonko said. Senate Democrats offered a resolution to condemn Trump’s treatment of protestors in Lafayette Square. Republicans objected to the unanimous consent motion.
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a top Republican in the Senate, said he’d rather state and local authorities respond to the protests, not the military.
“You want to de-escalate rather than escalate,” he said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., said the Insurrection Act, the law that gives the president powers to deploy the military domestically, should be used only as a “last resort.”
“President Trump’s call for law and order in our nation during this turbulent time is an important message that America needed to hear,” Stefanik said. “The president has a responsibility to ensure law and order in our country. The chaos, burning, and looting we are seeing in many cities is a direct threat to the safety of all people.”
Multiple Democrats have supported amending upcoming defense legislation to limit the militarygrade weapons federal officials send to some police forces and constrain the use of military force on protesters. Some have also supported using independent investigators, not local prosecutors, to examine police misconduct.
House lawmakers are considering passage of legislation to make chokeholds, or any pressure applied to the windpipe or throat, a civil rights violation — a bill proposed in 2019 in response to Eric Garner’s death.
Garner died in 2014 in a confrontation with a New York City police officer, who used a chokehold as Garner said: “I can’t breathe.” The same words were Floyd’s last as a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck while he was handcuffed. The House could also eye ending qualified immunity for police officers for actions in the line of duty.
The House also is examining legislation creating a Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys to study conditions affecting that population, including “homicide rates, arrest and incarceration rates, poverty, violence, fatherhood, mentorship, drug abuse, death rates, disparate income and wealth levels, school performance in all grade levels including post-secondary levels and college, and health issues.”
As a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Delgado will be helping lead that chamber’s response to Floyd’s death.
“They will be making recommendations,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-calif., said Tuesday. “Whether it is to end racial profiling or some of the other — a number of pieces of legislation, police brutality being part of that, but racial profiling, such a universal affliction that we must be rid of.”