Delegation considers police reform amid protests
WASHINGTON — Pained by the death of George Floyd and the anguish of a furious nation, Rep. Jahana Hayes did not protest. She prayed. Then, she picked up the phone and tried to start legislating.
Hayes, D-5, is among many members of Congress now working to propose new laws to reform law enforcement practices and fight deep-seeded racial injustices, after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck causing his death a week ago. But for Hayes, a black mother and wife of a black police detective, the work strikes very close to home.
“The actions of those officers made my husband and all of the other police officers, the good police officers who stand up and protect and serve our communities, less safe,” Hayes said. “This is a profession where there is no room for a few bad apples. If the airlines said we only have a few bad pilots, we would never accept that. So there needs to be accountability. It has to start at the top.”
Many Democrats, including Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, and Jim Himes, D-4, have supported a new House resolution condemning police brutality. The non-binding measure declares “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 realize that addressing a nation’s centuries-long history of racism through legislative changes will be difficult.
“It’s a hugely challenging question,” Himes said. “People sometimes think if we just write the right law everything will be different. But we are dealing with problems that go back literally 400 years and of course, police departments can do better training and of course, they can do a much better job at keeping bad actors off of the force. I think there is a lot we can do on that kind of thing very quickly. And by ‘we,’ I mean mayors, states and the federal government.”
Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., called on the Senate Tuesday to pass a law enforcement reform before July 4 and Senate Democrats will be proposing ideas this week.
“Massive reform to stop the virus of racism through training, education and professionalism in our police forces must be supported by the federal government,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Tuesday. “A national registry of officers who have been charged and convicted of police brutality, a stop to the sending of military hardware to police forces that don’t have a use for it and other measures can be taken at the federal level. Ultimately, law enforcement is a local responsibility. The federal government has to provide the training, the resources and the leadership.”
On Saturday, a masked Blumenthal in suit and tie stood with protestors in Bridgeport, one of many Connecticut cities where demonstrations have erupted.
“What I say to the protestors as I did on Saturday in Bridgeport: you are making a difference,” Blumenthal said. “You are literally through your faces and voices effectuating a moment of reckoning in this country. And it will lead to reform. It may be step by step, incremental, but it will change America.”
Himes attended demonstrations in Fairfield and Wilton Tuesday and a Stamford online vigil for George Floyd, as a coronavirus deaths, Monday night, he said.
“By and large, Connecticut has really, I think, been exemplary, in that there have been a lot of very passionate protests but I think generally the police have been exemplary,” Himes said.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle Tuesday said President Donald Trump should not use federal troops to quell protests.
Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Trump strongly urged governors Monday evening 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 protestors.
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, took photos with his staff and declared the U.S. "greatest country in the world." He then walked back to the White House.
“What part of the Bible talks about tear gassing peaceful protesters?” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., tweeted.
Senate Democrats offered a resolution to condemn Trump’s treatment of protestors in Lafayette Square. Republicans opposed unanimous consent of the resolution.
“The president’s abhorrent abuse of the military is what you’d expect from a two-bit dictator. From the president of the United States it is repulsive and frightening,” Blumenthal said. “Militarizing law enforcement is simply no answer to the peaceful protests that we’ve seen largely around the country.”
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 because “You want to deescalate, rather than escalate.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the Insurrection Act, the law that gives the president powers to deploy the military domestically, should only be used as a “last resort.”
“We need to restore order but using active duty military troops in circumstances like this is a fairly rare occurence,” Graham said. “I’m hoping that doesn’t have to occur.”
Multiple Democrats have supported amending upcoming defense legislation to limit the military grade weapons federal officials send to some police forces and constrain the use of military force on protestors and U.S. citizens.
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 response to Eric Garner’s death in 2019.
Garner died in 2014 in a confrontation with a New York Police officer who appeared to choke him, while Garner said “I can’t breathe.” The same words were Floyd’s last as a Minneapolis police officer held a knee on his neck.
The House could also eye ending qualified immunity for police officers and actions performed in the line of duty.
The House may also look to pass a bill 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 postsecondary levels and college, and health issues.”
Hayes sponsored the legislation in May 2019 and DeLauro added her support last week.
“The issues of systemic racism, unequal access to education, unfair hiring practices, incidents of police brutality, and distrust between law enforcement and communities of color cannot continue,” DeLauro said Monday. “It is time elected leaders take action, not encourage violence and stoke fear.”
As a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Hayes will be helping lead that chamber’s reponse to Floyd’s death.
“They will be making recommendations,” 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.”
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 look like although many have condemned the killing of Floyd. The Senate Judiciary Committee will also hold a hearing on June 16 on the relationship between law enforcement and black communities.
One of the ways Murphy has responded in recent days is by encouraging fundraising for Democratic Senate candidates, including Raphael Warnock, a U.S. Senate candidate in Georgia, a pastor at the Atlanta church, where Martin Luther King, Jr. formerly preached. Murphy tweeted Monday he’d helped raise $45,000 for Warnock already.
ActBlue, the donation website for Democrats, received record setting levels of contributions on Sunday and Monday, the New York Times reported.
“This is a profession where there is no room for a few bad apples.”
U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5