The coronavirus pandemic, which had consumed Congress for months, took a back seat this week to a new crisis confronting America following the death of a black man in police custody.
Lawmakers in both chambers are suddenly focused on legislation to reform law enforcement and improve social justice in the wake of the death of George Floyd.
Floyd died after being restrained by a white Minneapolis police officer who placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, ignoring Floyd’s pleas that he could not breathe.
The act was recorded and made public, provoking outrage and sparking protests and demonstrations across the country.
Protesters gathered on D.C. streets every day last week, and hundreds assembled near the Capitol, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid them a supportive visit.
Lawmakers in both parties now say they are ready to act with legislation that would bring more accountability and safety to policing.
Pelosi announced that the House will take the first step with sweeping legislation set to be unveiled June 8.
The Congressional Black Caucus, led by Chairwoman Karen Bass, a California Democrat, will lead the effort and will draft the measure.
“We are working with the Senate Democrats as well and advancing legislation, protecting equal justice, and including a number of provisions ending racial profiling, ending excessive use of force, ending qualified immunity,” Pelosi said.
Democrats, Pelosi said, also plan to address “the loss of trust between police departments and communities that [they] serve,” adding that Democrats “will not relent until that is secure.”
Pelosi referred to Floyd’s death as “an inflection point, a threshold that our country has crossed.”
Congress, which has long shied away from imposing federal laws to reform local police departments, may also have crossed a threshold.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said that he, too, believes Congress should examine legislation to respond to black deaths at the hands of the police.
“Certainly, it’s something we need to take a look at,” McConnell said. “We’ll be talking to our colleagues about what, if anything, is appropriate for us to do in the wake of what is going on.”
McConnell’s support for congressional action stems partly from a March police killing in Louisville, Kentucky. Police shot and killed Breonna Taylor, an emergency medical technician, in her own apartment. Police had stormed her house in the middle of the night with a “no-knock” warrant. Police said they entered Taylor’s apartment after Kenneth Walker, Taylor’s boyfriend, fired at them. Walker said he acted in self-defense.
“I can understand the outrage,” McConnell said last week. “It raises your concerns about the grievances and how legitimate they are — and also the appropriateness of the tactics.”
McConnell hasn’t specified what kind of legislation he would support. The GOP’s sole black senator, Tim Scott of South Carolina, drafted the Walter Scott Notification Act, which would compel states to track and record the details, including race, of every police shooting. States that failed to track and report the data would lose federal funding.
He first introduced the measure in 2015. It’s named for Walter Scott, an unarmed black man who was shot to death by a white police officer after a traffic stop.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, a top GOP lawmaker and ex-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is a co-sponsor, along with Sen. Joni Ernst, who is a member of the Republican leadership, and Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma.
“The fact is without proper data in regards to officer-related shootings, we cannot find lasting solutions in this area,” Scott said Wednesday. “I will continue working in the coming weeks to introduce new solutions around race, justice, and ensuring people of all colors and economic classes have the opportunity to achieve the American dream.”
On the House side, the Judiciary Committee is slated to advance a bill banning the use of the chokehold maneuver by police.
The measure is sponsored by House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat. It’s gone nowhere since Hakeem reintroduced it last year but could now be part of the Democratic police reform package Pelosi touted last week, a top aide said.
The measure is named after Eric Garner, who died in 2014 after a New York City Police officer restrained him using a chokehold.
“The use of a chokehold, or a knee to the neck, or any other tactic that results in strangulation, is unnecessary and unacceptable, uncivilized, unconscionable, and un-American,” Jeffries told the Washington Examiner. “The Eric Garner Excessive Use of Force Prevention Act will make it unlawful.”
