Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that the Senate will take up Republican-crafted legislation meant to reform police violence next week – as Democrats are preparing to act in the House on their own proposal.
‘We’re serious about making a law here,’ McConnell said at a press conference with fellow Republicans in the Senate. ‘This is not about trying to create partisan differences. This is about coming together and getting an outcome.’
The GOP’s event was headed by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the lone black Republican in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (left of podium) said the Senate will take up police reform legislation next week. The package was developed in part by a task force led by Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina (at podium)
Scott was flanked by a group of mask-wearing Republicans at the event, where all called for changes in the wake of the killing of George Floyd while being arrested in Minneapolis.
McConnell blasted House Democratic efforts as ‘typical Democratic overreach to try to control everything in Washington.’
McConnell said he would file cloture on the legislation, meaning he would seek to cut off debate and bring it to the floor, next week. He did not say whether he intended to ‘fill the tree’ in an effort to block Democratic amendments. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said the bill would be subject to amendments.
Democrats plan to vote on their own version of the bill in the House in a matter of days.
The versions have key differences. The GOP bill does not include an outright ban on chokeholds by police, instead withholding funds from police departments that refuse to ban them or provide information on their frequency of use.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas pointed to a provision in the bill to create a Sept. 11th style commission on policing. He noted it cleared the Senate in 2015 but failed to become law.
Tim Scott, the Senate’s lone black Republican, helped develop the package
Scott spoke of his own experiences ‘driving while black’
The GOP press conference was carried on cable networks
Scott described his own experiences being pulled over ‘driving while black.’ He cited one instance last year where he got pulled over for failing to turn on his signal early enough before a lane change.
Scott, who led the task force that developed the bill, said there was no ‘false binary choice’ between people of color and law enforcement: a point echoed by other speakers.
‘We hear you,’ he told families of relatives killed during police encounters. ‘We’re listening to your concerns.’
Statistics compiled by the Washington Post since the shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Fergoson in 2015 showed nearly 1,000 Americans are killed by police each year.
McConnell needs 60 votes to bring the bill to the floor, and it appears the ranks of Senate Republicans, of which there are 53, are in line behind the legislation – meaning at least seven Democrats would need to cooperate to get it through the upper chamber.
The move comes just one day after President Donald Trump revealed he would be working with Congress to get policing legislation passed in conjunction to the executive order he signed after remarks in the Rose Garden Tuesday afternoon.
The GOP originally said their version of the bill wouldn’t reach the floor until after July Fourth, but the change of plans comes as urgency surmounts to get Scott’s plan passed before Election Day in November.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will unveil a policing reform bill Wednesday morning and plan to get it to the Senate floor by next week
The only black Republican senator, Tim Scott helped draft the legislation and will be there to announce the details of the bill with McConnell
The new sense of urgency from Republicans comes after President Donald Trump announced Tuesday he would be working with Congress to get legislation on police reform passed after he signed an executive order on policing
The Republican proposal, however, will come a week after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with a team of Party leaders, proposed a sweeping police reform bill they plan to vote on in the Democrat-controlled chamber in the next few days.
During a Democratic caucus conference call on Tuesday, the party leaders did not discuss the legislation since they had not yet seen what was included, but it’s likely they will feel it doesn’t go far enough.
The bill, according to a version obtained by Politico, will require departments to report on no-knock warrants and provide incentives for banning chokeholds, which is in both the Democrats’ bill and the president’s executive order.
Pelosi asserted that Trump’s order ‘falls seriously short’ of what Democrats feel is needed to reform police departments and fight back against what they claim is a system rooted in racism.
‘The President’s weak Executive Order falls sadly and seriously short of what is required to combat the epidemic of racial injustice and police brutality that is murdering hundreds of Black Americans,’ Pelosi said in a statement after the president unveiled the details of the plan.
‘The Executive Order lacks meaningful, mandatory accountability measures to end misconduct. During this moment of national anguish, we must insist on bold change, not meekly surrender to the bare minimum,’ she continued.
Trump admitted during his Rose Garden remarks, where he was surrounded by Republican lawmakers, administration official and law enforcement leaders, that Congress needed to pass legislation that would expand on the order.
He asserted that the Legislative Branch would be able to do more to combat police brutality.
During his address, and in the text of the executive order, Trump did not mention the core issue of police brutality aimed at the black community – and did not once use the word ‘racism.’
The president also did not address George Floyd’s death, which sparked the nationwide protests and riots demanding a change within policing, or the most recent incident in Atlanta, where a black man was shot during a tussle with two white cops.
Instead, he revealed that his three-tier plan would create mandatory de-escalation training for officers, a database that tracks and maintains a list of bad actor cops and a co-responder program, where social workers would respond to the scene with police officers – especially when dealing with homeless or mentally ill citizens.
Last week, Democrats announced their version of a sweeping police reform bill that they plan to vote on in the next few days
Democrats will see Republicans’ version of the bill today, and without seeing the text, some have already pegged Scott’s bill as not going far enough.
Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is expected to be on Capitol Hill to help get the bill to the floor and hopefully to have successful negotiations with Democrats on the details of the legislation.
As McConnell and Scott announced the bill Wednesday the morning, the House, at the same time, will be marking up it’s policing legislation in the Judiciary Committee.
While the Democrats are sure to get their bill passed through their chamber, they are also facing immense public pressure from more far-left factions of the Party to go further and defund and dismantle the policing institution.
Both Republican and more establishment and moderate Democrats – and even some more progressive members – are against the defund movement that has been adopted by many protesters.