Police reform bill: House Democrats pass 'George Floyd' legislation despite opposition from Trump

Bill would make it easier to prosecute and sue police officers for misconduct, among several other provisions

The US House has passed a broad legislative package to reform policing that includes a nationwide ban on choke holds and no-knock warrants, along with provisions that would make it easier to prosecute and sue law enforcement entities for officer misconduct.

The bill, which passed on a party-line 236-181 vote on Thursday, is expected to languish in the Republican-controlled Senate as divisions persist between the parties over how — and how much — to reform US law enforcement.

A leaner policing reform bill from Senator Tim Scott, the only black Senate Republican, failed on Wednesday to reach the 60-vote threshold to clear a Democratic filibuster and move into the amendment phase.

House Democrats’ bill — named for George Floyd, whose death in Minneapolis police custody last month provoked nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism — contains a handful of provisions Donald Trump has dismissed as non-starters in negotiations.

For one, it would fundamentally alter “qualified immunity” laws to make it easier to sue police and other government agencies for misconduct, a proposal the Trump administration vehemently opposes.

Democrats' bill would also change the language of section 242 of title 18 of the US criminal code to make it easier to prosecute law enforcement officers for misconduct, another non-starter for Republicans.

And while the parties have similar proposals to incentivise state and local police departments to ban choke holds and no-knock warrants for drug cases, they are at odds over the various definitions of choke hold manoeuvres and whether or not to ban them at the federal level.

Leaders in both parties and chambers have accused their counterparts of letting political posturing derail the potential for good-faith legislating.

While Democrats have touted endorsements of their bill by leading civil rights and social justice groups such as the NAACP, National Action Network, and Urban League, Republicans have complained that they were never consulted on the bill’s creation.

“I reached out to those on the Democrat side explaining that I wanted to make law. I wanted to work together, and I still do,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Thursday.

But Democrats have shot back that Republicans have only proposed hollow “half-measures”.

"This is not the time for fake reform,” House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said on Thursday.

“If our Republican colleagues truly want to pass bold comprehensive legislation that will change the culture of policing and hold officers accountable, we welcome them to the table. But we will not accept—and the protesters whose energy has propelled a worldwide movement—will not accept anything less,” Mr Nadler said.

The vast differences in rhetoric between the parties, however, paint a bleak picture for the prospect of bipartisan compromise.

“LAW & ORDER!” the president tweeted for the second time in as many days as the debate over policing reform continued to roil Capitol Hill.

Mr McCarthy lambasted Speaker Nancy Pelosi for “being silent on the rioters and criminals who continue to destroy and deface the heroes and history of our country, and assault innocent citizens,” claiming Ms Pelosi “wants to appease the radical left.”

Beneath the frosty rhetoric, Republicans and Democrats do overlap on some elements of policing reform.

Both bills include:

• an anti-lynching measure aimed at protecting minorities from hate crimes;
• provisions to either incentivise or mandate local law enforcement entities to report use-of-force incidents to a nationally centralised database at the Justice Department; and
• incentives for de-escalation and racial bias training.

But the window for compromise on policing reform may have already passed, with negotiations on the annual defence spending bill commencing in earnest in the Senate next week and lawmakers turning their eyes towards another round of coronavirus aid.

“All I can say is, I don’t see a way forward,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a Republican, told reporters this week after the Senate’s failed procedural vote on policing reform this week.

Read more on the dwindling prospects the two chambers and White House will produce a compromise bill here.