Senate Republicans have yet to release a promised set of reforms for America’s police departments, but that has not stopped top Senate Democrats from waging preemptive war on their colleagues’ forthcoming bill.
Leading Senate Democrats, including minority leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and top vice-presidential contender Kamala Harris (Calif.), have blasted Republicans’ still nascent proposal—which is expected to include restrictions on chokeholds, a national database of police use of force, and the labeling of lynching as a hate crime—as “cherry-picking” and “far from being relevant.”
All those measures appear in House Democrats’ own policing bill, but Senate Democrats suggest that the GOP bill is not up to the moment. Those criticisms come even as the bill’s contents remain in flux—the ban on chokeholds was added just days after Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.), who is overseeing the bill’s drafting, said such a ban could not “get to the finish line.”
These criticisms lay the groundwork for Schumer’s caucus to reject out of the gate a counterproposal to House Democrats’ sweeping package, forestalling widely popular efforts at legislative reform.
The preemptive critiques also indicate the tenuous political position Democrats find themselves in, as a vocal minority on their left flank agitates for the full defunding or abolition of America’s police departments. Although these proposals are unpopular, their sway within some sectors of the progressive base may inform Democrats’ caution about appearing too conciliatory on reform. – READ MORE
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