US police reform hangs in the balance as Democrats and Republicans move ahead with separate bills

The Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate are expected to vote on two separate policing reform bills next week, setting the stage for a high-stakes negotiation on subsequent compromise legislation that lawmakers from both parties are anxious to present to Donald Trump by the 4 July holiday.

As the nation continues to grieve over the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, and others, there are glimmers of hope in Washington for just such a deal.

“If we are going to make law on this issue in the United States Senate, it will have to be a bipartisan effort,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday.

But lawmakers from both parties and in both chambers must first survive a partisan sniping battle that has already begun.

The House Judiciary Committee — the notoriously contentious panel that drew up the articles of impeachment against Mr Trump last year — is holding an amendment markup for the Congressional Black Caucus’s robust policing reform bill on Tuesday.

Under its current framework, that legislation would reform “qualified immunity laws” to make it easier to prosecute and sue police and other government agencies for misconduct, a proposal the Trump administration has dismissed as non-negotiable.

House Democrats’ bill would also ban choke holds and no-knock warrants in drug cases, and create a national database of police misconduct so problematic officers cannot simply move to a different part of the state or country and get a new policing job, among many other provisions.

House Republican leadership has seized on calls from a broad swath of liberals outside of Congress to “defund the police” as a rallying cry against the legislation — even though congressional Democrats leading the legislative charge have disavowed such rhetoric.

“While Democrats threaten to defund the police and push bills that will make our officers less safe, Republicans understand that real change will only be achieved when we improve community law enforcement relationships and help our hardworking cops carry out their duties," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a statement on Wednesday.

Republicans on the Judiciary panel are expected to propose a slate of amendments that would alter the bill to conform to the Senate GOP’s less sweeping policing reform bill released on Wednesday.

None of those amendments are expected to pass. The House is expected to vote on the final version of the bill next week.

Over in the Senate...

Meanwhile, in the Senate, Mr McConnell has scheduled a procedural vote for next Wednesday on his chamber’s bill authored by Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Senate Republican.

Seven Democrats (or Democratic-caucusing Independents) must vote with Republicans in order to surmount the 60-vote filibuster threshold to consider amendments for Mr Scott’s bill.

Democrats have already begun picking apart the GOP’s bill, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying it’s “clear” after only a few hours of reviewing it that the legislation “does not rise to the moment.”

There is “a glaring contrast between a strong, comprehensive Democratic bill in the House and a much narrower and much less effective Republican bill in the Senate,” Mr Schumer said.

Instead of outright banning several unpopular policing practices — such as choke holds and no-knock warrants for drug suspects — Mr Scott’s bill aims to incentivise local law enforcement entities to enact policies prohibiting them by threatening to withhold funding for those that do not.

It does not reform the language of qualified immunity laws that protect officers who take forceful action from legal liability.

While Mr Scott has said easing qualified immunity language is a “poison pill” for Republicans, some GOP senators have expressed a desire to pursue the issue.

Republican Senator Mike Braun of Indiana told reporters on Tuesday he plans to introduce a bill reforming liability laws for police officers that he hopes will garner bipartisan support.

“I’ve been disappointed that we as a Republican conference haven’t been more aggressive here, and I’ll be disappointed here if we don’t get support behind reforming qualified immunity,” Mr Braun said.

Room for a deal?

Despite the frosty rhetoric in both parties, the Democratic and GOP bills overlap on many issues, which has sprung hope for a rare legislative compromise in a highly contentious presidential election year.

Both bills include:

An executive order signed by Mr Trump this week calls for the DOJ to create a national database to track documented officer misconduct, a provision codified in the Democrats’ bill.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham has urged his colleagues from both parties to find “common ground” and “reconcile” the two proposals, and has told reporters he is encouraged by the conversations he has been having with members of both parties.

Mr Graham, who is white, has appeared in recent weeks to acknowledge the systemic differences in how law enforcement treats black people and white people.

“Tim and I have completely different experiences with the cops,” Mr Graham said of Mr Scott, who has told reporters he was pulled over in his car by police as many as seven times in a year recently.

“How can it be that if you’re a United States senator from South Carolina and you’re black, you get stopped five or six times, and if you’re white, you never get stopped?” Mr Graham said.

White House weighs in

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany laid down a few markers during a Wednesday briefing on just what Mr Trump would sign into law.

Notably, she put the president's endorsement behind Mr Scott's legislation, calling it a "great bill."

She also again dismissed the notion that Mr Trump would sign any bill that nixed or altered qualified immunity because such a move would "not allow police [officers] to do their jobs."

Calling that a "complete and total non-starter" if lawmakers want to garner Mr Trump's signature on a potential compromise bill, Ms McEnany said "our streets would not be safe" without it on the books.

She also panned House and Senate Democrats' bills, saying it "undermines due process rights" for police officers because the White House has concluded it would allow complaints against officers to be made public before those matters were investigated and ruled upon by law enforcement leaders.

–John T. Bennett contributed to this report.