Congressional Democrats have been paying attention to the protesters across the nation -- the millions who are fed up with police racism and violence, and want change. And they have seen the polls -- poll after poll that shows a substantial majority of Americans agree with the protesters. They recognize that we have a systemic problem, and they want it fixed.Republicans continue to ignore the problem. Barr says there is no systemic racism among police. Trump says 99% of the police are great. Both are wrong. Racism is built into most police departments by the nation's history of embracing racism. And while most police officers may try not to act in a racist way, they refuse to report their racist and violent peers -- which makes them also culpable for the systemic racism.
Denial doesn't fix problems. It just allows them to continue and grow even worse. Americans of all colors are demanding change, and congressional Democrats are ready to provide that change. They just announced a bill to curb racist police violence. It doesn't go far enough in my opinion, but it is a great starting point -- and it would improve things and save lives.
The bill is going to pass in the House. But the Senate is the problem. Will Senate Republicans let McConnell kill the bill (as he has done with hundreds of other bills)? Are they so afraid of their shrinking base that they will refuse to act? The odds are good they will, but if they do, the voters will punish them in November.
Here is how Jennifer Rubin describes the Democratic bill (and Republican reluctance to change) in her Washington Post column:
The measures include reducing the requirement necessary to hold police officers accountable (lowering the standard needed to pierce the shield of qualified immunity for police officers from “willfulness” to “recklessness”); limiting transfer of military weaponry to police; increasing transparency by creating a national register of police misconduct; banning chokeholds; designing a national standard for use of force; requiring independent investigation of police abuse; ending racial profiling; and granting subpoena power to the civil rights division of the Justice Department for “pattern and practice” investigations. . . .
The lawmakers underscored several points. First, criminal justice and policing are only small parts of the historic problem of systemic, structural racism that will take a slew of other measures to confront. They made clear this is only the beginning of a national response to racism. Second, they emphasized that this effort is possible because of the mass demonstrations on the streets. Democrats are listening and following, but the message to those refusing to change is that they do so at their electoral peril. Third, the utter clueless and absence of Republican leadership could not be more striking. They were nowhere to be found while President Trump was left tweeting insults at Democrats and mocking Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) for joining Black Lives Matter protesters. Republicans are at grave risk of being trampled by popular opinion that has been awakened and energized.
