Instead, it encourages thousands of local police and law enforcement agencies to curtail practices such as chokeholds and certain no-knock warrants by withholding federal funding to departments that allow the tactics or do not submit reports related to them.
The legislation also requires local law enforcement agencies to report all officer-involved deaths to the FBI — an effort pushed by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is spearheading the GOP bill, since 2015 — and it encourages broader use of body-worn cameras for officers.
It would also make lynching a federal hate crime, establish a commission that would lead a comprehensive review of policing tactics to establish best practices for officers and encouraging de-escalation training.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Scott and other leading Senate Republicans touted the bill at a morning news conference.
“We’re serious about making a law here,” McConnell said. “This is not about trying to create partisan differences. This is about coming together and getting an outcome.”
Even before the legislation was unveiled, Democratic leaders said it fell short of the sweeping action that they say is expected by a public that is grappling with unrest over race and policing after the high-profile deaths of unarmed black men by white officers, including George Floyd in Minneapolis.
House Democrats are moving forward with a legislative package that would strictly ban police chokeholds, make it easier for victims of police violence to sue officers and departments and create a national database of police misconduct, among other provisions.
The House Judiciary Committee is expected to advance the bill Wednesday, preparing it for a floor vote next week.
The White House has signaled that at least key portions of the House Democratic bill go too far for the administration, such as limiting legal liability in a way that would make it easier for police officers to be sued for misconduct. Revising so-called “qualified immunity” is off the table, the White House has said.
Prospects for reaching common ground in the coming weeks remain unclear.
During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) panned the GOP bill, saying it “does not rise to the moment.”
“We have a tale of two chambers, 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,” he said.
On Tuesday, McConnell pointedly criticized the House bill for seeking too much control from Washington.
During Wednesday’s news conference, Scott, the Senate’s only black Republican member, argued that there is a lot of overlap in the party’s approaches.
“Every lever of government wants change, and most of us want about 70 percent of the same change,” he said. “We achieve some of the same ends by our approach.”
He cited chokeholds as an example, saying the GOP bill is “by default a ban” because of the threat of taking away federal funding.
He said Senate Republicans want to collect more data on no-knock warrants before making the kind of sweeping policy changes that House Democrats have proposed.
Republicans in the Senate will need support from some Democrats to move forward with the bill. It was not immediately clear if enough would come on board for that to happen.
“If we don’t have the votes on a motion to proceed, that means politics is more important than restoring confidence in communities of color and the institutions of authority,” Scott said.
During his floor remarks Schumer gave no clear signal about whether Democrats would attempt a filibuster.
“This is not (about) letting the perfect be the enemy of the good,” he said. “This is about making the ineffective the enemy of the effective.”
Scott also voiced hope that “the president will join forces and jump on board.”
During a television appearance Wednesday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump wants to sign legislation addressing the issue of police reform.
“We’re very pleased and very heartened that the Congress is moving very quickly,” she said. “A 100-page bill tells you how seriously and how earnestly people are working on this on Capitol Hill, and the president’s made clear, he will look at the legislation and sign into law something that meets this moment.”
Under pressure to act, President Trump also rolled out an executive order on Tuesday aimed at offering new federal incentives for police departments to boost training and to create a national database to track officer misconduct.
The Justice Department will use key grants to encourage local police departments to establish certain “best practices.”
Regarding chokeholds, the executive order seeks to bar them “except in those situations where the use of deadly force is allowed by law.”
At the GOP news conference, Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) was introduced as the point person in the House on the bill.
Stauber, a retired police lieutenant who is white, said that “the communities around this country are not wrong in their calls for justice” but stressed that the “overwhelming” number of police officers are good people.
