“This is a serious challenge requiring serious solutions,” the three senators wrote to McConnell. “Bringing the JUSTICE Act to the floor of the Senate is a woefully inadequate response, and we urge you to bring meaningful legislation to the floor for a vote.”
The legislation written by Republicans, led by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), is “not salvageable,” the Democrats say, adding that “we need bipartisan talks to get to a constructive starting point.”
McConnell and Republicans pushed back, saying Democrats were more intent on a political issue than addressing the crisis.
“I hope none of you are falling for this nonsense that somehow our Democratic colleagues would be disadvantaged by getting on the bill,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday afternoon. “They don’t have to trust me … once you get on the bill, if you conclude you’ve been treated unfairly, you don’t have to get off the bill.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who led the effort to write the bill, said that if “won’t even start it, that tells me this is already over.”
“This is about Louisville, Ky. This is about North Charleston. This is about Minneapolis. Our legislation covers those points,” said Scott, listing off the sites of recent officer-involved deaths of black Americans. “If our friends on the other side want to figure out a path forward for those places and those citizens, let’s get there.”
The partisan standoff raises questions about whether Congress is capable of responding to the incidents of police brutality, the nationwide protests and the demands for change less than five months before the election.
Scott, Booker, Harris and Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, met privately earlier Tuesday at an apparently futile attempt to negotiate, and Scott said later there was no “discernible” progress toward a deal that would allow his legislation to advance.
Democrats noted that dozens of civil-rights and racial justice groups have come out in opposition to the Republican-drafted bill, and insisted on bipartisan negotiations to get the legislation more to their liking at the outset.
“Who do you trust on police reform in America?” Booker said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. “The NAACP, or Mitch McConnell?”
The House plans to vote this week on an expansive, Democratic-crafted bill that mandates several changes, including a ban on chokeholds, prohibitions on some no-knock warrants and establishment of a national database to track police misconduct and make it easier to hold officers accountable for misconduct in civil and criminal court, among its provisions.
The two parties remain far apart on whether Washington should mandate local police practices. The Democratic bill would ban chokeholds and certain no-knock warrants. The Republican bill does not prohibit those practices, but rather encourages local police and law enforcement agencies to curtail such practices with the threat of a loss of federal funds.
McConnell said if the bill on Wednesday fails to advance, he will take procedural steps to tee it up again in the future.
Republicans later noted that Democrats can exert significant influence in the progress of the bill, because it would require 60 votes not just to start working on the legislation, but also a separate vote at a 60-vote threshold to advance to a final passage vote.
Aides to McConnell declined to respond directly to the letter, but the majority leader — who has said that Democratic bill is “going nowhere” in the Republican-led Senate — criticized Senate Democrats for their resistance to the GOP bill.
“The American people deserve better than a partisan stalemate,” McConnell said.“The American people deserve for the Senate to take up this issue at this time. Senate Republicans want to have this discussion. We are ready to make a law, not just make a point.”
There were few signs early Tuesday that Republicans would accede to demands from Democrats to negotiate at least a bipartisan template for the bill in advance of the key vote Wednesday. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), one of McConnell’s closest allies, said he was “not really all that interested in negotiating with hostage-takers,” referring to Democrats.
“I just think it’s mindless, it’s mindless obstruction,” Cornyn said. “I just can’t. This is the worst I’ve seen it.”
The campaign for former vice president Joe Biden, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, said he “fully supports Senate Democrats doing exactly what voters sent them to Washington to do by demanding bipartisan negotiations to move the ball forward on police reform legislation.”
“The American people are crying out for their leaders to finally make meaningful progress on the systemic injustice that has plagued our country for generations, and now Senate Republicans need to step up and show they are listening,” Biden campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo said in a statement.
Schumer, Booker and Harris laid out several arguments against the GOP-drafted bill: That it did not hold police officers accountable in court, particularly by leaving intact the “qualified immunity” standard Democrats want to erode so it becomes easier for law enforcement officials to be sued for misconduct.
The senators also argued that the Republican legislation did not have sufficient transparency and provisions to provide the public a full picture of officer misconduct. The GOP bill also does not explicitly end practices such as chokeholds or no-knock warrants, which the Democrats say is unacceptable in a police reform bill.
In a floor speech Tuesday morning, Harris indicated she would vote to block the GOP legislation from proceeding.
“We can’t answer the people’s demand for accountability with watered-down politics,” Harris said. “I will say we cannot answer their demand with this Republican attempt to obstruct real progress and real justice in our country.”
The Republican bill seeks to eliminate those controversial practices by withholding federal funds to local police agencies that have not barred them on their own or do not submit reports on their use of such tactics.
The signal from Senate Democrats that they will block the bill on a key vote Wednesday came as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, as well as the Rev. Al Sharpton and Benjamin Crump, an attorney who is representing the family of George Floyd, the unarmed black man in Minneapolis who died after a police officer knelt on his neck, issued statements and letters urging senators to oppose the GOP bill.
Crump said the Senate GOP bill as written stands “in direct contrast to the demands of the people” who have been protesting for far-reaching police reforms in the wake of Floyd’s death.
“The Black community is tired of the lip service and is shocked that this $7 billion package can be thought of as legislation,” Crump said.
Matt Viser and Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report.
