US police reform bills unlikely to pass amid partisan divide despite calls for change

Hopes of legislation on new police reforms being passed before the election were fading on Tuesday despite protests across the country calling for change following the recent police killings of Black Americans.

Dueling bills put forward in Congress, one by Democrats in the House, where they have the majority, and the other by Republicans in the GOP-led Senate look increasingly doomed, amid deep partisan divides.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday sent a letter to majority leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell signaling they will block Republican senator Tim Scott’s police reform bill, describing the legislation as “woefully inadequate”, rather than debate and try to amend it.

Senate minority leader and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer said “no bill will pass” if the Republicans bring it to the Senate floor on Wednesday and instead called for bipartisan talks.

Senate Republicans need seven of their Democratic colleagues to vote with them on the motion to proceed in order for the Scott bill to advance, so the Democrats have the ability to block the legislation if they are unified in opposition to it.

Meanwhile a contrasting bill in the House written by Democrats is very likely to get enough votes to pass in that chamber later this week, but McConnell has said the Democratic legislation is a non-starter in the Senate.

In their letter, Schumer and fellow Democratic senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris wrote:“This is a serious challenge requiring serious solutions. 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.”

They added: “This bill is not salvageable and we need bipartisan talks to get to a constructive starting point.”

The partisan standoff means it is less and less likely that Congress will approve any police reform legislation before the November election, despite loud calls for change and moves by some states and cities to advance their own reforms.

“There’s probably no path forward in this Congress if they block debate tomorrow,” on the Senate bill, Republican senator Roy Blunt said on Capitol Hill.

Democratic lawmakers have previously complained that Scott’s bill only incentivizes police departments to ban police chokeholds by threatening to hold up federal funds.

In contrast, House Democrats’ police reform bill explicitly bans police chokeholds and no-knock warrants. George Floyd, an African American, was killed in Minneapolis last month after a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck for almost nine minutes as he was pinned to the ground during an arrest attempt.

His dying cries of “I can’t breathe” echoed other police killings using choking restraints, notably Eric Garner in New York in 2014, and once again became a protest cry during demonstrations led by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Breonna Taylor was shot dead by police in Louisville, Kentucky, earlier this year during a botched raid when officers burst into her home without warning.