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[Page S2902]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
JUSTICE IN POLICING ACT
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the killings of George Floyd, Breonna
Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery catapulted the issues of racial justice,
police violence, and systemic racism to the forefront of this Nation's
conscience. These issues are not new. Some are even older than the
Nation itself. The anger felt by hundreds of thousands of protestors is
about that historical and pervasive injustice. It is rooted in our
decades-long failure to reform police departments and the yawning gap
between our ideal of equal justice under law and the reality of equal
justice for only some.
America is an experiment. The Founding Fathers said that. We know it
deep in our bones. An experiment means you can change, and some of the
best observers of the difference--I think de Tocqueville was one of
these--of America and the difference between us and other countries--we
are willing to change.
I am touched and moved--I was with the demonstrators on Saturday in
New York, in Brooklyn--by how many people were there--great diversity--
and how many were young and idealistic and doing things for just the
right reasons--not selfish reasons but for the betterment of the
country, to make us a more perfect union.
We must seize this moment. We cannot let it pass. This isn't about
simply renewing a national dialogue, although dialogue is always
important. It is about action. It is about making real and meaningful
progress. And the way to do that is with comprehensive police reform
legislation in Congress.
House and Senate Democrats have already drafted legislation that
would ban the use of choke holds and other tactics that have taken the
lives of Black Americans like George Floyd and Eric Garner; that would
also ban the use of no-knock warrants in drug cases, which is one of
the reasons for the death of Breonna Taylor; that would limit the
transfer of military equipment to police departments; and, crucially,
that would make it easier to hold police accountable for misconduct, as
well as institute several reforms to prevent that misconduct in the
first place.
The moment does not call for cherry-picking one or two things to do;
it calls for bold, broad change--whole-scale reform, not piecemeal
reform. I know the inclination of some of my Senate colleagues would be
to cherry-pick a few small improvements and say the job is done. It
will not be. We need to start--start--with the Justice in Policing Act,
a strong, comprehensive bill that people, particularly Senators Booker
and Harris, the CBC, spent a lot of time with experts who have studied
this issue for many, many months and years.
For too long, when major issues wash over the country, the waves of
change and progress crash against the rocks of a disinterested
Republican Senate majority.
When Americans watched in horror as another spate of mass shootings
rocked the Nation, they rose up and demanded change. President Trump
and Senate Republicans initially tried to make the right noises. Leader
McConnell promised that a debate on expanding background checks would
be ``front and center'' in the Senate after shootings in Dayton and El
Paso, but, predictably, that debate never came to pass.
That seems to be the M.O. of our Republican friends. When there is a
national crisis, major issues, people in the streets worried and
concerned and wanting change, we hear words, and then the strategy is
delay and, at the end, do nothing. We cannot go through these same
motions again.
This is about the original sin of America that we must try to deal
with head-on. There are Americans in the streets, shouting at the top
of their lungs for change, young people, idealistic people--the best of
America. The Senate must pursue comprehensive reform, not the lowest
common denominator and certainly not more empty rhetorical resolutions
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