While Donald Trump has traded his dog whistle in for a bullhorn, a growing number of congressional Republicans are reading the moment and seeing that they need to at least pretend as if they're doing something to address police brutality against communities of color. Whether it's for real and they actually intend to be part of Democrats' efforts to address the issue, or an election year political ploy isn't yet clear.
While House Republicans are pissed that they were not included in the Democrats' policing reform bill, the Justice in Policing Act, they do say the have areas of agreement with it. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters "conceptually there are things that would be similar that we could address, that I think we can work together on," including banning chokeholds and carotid holds. "I'm hopeful when we get to a markup, we could be in a place that it's not one bill or nothing," he continued. The House Judiciary Committee is working on the bill next week. Republican Rep. Will Hurd from Texas agreed that there is an appetite to get something done," but with the caveat "only if Democratic leadership is interested in actually negotiating a bipartisan bill." He used the grammatically correct "Democratic" there, so maybe it's real. Or maybe it's a head fake.
That's what we've seen so far from Senate Republicans. Their bill is still in the works, with a deadline for this week slipping into next week. Reportedly its key feature is going to be a new public national database for tracking use-of-force incidents. The Democrats also have that, but the Democrats also have measure to ban some of those force tactics. The idea behind the database is that officers with bad records can't transfer from department to department with their records staying private.
Instead of banning police chokeholds, it "appears to be more focused on providing training for officers to de-escalate confrontations" including "dirty to intervene" provisions that would make other officers stop misconduct by colleagues. Which suggests that Senate Republicans have had very little experience with how police work. "We're trying to provide the resources necessary to retrain these local departments," said Sen. Tim Scott. The South Carolina Republican is the only Black member of his conference, and probably the only one to actually face racist policing. But he also has to navigate his conference on an issue that is not his expertise. He went into the Senate intent on working on financial and economic issues, but has been thrust into this discussion.
It's a reflection of how much this movement is changing, things, however. Republicans are working on it. While Mitch McConnell has been sneeringly dismissive of Democrats efforts, he's not shutting down Republicans. Even Sen. Rand Paul, McConnell's fellow Kentuckian, is getting in on the act. He introduced legislation Thursday to ban no-knock warrants, the tactic that resulted in the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who was shot and killed in her bed when cops broke into her apartment searching for a suspect who was not in her home.
It's hard to know whether Paul means it, or is being his usual attention-seeking self. After all, he's the reason that the Senate can't pass a bill to make lynching a federal crime.