Government affairs

Today, the House of Representatives passed the ”George Floyd Justice in Policing Act”  (H.R. 7120) by a vote of 236-181 on mostly party lines. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Will Hurd (R-TX) and Fred Upton (R-MI) joined the Democrats in advancing the measure. H.R. 7120 has an identical companion bill in the Senate (S. 3912), which was introduced by Sens. Corey Booker (D-DE) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) but has not been taken up – instead, the Senate attempted and failed to advance its own Republican-led measure.

Further demonstrating the inability for bipartisan compromise in the House and Senate, the Senate instead attempted to advance the “Just and Unifying Solutions to Invigorate Communities Everywhere Act of 2020” (JUSTICE Act, S. 3985). The bill was introduced on June 17 by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and sought to mirror an Executive Order issued by the White House on June 19. As the Senate attempted to vote on the measure this week, it failed to get the necessary 60 votes needed to be considered on the floor, thus ending the discussion on the issue in the Senate for now.

While both measures seek to tackle police reform, they are very different in several areas including chokeholds, no-knock warrants, use-of-force, body cameras, police conduct and hiring, sexual misconduct and hiring, just to name a few. Below, is a House Judiciary Committee analysis of the key differences between the House Democrats bill, the Senate Republican-led measure and the White House Executive Order recently released on the issue. While NALC has not taken a direct position on any of the legislation or police reform in general, we will continue to monitor the progress of the issue in both chambers.