[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 108 (Thursday, June 11, 2020)]
[Senate]
[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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