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Tyre Nichols’ Killing Likely Won’t Spur Congress To Pass Police Reform

Jim Jordan (R-OH) appears on Meet the Press in Washington, D.C. Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023.

Members of Congress are talking once again about police reform following the latest brutal police killing of an unarmed Black man. But there’s little to indicate this time will be any different than the last few rounds of failed negotiations—and plenty of reason to think it will be even harder to pass serious police reform than it was when the last attempt fell apart in 2021.

The biggest difference: The House is now in GOP hands, and key Republicans have expressed little appetite in passing significant legislation. When the House passed the George Floyd Act in 2021, the last serious stab at police reform legislation, the only Republican who voted for it did so by mistake.

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House Republican leaders have barely said a word about potential police reform legislation in the days since Memphis released video of police beating Tyre Nichols, an unarmed Black man, to death—they didn’t mention it once at their Tuesday press conference.

And the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which would deal with any police reform legislation, has no interest in passing police reform.

“You tell me: What law, what amount of training, is going to change that terrible behavior we saw in that video?  I don’t think there’s any law that you can pass that can fix that,” Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan told VICE News on Tuesday, echoing comments he’d made over the weekend.

On top of that, the lead Senate GOP negotiator has made clear that he’s still mad about the last time negotiations took place. South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott spent months negotiating a possible police reform package with New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker in 2021, only to have it fall apart amidst a nasty round of finger-pointing. Democrats accused Scott of walking away from negotiations and reneging on past agreements, while Scott claimed they’d refused to meet him halfway by dropping issues that were sticking points for him.

Scott said in a Monday night speech on the Senate floor that he wanted to work on reform, outlining some smaller-bore proposals that he has supported in the past including language around the “duty to intervene,” which could have forced other officers to step in to stop Nichols’ beating. But he also made it clear he was still mad. He specifically slammed Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who had worked with him and Booker on the 2021 negotiations, for filibustering his 2020 police reform bill, while faulting Democrats for refusing to embrace any of the reform bills he’d made with police support since 2015. 

“Here we find ourselves again… having the same conversation with no action having happened so far,” Scott said.

Booker and Scott had come to a tentative agreement on significant portions of the legislation in 2021. Sources told VICE News at the time that they’d agreed on language to ban chokeholds and carotid holds, address the problem of police responding to reports of mental health crises, create federal standards for no-knock warrants, limit the transfer of military equipment to police departments, and start a federal database to track police use of force.

But things fell apart in acrimonious fashion, with Democrats accusing Scott of walking away from the negotiating table and refusing to support that the police unions wouldn’t embrace—especially any change to qualified immunity, which keeps police from being sued for violating the law.

Scott is also reportedly eying a potential presidential run, and being the guy who passed police reform isn’t exactly a great brand for someone who’d need to win a Republican primary.

Scott declined to talk when approached in the Capitol on Tuesday. 

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was involved in the earlier negotiations, told VICE News that he planned to talk to Scott and Democrats about it, but didn’t sound optimistic.  

“Maybe there’s something we can do. But I’ll talk to Sen. Scott and we’ll see,” he said.

Aides familiar with the discussions told VICE News that Scott and Booker had had initial conversations about restarting talks, but that they hadn’t been substantive or addressed specific legislation.

“Senator Booker has spent the past several days engaged in conversations with colleagues on both sides of the aisle and is considering all legislative options to raise the levels of transparency, accountability, and professionalism in American policing,” Booker spokeswoman Maya Krisha-Rogers told VICE News. “This moment demands action, and Senator Booker is hopeful that his colleagues will step up to ensure that Congress delivers change.” 

But even if Scott and Booker manage to find common ground, that doesn’t mean the House will do anything, and plenty of other Republicans also see little reason to move forward on legislation.

“I don’t know why the federal government would be involved in regulating police departments that belong to municipalities, counties and states,” Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told VICE News. “I don’t know what role the federal government has in that.”

Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon told VICE News that he’d spoken out in Republicans’ closed-door conference on Tuesday and argued that the GOP should embrace police reform legislation along the lines of what Scott initially proposed in 2020 after Floyd’s murder.

But Bacon said he didn’t plan to take the lead on any legislation, pointing out that he doesn’t serve on any of the relevant committees that might address police reform—and he wasn’t sure who, if anyone, might step forward.

The main Democrat who led House negotiations last time around, then-Rep. Karen Bass, isn’t even in Congress anymore—she’s now mayor of Los Angeles. 

Nevada Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, seems to be looking to take up her mantle, and has invited Nichols’ parents as his guests to Biden’s State of the Union speech, which will take place next week. 

Tennessee Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who represents the district where Nichols was killed, said he hadn’t had a chance to talk to GOP colleagues about renewing reform calls but hoped he could find bipartisan partners.

“That was a crime against any human being against humanity, it was dreadful what happened. And it’s obvious it’s a police problem,” he said. “Laws can make a difference.”

He said he thought there could be bipartisan agreement to support funds for better training, creating independent prosecutors to oversee investigations into police wrongdoing, and a federal registry for bad-actor police so they can’t just bounce from job to job.

Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who serves on the Judiciary Committee, said that he expected that Democrats would reintroduce the George Floyd Act that passed the House in the coming days, and said he hoped to work on it soon in committee.

But he suggested he thought it would more likely turn into an exercise in shaming  Republicans when they eventually blocked attempts at reform.

“Let them take credit for killing it,” he said grimly. “Congratulations.”