Democrats prepare police reform legislation

  As the calls within the Democratic party for disbanding the police grow, the party leaders are drafting police reform legislation. Here is more:

A sweeping new police reform bill being drafted by House and Senate Democrats would ban chokeholds, limit “qualified immunity” for police officers, create a national misconduct registry, end the use of no-knock warrants in drug cases and make lynching a federal crime among other dramatic changes, according to an outline being circulated on Capitol Hill.

The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 is sponsored on the House side by Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) on the Senate side. Harris is among the frontrunners to become the Democratic vice presidential nominee this year.

The new Democratic proposal, which will be unveiled early next week, is the most dramatic effort to rewrite federal laws on policing in decades. Yet the bill’s backers say the changes are desperately needed to address the decades-old mistreatment of black and minority communities at the hands of police.

  Whenever I hear the term “national registry” chills go down the back of my spine. It seems as if simple background checks would suffice to keep a repeat offender off of the police force with no need for any type of national registry. 

  But other than that most of the other reforms we are reading about do not seem to be too bad. However, Democrats have a penchant for going too far and we are seeing it in this case with the calls for disbanding  the police force. When your starting point is disbanding the police force will you settle for any reforms which fall short of that? And how far will the Democratic leaders go in order to appease those calling for disbandment? I am sure we will get the answers to those questions as this bill is finalized.

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium