{"id":53085,"date":"2020-06-26T16:05:43","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T22:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/house-democrats-pass-police-reform-bill-tipton-votes-against-it\/"},"modified":"2020-06-26T22:05:43","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T22:05:43","slug":"house-democrats-pass-police-reform-bill-tipton-votes-against-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/house-democrats-pass-police-reform-bill-tipton-votes-against-it\/","title":{"rendered":"House Democrats pass police reform bill; Tipton votes against it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sanford
Sanford police officer Timothy Smith holds up the gun that was used to kill Trayvon Martin, while testifying in the George Zimmerman trial in June 2013. Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a police reform bill, called the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, on Thursday night.<\/span>Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel, via Associated Press pool<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Democrat-supported George Floyd Justice in Policing Act 236-181 on a largely partisan vote Thursday. The vote occured after Republican leaders criticized their colleagues across the aisle for failing to consider the Republican alternative police reform bill.<\/p>\n

\"Tipton\"
Tipton<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThere\u2019s so much similarity between the two bills, we\u2019ve just got a couple of issues that are important,\u201d said Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, who voted against the House bill.<\/p>\n

The Democrats\u2019 bill was written by Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. Among other reforms, the bill would ban the use of chokeholds and no-knock warrants for felony drug cases; limit the transfer of military-style equipment to local police departments; ban and require training about discriminatory profiling; and eliminate qualified immunity for police officers.<\/p>\n

This last change has proven a sticking point as lawmakers work toward bipartisan support. President Donald Trump has previously said he would not sign a police reform bill that ended qualified immunity. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has also indicated he would not support removing qualified immunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine you\u2019re thinking of becoming a police officer, and you think you\u2019re going to be personally liable for every fracas you try to break up,\u201d McConnell told reporters Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Fraternal Order of Police has also come out against the removal of qualified immunity. During deliberations over Colorado\u2019s own police reform bill, the organization announced a \u201ccall for action\u201d to push members to testify against reforms, arguing it could shift officers\u2019 priority from \u201cprotecting life to protecting liability.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bill includes concerning language that does not account for the split-second decisions we all are charged with making on a daily basis,\u201d the Fraternal Order of Police said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The organization raised the possibility of allowing officers to be insured in the way a doctor is for malpractice lawsuits to avoid risking serious financial harm if they are sued. Tipton said he is open to including language giving officers the ability to be insured in a bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe complete elimination of qualified immunity is something that would make it very difficult for our law enforcement,\u201d Tipton said.<\/p>\n

Disagreement in the Senate<\/div>\n

Senate Republicans were outraged Wednesday when 43 Democrats effectively blocked the Republican Justice Act, introduced by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., from being debated on the Senate floor. Scott, the lone Black Republican senator, chastised his colleagues for \u201cwaiting until an election\u201d to possibly get more of what they want, instead of agreeing to get 80% of what they wanted with the Republican-controlled Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you take the 80% now, see if you can win the election and go get the other 20%?\u201d Scott said on the Senate floor.<\/p>\n

Both Colorado senators have expressed eagerness to get police reform legislation passed, but they are separated in their support for their respective parties\u2019 bills.<\/p>\n

\"Gardner\"
Gardner<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sen. Cory Gardner, the Republican, has supported Scott\u2019s bill and called the senators who voted against consideration of the bill \u201cpartisan loyalists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis legislation would improve law enforcement with transparency, accountability and common-sense reforms,\u201d Gardner said in a statement. \u201cThe default of partisan politics is not acceptable at this time in our country\u2019s history \u2013 we must take action because this has been avoided for far too long in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Bennet\"
Bennet<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Meanwhile, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, has been a vocal supporter of the Democrats\u2019 companion bill in the Senate, signing on early as a co-sponsor. In a 10-minute speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, Bennet called the Republican proposal a half-measure, pointing out that the bill does not outright ban the use of chokeholds or no-knock warrants in all cases and is limited in its removal of qualified immunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is virtually nothing in this bill to respond to the families calling for justice or to save lives from police practices that have no place in America in the year 2020,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cThis is not a time for half measures, for one more attempt to use talking points and legislative tricks to make it seem like we\u2019re doing something when we\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacob Wallace is a graduate student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Proposal would ban chokeholds, no-knock warrants and remove qualified immunity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[981,28,29,51,23,24,25,1566],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-3rd-congressional-district","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-police","tag-u-s-rep-scott-tipton","tag-u-s-sen-cory-gardner","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet","tag-u-s-senate"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53085"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}