Congressional police-reform bill falls short of the moment – San Francisco Chronicle

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which recently passed the House, takes baby steps to protect Americans civil rights from police, while maintaining the systemic racism that has driven millions worldwide to protest. The bills modest bans on chokeholds, milquetoast requirements for police training, and long overdue criminalization of lynching are better than the Republicans toothless joke of a bill. But millions of Americans are demanding bolder action, and this bill falls vastly short.

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, sponsored HR7120, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has eagerly championed it. But the bill has predictably languished in the Senate, where it faces a hopeless future. It is deeply inadequate a mere Band-Aid rather than the urgently needed amputation. At a time when murders of Black Americans by militarized police have become shockingly common, this proposal settles for half-measures. It sadly echoes Pelosis recent statement that she doesnt regret voting for the 1994 crime bill at all. San Francisco deserves better.

The most significant step that Pelosis bill fails to take which Minneapolis has already done, and which millions support across the country is to defund the police. Police departments receive tens of billions of federal dollars, padding local budgets that starve municipal services while militarizing our streets, turning them into war zones. The SFPDs proposed budget for 2021 is a whopping $700 million (recently rejected by the police commission). Police have taken over functions that would be far more effectively served by community groups, mental health organizations and social workers.

This mission creep has driven an authoritarian metastasis of policing. Police should be deployed only to address threats of potential violence, particularly emphasizing nonlethal measures and de-escalation tactics. But the House bill doesnt defund the police or do much to shift their responsibilities to civilian agencies.

Congressional reticence might reflect corporate corruption: many House members including Pelosis top ally, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md. receive large campaign contributions from powerful police unions that are aggressively political associations with a history of defending police abuses, promoting institutional racism and offending civil rights. Just this week, top California Democrats demanded that the party stop taking money from police groups. I strongly support that demand, while Pelosi remains silent.

Pelosi has dodged questions about police mission creep by claiming it is a local issue but this is demonstrably false. Local and state police receive substantial federal funds, which I support curtailing and strictly limiting.

Also overlooked by Pelosis bill is the long overdue federal legalization of cannabis. Cannabis is legal in many states (including California), but in states from Alabama to Idaho, possession remains a pretext to search, abuse, detain, arrest and charge nonviolent people most of them Black and Latino.

Federal legalization offers massive benefits: tax revenue, a wave of green jobs across the country and carbon sequestration that can help undo the damage caused by our senseless addiction to fossil fuels.

Beyond the bills failures, Pelosi hypocritically claims to champion civil rights despite a disturbing record that includes the disastrous Clinton crime bill, which she doesnt regret supporting. It led to the mass incarceration of generations of Black and brown people for minor nonviolent offenses.

Most Democrats and even many Republicans support ending the racist war on drugs. Yet the Pelosi-backed Justice in Policing Act falls short of addressing that established consensus.

There are other steps we should take, like eliminating cash bail. District Attorney Chesa Boudin has already accomplished this locally. But as long as Pelosi remains in office, these common-sense reforms will remain stalled at the federal level: She voted yes on the Republicans draconian 2018 Protect and Serve bill, which classifies an intentional crime against law enforcement as a hate crime; yes on the 2018 Republican-backed proposal to expand policing in schools; and yes on a huge federal police spending increase back in 2007, as well as the infamous 1994 omnibus crime bill. Our communities have waited too long for justice.

We have seen too many paramilitary police violently escalate minor incidents, and even murder nonviolent people on camera. We are done waiting.

Our Constitution applies to all Americans but Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders are stifling vital police reforms needed to make this promise a reality. San Franciscos communities deserve better, as does the rest of America.

Shahid Buttar is a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Californias 12th congressional district, and the first Democrat to ever challenge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a general election. He is the former director of grassroots advocacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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Congressional police-reform bill falls short of the moment - San Francisco Chronicle