House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said public protests would push Congress to act on stalled legislation aimed at reforming police departments to curb racial bias and misconduct.
“We’ll see what they can do in the Senate, but the American people will not take no for an answer,” Pelosi told reporters Friday. “Hundreds of thousands of people lining the streets, day in and day out, week in and week out. Now one month, saying, ‘Enough is enough.’”
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Protests and rioting in response to the deaths of black people in police custody have swept through several U.S. cities and have evolved into a movement against racial injustice.
Democrats this week blocked a GOP-authored police reform bill in the Senate because they said it did not go far enough to increase accountability and end misconduct.
The House Thursday passed a police reform measure authored by Democrats and the two parties are now engaged in a stalemate. Republicans say the Democratic measure would damage law enforcement and make communities less safe.
Pelosi defended Democrats for blocking the GOP measure in the Senate despite telling reporters a week ago she hoped the two chambers would pass their own bills and engage in negotiations in a conference committee.
“So, what are you suggesting? Vote for something that is completely contrary to your values so you can go to conference?” Pelosi responded to a reporter who questioned the move by Democrats to block the Senate police reform bill.
The two bills include many overlapping provisions, but Democrats see big differences.
While the House bill would ban police chokeholds at the federal level, for example, the Senate bill would ban the tactic except when an officer is facing lethal force.
The difference is too much, Pelosi said Friday.
“We always respect each other’s opinion, but if one person is saying, ‘Chokehold,’ and the other side, ‘No chokehold,’ it is very hard to compromise,” she said.
Democrats have signaled they are counting on public pressure to sway Senate Republicans to take up the Democratic measure — or at least pass a bill that more closely aligns with it.
After blocking the GOP bill on Thursday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would now be more likely to agree to some of the Democratic provisions.
“I think now there’s a real chance that he failed at his gambit that the people in his caucus, and more importantly, the people of America will put pressure, moral pressure, political pressure, every kind of pressure on him, and he may come back and say, ‘Let’s negotiate a good bill,'” Schumer said. “That’s our hope, our prayer, and what we will work for.”
