Joe Biden urged Congress not to wait until the election in November to enact police reform.
One day after President Trump encouraged military force against angry demonstrators protesting police brutality, Biden called on lawmakers to pass a federal law banning chokeholds, outlining a national set of use-of-force best practices, and stopping military equipment being transferred to local police units.
“Congressman Jeffries has a bill to outlaw chokeholds. Congress should put it on President Trump’s desk in the next few days,” Biden said at Philadelphia City Hall on Tuesday, referring to New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries.
Aware that the Senate presents a legislative hurdle to that agenda, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee and former vice president criticized Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s priorities in the chamber.
“If Mitch McConnell can bring in the Senate to confirm Trump’s unqualified judicial nominees who will run roughshod over our Constitution now, it’s time to pass legislation that will give true meaning to our constitutional promise of equal protection under the law,” Biden said.
Biden, who has vowed to address institutional racism during his first 100 days in office if he wins the White House in November, also reiterated his support of a police oversight commission.
“Bad cops should be dealt with severely and swiftly,” he said.
Biden raised the idea during a listening session on Monday with black community leaders in Wilmington, Delaware.
“We set up in the Justice Department the ability for the Civil Rights Division to go in and look at the practices and policies of police departments. That’s why we were able to stop stop and frisk,” Biden told leaders gathered at the Bethel AME Church. “Reestablish that with more teeth in it because we also have to fundamentally change the way in which police are trained.”
Biden’s remarks, made during his first trip outside of Delaware since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, followed Trump’s law-and-order speech from the Rose Garden on Monday. Biden blasted the incumbent for failing to hear the pain rippling throughout the country after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, while in Minneapolis Police Department custody.
“When peaceful protesters are dispersed by the order of the president from the doorstep of the people’s house, the White House, using tear gas and flash grenades in order to stage a photo op at a noble church, we can be forgiven for believing that the president is more interested in power than in principle,” he said in pre-released excerpts.
