Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats met with the family of George Floyd Tuesday, pledging to send a police reform bill to the president after weeks of slow-moving negotiations.
“We will get this bill on President Biden’s desk,” Rep. Karen Bass, a top negotiator and Ohio Democrat, pledged as she stood alongside Floyd’s family in the Capitol.
“What is important is that when it reaches President Biden’s desk that it’s a substantive piece of legislation, and that is far more important than a specific date,” Bass said. “We will work until we get the job done. It will be passed in a bipartisan manner.”
Democrats and President Joe Biden had hoped to advance a police reform bill by May 25, one year from the day Floyd died after white police officer Derek Chauvin suffocated him by kneeling on his neck for nine minutes after an arrest. But no deal is in sight.
“Today is the day that he set the world in a rage,” Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, said. “We all said enough is enough.”
Floyd’s family will visit leaders in the Senate before heading to a private meeting with Biden at the White House.
Democrats and Republicans continue to negotiate on police reform legislation that would ban chokeholds and some “no-knock” warrants and increase accountability in police departments over the use of force.
The two parties remain deeply divided over qualified immunity, which protects police officers from lawsuits based on their actions while on the job.
Democrats want to end qualified immunity, but Republicans say that will make it difficult for police to fully carry out their duties.
House Democrats twice passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which ends qualified immunity.
There are not enough votes to pass it in the Senate due to the 60-vote threshold and GOP opposition.
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In addition to Floyd’s brother, the group who met with Pelosi included Floyd’s daughter, Gianna, Gianna’s mother, Roxie Washington, and their lawyer Ben Crump.
“People around the world flooded the streets for days and weeks, millions of people,” Pelosi, a California Democrat, said. “Gianna said, ‘My daddy will change the world.’ And indeed, that change is coming true.”
