Scott says Democrats are to blame for the failure of police reform legislation
by Alexander Bolton - 01/30/23 7:32 PM ET
Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), the lead Senate Republican negotiator on police reform, on Monday signaled he’s willing to have another go at the tough issue in the wake of Tyre Nichols’s death at the hands of Memphis police, while criticizing Democrats for blocking his reform bill in 2020 for not going far enough.
Scott pushed back on Democratic colleagues, such as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), for suggesting that Republicans were the reason Congress hasn’t yet passed a major police reform bill.
Scott criticized Durbin’s opposition to his Just and Unifying Solutions To Invigorate Communities Everywhere Act (JUSTICE) Act, which would have ended the use of police chokeholds and created a “duty” for officers to intervene when they see a colleague use excessive force against a suspect.
“Yesterday on ABC’s ‘This Week,’ Sen. Durbin asked Sen. Booker and I to come back to the table and start talking about policing in America. I never left the table,” Scott declared on the Senate floor.
“But it was Sen. Durbin who filibustered my JUSTICE Act. It was Sen. Durbin who called the effort to make de-escalation training more available a token piece of legislation,” Scott said.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3836754-scott-says-democrats-are-to-blame-for-the-failure-of-police-reform-legislation/
