Police reform talks are back in Congress, but little hope for a deal

Unlike when Scott and Booker previously negotiated, Republicans now control the House, and they’ve shown little interest so far in the type of policy changes discussed in 2021.

“You tell me what law is going to change that terrible behavior we saw,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, the likely forum for any police reform bills.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) position on the matter has been to defer to Jordan on the probability of legislation passing that falls under his committee’s jurisdiction, according to multiple leadership aides who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Booker and Scott, two of three Black senators, have remained in touch on the issue, a Senate aide said, and have talked about how to more formally restart the discussions.

Scott also discussed his desire to pursue reforms at lunch with his colleagues on Tuesday, although Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was involved in the talks last time, did not express optimism about much coming out of them.

“I don’t know if anything’s going to happen,” Graham said, adding that a few liberal Democrats’ calls to “defund the police” in 2020 “hangs over things now.”

Nichols’s death revives reform talks

Videos released last week show Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, being brutally beaten, kicked and pepper-sprayed by Memphis police officers. Nichols died three days after the beating, and five officers, all of whom are Black, face local charges of second-degree murder. The Justice Department is also investigating

Nichols’s parents are attending President Biden’s State of the Union address next week as a guest of a Democratic lawmaker, and the president has urged Congress to act. Vice President Harris will attend Nichols’s funeral on Wednesday.

In a floor speech Monday that in part excoriated Democrats, Scott called for “simple legislation” that would include more funding to police departments for de-escalation training and more resources for officers on the scene who have a “duty to intervene” when a police interaction with a civilian dangerously escalates.

“Politics too often gets in the way of doing what every American knows is common sense,” Scott said. “Here we find ourselves again…