The George Floyd Justice In Policing Act Should Be a Top Priority For Congress
By Prerna Jagadeesh and Lew Blank
Last week, the U.S. House passed one of the most comprehensive criminal justice reform proposals in our nation’s history — long overdue legislation that is also overwhelmingly popular with the American people.
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would significantly roll back the discriminatory legal doctrine of qualified immunity, enabling people to sue police officers in civil court if their constitutional rights are violated at the hands of the police. It would also require police departments to collect data on the ethnic, racial, and religious identities of people they detain and ban the use of no-knock warrants. Additionally, it would prevent police from using military equipment, cut off funding for departments that fail to ban chokeholds, and direct police funding toward community-based programs.
If signed into law, this legislation would crack down significantly on police brutality, hold officers accountable for abuses of power, and invest in programs that empower communities of color. And the American people are behind it: Data for Progress polling finds that voters support the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act by a significant 53-point margin.
In a national survey of 1,182 likely voters nationally, Data for Progress asked whether voters would support “a bill to increase accountability and reduce racial inequity in policing practices.” The survey informed respondents that the bill includes reforms such as creating a national database of police misconduct, prohibiting racial profiling, banning the use of chokeholds, and requiring body cameras to be used by all police officers. We found that 74% of all voters support the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, including 88% of Democrats, 78% of Independents, and 55% of Republicans.
Further, we found that voters of color overwhelmingly support the Justice in Policing Act. A full 86% of Black voters, in addition to 97% of Asian voters and 69% of Latino voters, support the bill’s commonsense measures to stop police violence and create accountability for police officers who abuse their power.
In the House of Representatives this package almost perfectly followed a party-line vote, with two conservative Democrats voting against the bill and just one Republican voting for it. While Republican legislators may have refused to vote for this lifesaving civil rights legislation, the vast majority of the American people — and a majority of their own voters — disagree with their decision.
Voters don’t just reject Republican legislators’ opposition to the Justice in Policing Act — a majority of them also disagree with the Republican framing that police reform is an impediment to keeping people safe.
Data for Progress presented voters with two arguments on police brutality: a liberal one, saying that “we need to protect Americans, particularly communities of color, from police brutality and violence” and a conservative one, saying that “law enforcement agencies should not have restraints on protecting our communities from crimes.” Even when voters are exposed to the conservative argument against curtailing police brutality, a strong majority of them continue to support the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act: 62% of all voters agreed that the bill should pass, including 86% of Democrats and 34% of Republicans. The bottom line is clear: even though Republicans have tried their best to smear advocates for police reform as unconcerned with the rule of law and the safety of our communities, voters aren’t buying their fallacious arguments.
Now that the Justice in Policing Act has been passed by the House, it moves to the Senate, where a previous version of the bill died in former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s legislative graveyard. Given the party-line House vote and highly charged Republican opposition to the package thus far, it is highly unlikely that ten Republican Senators will vote for this crucial legislation — despite the fact that a majority of their own constituents support it.
For the first time in the last nine years, Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress, giving them the ability to get important things done without being stymied by Republicans. There is no guarantee that Democrats will be able to maintain their trifecta in federal government after the 2022 midterms, meaning that they need to act on their most significant legislative priorities as soon as possible. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act deserves to be one of those top priorities. If Democrats want to honor the wishes of the Black Americans who won both the Presidency and the Senate for them — and those of eminent political and civil rights leaders who have made it clear that they do not want to see civil rights legislation stymied by archaic Senate procedure — they must prioritize this widely popular package and be open to using any and all tactics to pass it.
Prerna Jagadeesh (@PrernaJagadeesh) is a writer at Data for Progress.
Lew Blank (@LewBlank) is a senior writer at Data for Progress.
Survey Methodology:
From February 23 to February 25, 2021, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1182 likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points.