华盛顿——参议院多数处于危险之中，共和党人突然将重点转移到警务改革上，因为国会急于对全国范围内针对执法人员杀害美国黑人的抗议做出回应。
共和党参议员欢迎唐纳德·特朗普总统周二建立警察不当行为数据库的行政行动。他们主持了司法委员会关于“警察使用武力和社区关系”的听证会周三，他们将公布自己对警察行为和责任的一揽子改革方案。
这是几十年来最迅速、最广泛的共和党执法回顾，是乔治·弗洛伊德5月25日在明尼苏达州去世后令人震惊的选举年事件转折。民主党人警告说，这远远不足以满足当前的需求。
民主党警察改革一揽子计划的合著者、民主党参议员科里·布克在参议院带领同事们发表一系列演讲时说:“我们正处于美国的十字路口。”。
布克说，选择是在“有意义的改革和对拯救人民生命毫无帮助的象征性措施”之间。
随着众议院即将通过民主党的一揽子计划，共和党人最快将于下周在参议院就共和党的计划进行投票，这两项提案将会发生冲突，因为国会试图向选民表明，它听到示威者在街头游行。
特朗普誓言，如果立法者能够采取行动，这将是一个“重要时刻”。在玫瑰园的一次活动中，他宣布自己“致力于与国会就额外措施进行合作”
在弗洛伊德去世后的几周内，另一名美国黑人，27岁的瑞夏德·布鲁克斯，周六晚上在亚特兰大被警察开枪打死。
今年秋天，随着全国陷入动荡，共和党人竭力保持在参议院的微弱多数，共和党唯一的共和党参议员蒂姆·斯科特(Sen. Tim Scott)警告领导层，不要推迟投票，直到今年夏天晚些时候，他说这将是一个“糟糕的决定”
国会中民主党人和共和党人提出的两个方案有许多相似之处，但他们采取不同的方法来寻求改变警察的做法和加强问责制。
两者都将建立一个警方使用武力事件的数据库，这些提议旨在提高透明度，以便公众可以审查官员的记录，即使他们从一个司法管辖区转移到另一个司法管辖区。
除其他措施外，这两项法案预计将限制使用chokeholds拘留嫌疑人，并支持使用人体摄像头。全国各地的警察部门已经基本上禁止了Chokeholds。
来自国会黑人核心小组的民主党议案走得更远，修改了管理官员不当行为的联邦法规，将“鲁莽”行为包括在内，并取消了“限定豁免权”，使那些被警察伤害的人更容易在诉讼中寻求损害赔偿。
这两项法案都没有包括激进分子通过彻底改造警察部门来“瓦解警察”的努力。
白宫已经划定了反对改变“限定豁免权”的界限，参议院多数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔周二表示，民主党的法案“毫无进展”
斯科特的共和党提案定于周三发布，预计将更多地倾向于为更多的军官培训提供资金。
在周二的参议院听证会上，参议员之间的辩论反映出，随着美国人开始认真对待该国遗留下来的种族主义及其现代警察结构，全国范围内的清算正在展开。
委员会主席森林赛·格雷厄姆南卡罗来纳州的斯科特分享了自己的经历，他很少被警察拦下，即使被拦下也从不害怕——这与斯科特自己的故事形成了鲜明对比，他讲述了一个黑人在进入美国国会大厦时被执法人员拦住的故事。
“希望我们都能理解并解决这个问题。但这是个问题，”格雷厄姆说。
民主党法案的共同作者、加州民主党参议员卡马拉·哈里斯说，理解美国的种族历史是所有参议员的责任。
哈里斯是加州前司法部长，他说“更多的警察”并不等于“更多的安全”，尤其是当教师和其他人争夺稀缺的当地资金时。
“我们必须重新想象公共安全是什么样子，”哈里斯说。
面对一群民权和执法领导人，得克萨斯州共和党参议员约翰·科宁与民权和人权领袖会议主席兼首席执行官瓦妮塔·古普塔进行了坦率的交流。
"你认为基本上所有的美国人都是种族主义者吗？"科宁一度问道。
“我认为我们都有隐性偏见和种族偏见，是的，我有，”前司法部民权司代理助理司法部长古普塔回答道。
“我认为我们是一个神奇的国家，每天都在努力变得更好，”她说。
“嗯，”科宁说，“你失去了我。”
后来，爱荷华州的共和党参议员乔尼·恩斯特(Joni Ernst)承认，这是一场关于种族和执法的“非常不舒服的对话”。
但是她说，在无数美国人观看了弗洛伊德死于警察手中的视频后，这一定是国会拥有的。
Senate GOP seeks policing changes, Democrats push for more
WASHINGTON -- The Senate majority at stake, Republicans are abruptly shifting priorities to focus on policing changes as Congress rushes to respond to nationwide protests over the killings of black Americans by law enforcement officers.
The GOP senators welcomed President Donald Trump’s executive actions Tuesday to create a database of police misconduct. They gaveled open a Judiciary Committee hearing on “police use of force and community relations." And on Wednesday, they are set to unveil their own package of proposed changes to police practices and accountability.
It's the most swift, and extensive, Republican review of law enforcement in decades, a stunning election-year turn of events after George Floyd's May 25 death in Minnesota. Democrats warn it does not go nearly far enough to meet the moment.
“We are at the point in the United States where we are at a crossroads,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., a co-author of a sweeping Democratic police overhaul package, as he led colleagues in a series of speeches in the Senate.
Booker said the choice is between “meaningful reforms and symbolic measures that will do nothing to save people’s lives.”
With the House set to pass the Democratic package, and Republicans rushing to vote on the GOP plan in the Senate as soon as next week, the two proposals are on a collision course as Congress seeks to show voters it hears the demonstrators marching in the streets.
Trump vowed a “big moment” if lawmakers could act. At a Rose Garden event for his executive actions, he declared himself “committed to working with Congress on additional measures.”
In the weeks since Floyd's death, another black American, 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks, was shot and killed Saturday night by police in Atlanta.
With the nation reeling and Republicans straining to hold their slim majority in the Senate this fall, Sen. Tim Scott, the GOP's lone Republican senator, who is compiling the party's package, warned leadership not to push voting off until later this summer, saying it would be a “bad decision.”
The two packages emerging from Democrats and Republicans in Congress share many similarities, but they take different approaches in seeking to change police practices and boost accountability.
Both would establish a database of police use-of-force incidents, proposals designed to improve transparency so the public can review officers' records, even when they transfer from one jurisdiction to another.
Both bills are expected to restrict the use of chokeholds to detain suspects and bolster the use of body cameras, among other measures. Chokeholds are already largely banned in police departments nationwide.
The Democratic bill from the Congressional Black Caucus goes much further by changing the federal statute governing officer misconduct to include “reckless” behavior and does away with “qualified immunity” to make it easier for those injured by police to seek damages in lawsuits.
Neither bill includes activists’ push to “defund the police” by fully revamping police departments.
The White House has drawn a line against changing “qualified immunity,” and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday the Democrats' bill “is going nowhere.”
Scott’s GOP proposal, set to be released Wednesday, is expected to lean more heavily into providing funding for more officer training.
At the Senate hearing on Tuesday, the debate among the senators reflected the broader reckoning unfolding nationwide as Americans come to grips with the country's legacy of racism and its modern police structure.
The committee chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., shared his own experiences of rarely being pulled over by the police and never being afraid if he was — in sharp contrast to Scott's own stories as a black man being stopped by law enforcement officers even as he entered the U.S. Capitol.
“Hopefully we can all understand that problem and fix it. But it is a problem,” Graham said.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., a co-author of the Democrats' bill, said it's the responsibility of all senators to understand the nation's racial history.
A former attorney general in California, Harris said “more police” does not equal “more safety" especially as teachers and others compete for scarce local funding.
“We must re-imagine what public safety looks like," Harris said.
Facing a panel of civil rights and law enforcement leaders, Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas engaged in a frank exchange with Vanita Gupta, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference of Civil and Human Rights.
“Do you believe that, basically, all Americans are racists?” Cornyn asked at one point.
“I think we all have implicit bias, and racial bias, yes I do,” replied Gupta, a former acting assistant attorney general of the civil rights division in the Justice Department.
“And I think we are an amazing country that strives to be better every single day," she said.
“Well,” Cornyn said, “you lost me.”
Later, GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, one of the senators up for reelection in fall, acknowledged it's a “very uncomfortable conversation we're having” about race and law enforcement.
But she said it's one that Congress must have after countless Americans watched the video of Floyd's death at the hands of police.
