In the News

The push by some far-left activists to defund local police departments found no support at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on policing practices and law enforcement accountability.

Wednesday's hearing, in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died while in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department, heard from a range of ideologically disparate witnesses, including: Floyd’s older brother Philonise Floyd, former NYPD officer and Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, National Urban League President Marc Morial, co-founder and president of the Center for Policing Equity Philip Goff, and Major Cities Chiefs Association President Chief Art Acevedo.

House Republicans and their invited witnesses described the dangerous consequences of defunding and dismantling local police departments, while Democrats argued more money should be spent on other aspects of public safety, including retraining law enforcement and youth initiatives.

“Removing these heroes from your communities and my community will do nothing but ensure chaos and destruction,” Bongino, a Fox News contributor and host of a radio show, argued in his opening statement. “Police officers are the front lines, putting themselves between the evildoers among us and the honest, hardworking Americans just yearning for some security and prosperity in a small slice of Americana.”

Although left-wing activists and a handful of progressive lawmakers, including New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have vocally supported the "defund the police" movement, the majority of Democratic lawmakers in Washington have distanced themselves from this position, preferring a more nuanced message to reform law enforcement instead.

"It's really not about defunding the police. It's about funding other things,” Morial said. “Go to dance class, you pay. Karate, pay. Little League Baseball, pay. Inner-city kids, no opportunity if it's not provided by the public dollars.”

Louisiana Republican Rep. Mike Johnson, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told reporters it is encouraging that Democratic leadership has quashed any movement to push a proposal to defund police departments, but the caucus did not include Republican input before it crafted its police reform bill.

“We want to make sure that we're all on the same page with that," said Johnson, who chairs the conservative Republican Study Committee. "Obviously, there's some members in the House that are not, but we need to make sure that ridiculous proposal is off the table entirely, and then we can have thoughtful discussion about how to improve things.”

The House Democrat-drafted bill would prohibit federal police from using a chokehold and essentially ban the move on the local level through funding incentives. Additionally, the bill would more easily facilitate lawsuits to sue police for misconduct and mandate independent investigations of deadly force by law enforcement. The bill would also create a registry of officers reported for police misconduct.