As Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) turns to the next chapter of her political career — a run for L.A. mayor, according to sources familiar with her plans — the congresswoman spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the end of her latest one: an unsuccessful push for police reform.
Lead negotiators in Congress pulled the plug on talks earlier this week, conceding that after months of discussions, Senate Democrats and Republicans were unable to reconcile their differences and send a “transformative” bipartisan bill to President Biden’s desk.
The effort launched after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, one in a string of killings of unarmed Black men by police that triggered nationwide racial justice protests.
Though House Democrats twice passed their George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, Senate inaction means the federal government is unlikely to enact new laws to improve policing practices over the next 15 months, even as Democrats narrowly control the House and Senate with Biden in the White House.
Below is a transcript of Thursday’s interview with Bass, lightly edited for clarity:
LAT: Police reform talks formally ended on Wednesday. Could you take me through the moment you found out, what you were doing and how that realization made you feel?
BASS: Well, you know I’ve been a part of the process. So I was with Sen. [Cory] Booker and Sen. [Tim] Scott Monday. Monday was our last meeting, and basically Sen. Booker had several proposals — I think it was maybe seven or eight — and it was like the last and final offer. And I agreed with those.
And so we gave those to Sen. Scott, and it was just a brief discussion, but we told him, he should go back and he should think about them…. But Sen. Booker called him yesterday and said, ‘We’re not going to get anywhere,’ because [Booker] could not accept any changes to what he gave. It was the last, final offer. And if Tim could not accept that, then from Booker’s perspective, and mine, too, it actually would’ve been moving the needle backwards. We wanted the legislation to be transformative. We understood it wasn’t going to be transformative. What was transformative was what we passed here in the House, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. That was transformative. The compromises that had been made over in the Senate were going move the needle forward. But it wasn’t going to be transformative. It’s sad. But at this point, I just felt like we were just running around in circles and we were never going to get to yes on anything. And so I think it’s important to recognize when you cannot go further and to close. And that’s what he did.
How did the realization [come?] You guys had put so much work into this. After George Floyd’s death there was so much optimism [about the chances of passing reform].
To me, that realization has been there for a while. So actually, the ending was anticlimactic.
There are still 15-plus months…
Read More: Rep. Karen Bass talks about failed police reform talks