Press Releases

WASHINGTON - Today, Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) voted to pass the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act of 2020, a comprehensive police reform measure that increases transparency, creates accountability and improves training for law enforcement. The measure passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 236-181.  

“Today, the House of Representatives took bold and necessary action that meets this critical moment in our nation’s history. I’ve spent the past few weeks meeting with local activists, law enforcement, and community leaders as we coordinate our response at a federal, state, and local level,” said Rep. Blunt Rochester. “I was proud to join my colleagues in voting to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020. We voted to increase transparency, improve training, and create real accountability for law enforcement across the country. It is now incumbent on the Senate to take up this bill, which represents the truly meaningful reform that the American people are demanding and that our citizens deserve. Our work is not done - and we must continue the hard work of addressing systemic and institutional racism that no single piece of legislation can remedy - but today, we took a critical step in that long journey.”

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 will:

• Hold police accountable in our courts by: 
• Amending the mens rea requirement in 18 U.S.C. Section 242, the federal criminal statute to prosecute police misconduct, from “willfulness” to a “recklessness” standard;
• Reform qualified immunity so that individuals are not entirely barred from recovering damages when police violate their constitutional rights;
• Improve the use of pattern and practice investigations at the federal level by granting the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division subpoena power and incentivizing state attorneys general to conduct pattern and practice investigations;
• Incentivize states to create independent investigative structures for police-involved deaths through grants; and
• Create best practices recommendations based on the Obama 21^st Century Policing Task force.
• Improve transparency into policing by collecting better and more accurate data of police misconduct and use-of-force by:  
• Creating a National Police Misconduct Registry to prevent problem-officers from changing jurisdictions to avoid accountability; and
• Mandate state and local law enforcement agencies report use of force data, disaggregated by race, sex, disability, religion, age.
• Improve police training and practices by:   
• Ending racial and religious profiling;
• Mandating training on racial bias and the duty to intervene;
• Banning no-knock warrants in drug cases;
• Banning chokeholds and carotid holds;
• Changing the standard to evaluate whether law enforcement use of force was justified from whether the force was reasonable to whether the force was necessary;
• Limiting the transfer of military-grade equipment to state and local law enforcement;
• Requiring federal uniformed police officers to wear body cameras; and 
• Requiring state and local law enforcement to use existing federal funds to ensure the use of police body cameras.

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