Neither Scott nor any other congressional Republican was invited to what’s seen as the opening act of policing discussions after Nichols’ death last month following a brutal beating by Memphis officers: Thursday’s Black Caucus meeting with President Joe Biden. The all-Democratic invite list went out despite the House’s record-high four Black Republicans in office — a group that could be influential in steering the GOP majority. And there’s no guarantee they’ll agree with Scott, who reiterated Wednesday on Twitter that he’s opposed to Democrats’ Floyd bill but cracked the door to other options.
A Scott spokesperson pointed to the senator’s tweet when asked whether he would take part in negotiations, and did not respond to follow-up questions about whether Scott’s presidential aspirations affected the talks.
Underscoring the hot-potato nature of a topic of critical importance to many Black voters, it’s not clear that all four of those Black House Republicans even want a seat at the table on policing legislation.
“We don’t look at it in terms of, ‘Well, we’re Black members, so we should be leading the talks,’” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.). “We need to have people who have expertise in law enforcement and what policy ideas up here mean for local agencies — they have to be a part of that conversation. They should, frankly, be leading good chunks of that conversation.”
In meetings this week as they prepared to sit down with Biden, many Black Caucus members came to the conclusion that the legislative plan would need to be a scaled-back version of the Floyd bill that stalled in the Senate last term. Talks on a compromise had reached an impasse, mostly over changing qualified immunity, a protection that shields officers from being held personally liable for certain actions on the job.
“The idea that qualified immunity, if y’all aren’t going to give us that going at minimum, let the departments be held accountable. And I do think that that could be something that is conceivable,” said a senior Democratic aide familiar with the conversations who was granted anonymity to describe the group’s position.
Working with Republicans would be a balancing act. Democrats need to give in to certain demands to see any action at all, but they’re leery of signing off on a bill with little to no teeth that Congress can cite as evidence of progress.
However, some Democrats are ready to embrace legislation they’ll…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Congress…