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A rare bipartisan consensus has emerged that police reform will be necessary to respond to the groundswell.
Now, Republican officials in red states like Texas, purple states like Wisconsin, and lawmakers in Washington are scrambling to appear responsive to the groundswell calling for change.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has said publicly that he would be open to supporting some provisions in the Democrats’ bill including linking police training to federal funds, making it easier to remove officers who are accused of misconduct, and a provision to prevent officers from moving from city to city in an effort to escape past misconduct allegations.
The lone African American Senate Republican, Tim Scott of South Carolina, presented ideas on police reform to Republicans during their lunch on Tuesday. In the House, a GOP aide said Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, would be releasing their own proposal this week.
“I promised his family, that I would use and incorporate their family in these discussions, of the discussions about the pathway forward will not be taken over by politicians but will be led by family members, that will be led by victims, that will be led by people who have suffered because of racism for far too long in this state and in this country,” Abbott said. “Other actions are being worked on to make sure that we will not have police brutality like what happened to George Floyd.”
Grassroots activists push for change
Democrats have long pushed for police reforms and have opposed the increased militarization of local police departments — especially after the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the death of Michael Brown in 2014.
But some activists, disillusioned by some of the reforms that have been made since then that have not slowed the rate of killings of unarmed people at the hands of police, are now pushing for more extreme changes.
Trump has focused on a “law and order” message from the White House. And Republicans have seized on the defund police movement, seeking to tie national Democrats to the proposal.
Instead, Democrats and Republicans are each seeking their own reforms, which itself represents a degree of bipartisan agreement that has been virtually impossible to find on other issues in Washington.
A case in point: former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, an ally of the President, presented this choice to voters in a tweet on Monday.
“Reform the police or defund the police? I pick reform,” Walker wrote.
The reason is clear: the American public overwhelmingly supports change. In poll after poll in the last two weeks, voters have made it clear that they believe there are problems with American policing.
A dramatic shift in opinion
That shift is dramatic and rare, according to one well-known pollster.
“In my 35 years of polling, I’ve never seen opinion shift this fast or deeply. We are a different country today than just 30 days ago,” wrote Republican pollster Frank Luntz. “The consequences politically, economically, and socially are too great to fit into a tweet.
“This is big. This is ‘Beatles on Ed Sullivan’ big,” he said.
To explain why this may be happening, and why Republicans in particular may be forced to listen, just look at where protests are being held.
People are taking to the streets in the big cities, yes. But they are also showing up in tiny towns.
A similar scene unfolded in overwhelmingly white Vidor, Texas — population 10,000 — as residents took a knee in silence in honor of Floyd.
While Trump and his top aides have denied that systemic racism exists in policing, the ground has been shifting under them.
Karl Rove, the mastermind behind Bush’s political rise, sees the writing on the wall.
“But the days of ‘lock ’em up and throw away the key’ are long gone. It’s just no longer sufficient,” he said.
CNN’s Jennifer Agiesta and Haley Byrd contributed to this report.
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