The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a police reform bill that would ban chokeholds and overhaul qualified immunity protections for officers.
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, H.R. 1280, passed 220 to 212 — although a Republican representative said he’d voted yes by mistake and changed the official record to reflect his opposition.
Republican Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, tweeted that he’d pressed the wrong button and voted for the bill by accident.
A version of the bill passed last year but stalled in the then-Republican-controlled Senate. The House bill passed Wednesday night still has to go to the Senate where it will need at least 10 Republican votes for passage.
The bill is named after Floyd, the Black man who died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for minutes. That officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired and faces charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter. His trial and jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday.
The bill among other things would ban neck restraints and no-knock warrants in drug cases at the federal level. It would also reform qualified immunity, which is a doctrine that makes it difficult to sue officers.
Some places have already taken such steps. Colorado last year ended qualified immunity as a defense for officers in state courts.
The Biden administration on Monday threw its support behind the bill. The White House said that trust between law enforcement and communities can’t be rebuilt unless police officers are held accountable for abuses of power.
Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., who introduced the bill, said she is confident that they’ll be able to work with the Senate and get it passed. She said after the last bill passed, “many of our Republican colleagues said they thought they could get to yes on this, but they had some difficulties.”
“One of the things that has happened in the last 12 months though, is that many states moved ahead without us, and they started passing reforms,” Bass said. “So, this time when we sit down to meet, we can talk about reforms that are already in place.”
Attorneys for the Floyd family, Benjamin Crump and Antonio Romanucci, said that on behalf of the family “we are deeply gratified and grateful” in House leadership, and they urged the Senate to pass the bill.
“This represents a major step forward to reform the relationship between police officers and communities of color and impose accountability on law enforcement officers whose conscious decisions preserve the life or cause the death of Americans, including so many people of color,” they said in a statement.
