Senator Tim Scott, the lone black Republican in the U.S. Senate, put forward a good police reform bill, and yesterday, Senate Democrats defeated it.
Scott, who has been at the forefront of police reform efforts in the Senate, put his bill forward, offering a lot of good reform policies that would alleviate many of the issues activists on the left and right want to see fixed.
Putting the bill forward and offering solutions on the issue - an issue that has bipartisan agreement over things that should be done - was not enough for the Democratic Party, whose Senators blocked the bill on Wednesday afternoon and ended up on the receiving end of an angry speech from Scott afterward.
Senate Republicans offered Democrats twenty chances to amend the bill.
Consider the GOP's treatment of the bill in the Senate versus House Democrats' treatment of their own bill in the other chamber: While Republicans offered Senate Democrats a chance to amend the bill, Democrats voted to bring their bill to the floor without allowing a single GOP amendment.
It wasn't ignorance of the issue at hand and who was pushing the JUSTICE Act, but a deliberate attempt to insult Scott and any Republican who dared to push police reform on their own without going through a Democrat's bill.
Other outlets, like CNN, acknowledged that the Senate Democrats did block the bill, but leaned heavily on the Senate Democrats' accusations that the bill didn't go far enough and only briefly mentioned that the Democrats refused to take part in debate.
Scott, who has been at the forefront of police reform efforts in the Senate, put his bill forward, offering a lot of good reform policies that would alleviate many of the issues activists on the left and right want to see fixed.
Putting the bill forward and offering solutions on the issue - an issue that has bipartisan agreement over things that should be done - was not enough for the Democratic Party, whose Senators blocked the bill on Wednesday afternoon and ended up on the receiving end of an angry speech from Scott afterward.
Senate Republicans offered Democrats twenty chances to amend the bill.
Consider the GOP's treatment of the bill in the Senate versus House Democrats' treatment of their own bill in the other chamber: While Republicans offered Senate Democrats a chance to amend the bill, Democrats voted to bring their bill to the floor without allowing a single GOP amendment.
It wasn't ignorance of the issue at hand and who was pushing the JUSTICE Act, but a deliberate attempt to insult Scott and any Republican who dared to push police reform on their own without going through a Democrat's bill.
Other outlets, like CNN, acknowledged that the Senate Democrats did block the bill, but leaned heavily on the Senate Democrats' accusations that the bill didn't go far enough and only briefly mentioned that the Democrats refused to take part in debate.
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