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Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (center) welcomed the bill
The United States House of Representatives passed a police reform bill that currently has little chance of becoming law amid partisan stalemate.
The Democrat-controlled chamber voted 236-181 in favor of the measure mainly along the party lines on Thursday night.
The legislation is named after George Floyd, the unarmed black man whose death in police custody last month sparked protests around the world.
But the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has threatened to veto the measure.
And his fellow Republicans in the Senate are proposing their own, less far-reaching bill.
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What is in the Democratic House bill?
The George Floyd Police Justice Act was passed exactly a month after the death of the Minneapolis, Minnesota man, at high speed for a usually deliberative and heavy legislative body.
The Democratic bill would personally hold police officers accountable for damages in trials, prohibit the often-used no-hit orders used by police in drug raids, and stop the flow of surplus military equipment to police departments. .
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Three Republicans crossed party lines to vote in favor.
But Senate Republicans have refused to accept the House version of the House of Representatives, arguing it is an overreach that would undermine law enforcement.
Is there room for compromise?
Both the Republican and Democratic proposals would reduce police bottlenecks, introduce new training procedures, seek to expand the use of body cameras, and create a national registry for officers accused of misconduct.
However, Democrats say the Republican bill will not protect black Americans, arguing that it relies on data collection and financial incentives for state and local police departments to adopt reforms on their own.
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On Wednesday, Senate Democrats denied Republicans the votes necessary to open debate on their legislation.
President Trump said, “If nothing happens, it’s one of those things. We have different philosophies.”
Neither bill would disburse the police and divert that spending to other community services, as requested by Black Lives Matter activists.
What do Democrats and Republicans say?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met members of the Black Caucus of Congress on the steps of the Capitol on Thursday and said, “Exactly a month ago, George Floyd spoke his last words: ‘I can’t breathe,’ and changed. the course of history. “
Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, said: “Here in the United States, every black mother and every black father has to talk to their children about what to do when the police approach them.
But Debbie Lesko, a Republican from Arizona, said: “All lives matter.”
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And the Washington Post quoted Glenn Grothman, a Republican from Wisconsin, as saying that Democrats: “They don’t want to talk about it when they kill whites.”
Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate and the author of the failed House Police Reform Bill, accused Democrats of playing “pure-race politics” before the November general election.
“There will be blood on the hands of the Democrats,” Scott, from South Carolina, told Fox News, if more black Americans were killed by congressional inaction.
Earlier this week, Ms. Pelosi angered Republicans by accusing them of “trying to escape murder, actually. George Floyd’s murder.”
