This weekend saw renewed attention to the lawlessness far too common among law enforcement, with the release of video footage of cops bragging about brutalizing protesters earlier this summer and a Globe story about how police officers are able to commit crimes off duty with impunity.
Unfortunately, while the news was underscoring why we need to be going further in imposing public accountability of policing and shifting our definition of (and resources for) public safety away from policing, the MA Legislature was narrowing the ambition of its police reform bill.
Rather than signing the MA House and Senate’s consensus police reform bill, Republican Governor Charlie Baker showed his true colors again by threatening to veto it unless the Legislature watered it down.
The Senate, to its credit, had passed both its own bill in July and the more recent consensus bill with veto-proof majorities (30 to 7 and then 28 to 12). If they were the sole chamber, they could have passed the stronger bill from earlier this month (which, itself, was a compromise).
But despite Democrats’ 80% majority in the House, the House never came close to a super-majority in support of the bill. They passed the consensus bill by only 92 to 67, a remarkably close vote by House standards and well shy of the 106 needed for an override. One wonders how committed House Leadership really was to their own bill, given how easily they can whip support when they want.
The Senate thus chose to weaken the bill to secure the Governor’s support, adopting most (but not all) of his proposed amendments to the bill. The Senate voted 31 to 9 to pass the new bill, gaining the support of three no votes from earlier this month (Diana DiZoglio, Marc Pacheco, and Bruce Tarr).
So About the New Bill?
Although the broad contours of the bill remain the same, and many parts of it are worth praise, the redraft of the bill is weaker in a few notable ways:
- Police in Charge of Setting Their Own Training: The new bill keeps the all-law-enforcement municipal police training committee under the administration’s Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (a well-documented bad actor when it comes to oversight) instead of transferring ts duties to a new majority-civilian POST commission. The idea that police should be counted on to properly police themselves is not borne out by any evidence.
- Weaker Use of Force Standards: The POST commission would still maintain some approval authority over use of force standards (unlike Baker’s request), but the bill eliminates definitions for “imminent harm,” “necessary,” and “totality of circumstances” related to the use of force.
- Weaker Facial Surveillance Regulations: The bill also replaces the full ban on racist, dangerous facial surveillance technology with more modest regulations on it (Baker had wanted no regulations at all) and the creation of a commission to explore future regulations.
- Additional Changes: The bill also creates additional loopholes in the definition of “bias-free policing” and the regulation of no-knock warrants. Although presented as fixing technicalities, the new language could open the door to police abuse.
The dilution of the bill did not stop conservatives from both parties in the Senate from trying to weaken it further.
Because there was a roll call, you can see which Senators, including Democrats, voted for an amendment from Senator Minority Leader Bruce Tarr to weaken the bill by eliminating the civilian majority on the POST commission.
12/23 Update: And then on to the House Today
Last night, the House voice-voted to accept the redrafted bill, leaving no record of the vote. But they did have a recorded vote on the enactment of the bill earlier today.
The weaker redraft passed the House 107-51.
The Democrats who voted NO earlier this month who voted YES after Baker made the Legislature weaken the bill were Cahill, Capano, Fiola, Haggerty, Kearney, Markey, Pignatelli, Scmid, and Zlotnik. They were joined by Republicans Jones, Poirier, Hunt, Orrall, Whelan, and Wong and the unaffiliated Whipps.
