Democracy Wire

Senate Republicans used a loophole in the Senate’s rules—the filibuster —to block even holding a debate on the Freedom to Vote Act. It’s the third time they’ve stopped their colleagues from debating voting rights legislation this year. Senators now face a choice: protect the freedom to vote and find a way to send this bill to President Biden’s desk, or let it die due to Republican obstruction and abuse of internal Senate rules.

Policing too often reflects a double standard, and people of color continue to die at the hands of law enforcement officers in absolutely unacceptable numbers. The tragic pattern must end now.

It is vital that Congress start by enacting long-overdue reforms by passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Common-sense reforms can begin to bring about substantive changes and stem the tide of police racism and brutality in our nation.

I am encouraged by the decision in the Chauvin case but I am in no way relieved. The criminal justice system has a history of failure in similar cases. This one conviction does not absolve a system that has disappointed the families of Michael Brown, Antwon Rose, Breonna Taylor, Walter Scott and so many others.

What happens next time, if a black individual is killed by the hands of police but there is no video footage of that incident? As a black man that question angers me because I am not sure the outcome of that trial would be the same.