VOX reports, “Last summer, in the wake of protests surrounding the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others at the hands of police, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said he was pessimistic about the chances of the Senate passing a police reform bill.
Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate and one of just three Black Republicans in all of Congress, is the lead Republican in the Senate on police reform and was responsible for drafting the Justice Act, the GOP’s police reform bill. The bill failed to get 60 votes, the necessary Senate margin, in 2020, with the majority of Democrats voting against it for inadequately handling the problem. Meanwhile, Democrats’ bill, the more expansive George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, passed the House but was not taken up by the then-Republican Senate.”