Reading Eagle, 07/06/2020 - U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan holds town hall tackling systemic racism in policing

By Karen Shuey

U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan launched a virtual town hall series on Monday with a session focused on dismantling systemic racism through legislation and policy.

The series began with an event focused on police reform and accountability featuring Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., who is chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus and principal author of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020.

Houlahan, a Chester County Democrat who represents Reading and many southern communities in Berks County, said the purpose of the event was to shine a light on how we must all do our part to combat the systemic racism that has plagued our country since its founding.

"There are moments when we are called upon to stand up for what is right for our community, for our commonwealth and for our country. This is clearly one of those moments," she said. "What we have borne witness to over the past month that continues to this day is a very unified call to action to address police brutality and the disparate treatment of people of color — particularly Black Americans."

Work in Congress

The House of Representatives in June passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020. Three Republicans joined Democrats to vote in favor of the bill. The measure was sent to the Senate, where it has failed to gain much traction.

A central tenet of the legislation would change the law to make it easier to prosecute police officers who harm or kill someone, as well as those who are charged with other forms of misconduct.

Other measures include imposing a ban on choke holds and no-knock warrants in drug cases at the federal level, mandating racial bias training at the federal level, establishing a national registry to track police misconduct and requiring the U.S. attorney general to create new standards for law enforcement accreditation.

Bass, who has worked to get police reform legislation passed for decades, said this moment of national reckoning over racism within the criminal justice system and the discussions taking place about the appropriate role of police is like nothing she has seen in her lifetime. She believes that the momentum is building for these changes.

"I think all of us as a nation were just shook over the brutality of watching George Floyd be killed before our very eyes," she said. "I think that has led to this examination of an issue that has been so polarizing for so long. Every other time in the past, even if there was a video, people would question what happened before the death takes place.

"But, finally, this time people have realized that this is the experience of many Black Americans. And it brings a tremendous amount of relief to me that people are starting to believe what we have been saying all this time."

Houlahan, who signed on as a supporter of the proposal, said the legislation was a necessary first step in dismantling systemic racism in the criminal justice system.

"It is so important for us to all to understand what is at stake," she said. "In my heart, I know that supporting this bill was and is the right thing to do to begin to answer this call for action."

The two other members of Congress who represent communities in Berks County were split on the issue.

Rep. Madeleine Dean, a Montgomery County Democrat who represents a small portion of eastern Berks, voted to support the measure.

"Enough is enough," she told her colleagues from the floor minutes before the vote was taken. "Racial injustice has been right before our eyes for far too long. My vote tonight will honor the words of George Floyd's daughter when she said that her daddy changed the world."

Rep. Dan Meuser, a Luzerne County Republican who represents much of the county, voted against the legislation, saying that it was advanced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi with no input from Republicans and that it fails to offer solutions towards meaningful reform.

"This legislation was not inclusionary and would not reform the police," he said in a press release following the vote. "By eliminating qualified immunity and no-knock warrants, it would put police and the populace into dangerous and costly scenarios."

Meuser said Congress could have brought forward a bill drafted by Republicans in the Senate, which would not address qualified immunity and does not include a federal choke hold ban.

Changing the policing culture

Houlahan, an Air Force veteran who grew up in a military family, stressed to the roughly 2,000 people taking part in the virtual town hall Monday that she has a great deal of respect for police officers and has had positive interactions with law enforcement. However, she was quick to acknowledge that she has learned from speaking with others in her district that not everyone can say the same.

"In some ways, I really empathize with the police because I have always been a protector and I know the vast majority of police see themselves as that," she said. "But I recognize that my experiences are through my eyes and through the body of a white woman. I had that real revelation when I was teaching in the Philadelphia School District and saw how many officers were stationed throughout the school."

Houlahan added that, through discussions with local law enforcement officials over the past several weeks, officers have expressed interest in finding new ways to respond to social problems and nonviolent incidents that don't solely rely on sending in armed cops.

"Police officers really don't want to be social workers," she said.

Bass said those findings bolster her case for a change in culture.

"It's kind of like there's two perspectives within law enforcement: there's the guardian police officer and there's the warrior police officer," she said. "We've got to get rid of that warrior mentality and we've got to focus on changing the culture of policing."