Democrats embrace sweeping police reforms ‘faster than warp speed.’ How far will they go?

Roy Austin has spent much of his 25-year career investigating police misconduct and the criminal justice system, a professional life that has taken him to the upper echelons of the Department of Justice and White House.

And yet, the veteran reformer and Democrat said the last two weeks have transformed police politics within his own party in ways he once scarcely imagined possible — until now.

“Let’s not forget what destroyed the candidacy of Michael Dukakis. Let’s not forget that Bill Clinton felt like he had to be tougher on crime than Republicans, and the Congressional Black Caucus felt the same way to win an election,” Austin said. “And we are now at this place, honestly, where there is nothing that is not on the table for a serious, evidence-based discussion.

“What’s faster than warp speed?” he added. “This is unbelievable. It’s been unbelievable to see the shift.”

The death of George Floyd in Minnesota last month and ensuing weeks-long protests gripping nearly every American city have become a galvanizing moment for Democrats, convincing the vast majority of the party that it must tackle head on the once-sensitive subject of racist police violence.

It’s a change that has set a new standard for the minimum set of reforms most Democrats now support (like de-militarizing the police), introduced once-unthinkable far-reaching measures into the party’s mainstream (like defunding the police), and emboldened many party leaders that they can embrace a sweeping set of changes without facing broader political consequences in the November elections.

That embrace was evident Monday, when Democratic leaders in the U.S. House and Senate unveiled a joint proposal meant to curb police misconduct — a day after Minneapolis officials signaled their intention to dismantle their local police department. To some leading Democrats, those moves are part of a permanent shift in mindset within the party that will reshape its policy agenda for a generation.

“The energy around change is broader and deeper than anything that we’ve seen on this issue ever before,” said Julián Castro, the former Democratic presidential candidate and mayor of San Antonio who compared the protests to an “electric bolt that electrifies everything it touches.”

The transformation within the party is backed by a shift in the broader public: A Monmouth University poll released last week found that a majority of Americans, 57%, thought police were more likely to use excessive force against African-Americans than whites, a complete reversal from the same poll conducted a few years earlier.

Not every proposal is earning consensus among Democrats. The activist-led push to defund the police — a policy that can mean anything from reducing the departments’ budgets to their complete abolition — has drawn pushback from some of the party’s congressional leaders and its de-facto presidential nominee, Joe Biden. A spokesman for the former vice president on Monday said that Biden did not support defunding the police.

Although there’s resistance to some of the movement’s more maximal proposals, Democrats say it would be a mistake to think the transformation underway in their party is confined to just cities and other urban areas. Most every Democrat, regardless of geography, has felt compelled to get on board.

“This is not just happening in cities,” said Mikie Sherrill, a Democratic congresswoman from a moderate suburban district in New Jersey. “This is happening in some of our smallest towns across North Jersey. We have protests just about everywhere.”

Sherrill, a member of the moderate “Blue Dog” caucus, said she “would not be surprised” if every single House Democrat eventually supported the police reform package introduced Monday.

The congresswoman and other Democrats are quick to say they hadn’t been ignoring issues of police misconduct or changes to the criminal justice system in recent years. Congressional Democrats supported changes to the criminal justice system signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2018, and unrest in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 deepened scrutiny of police conduct long before Floyd’s death.

Police reform experts like Austin also say the presidential candidates running in the 2020 Democratic primary also had the most aggressive, expansive set of policies on the subject ever assembled, including Biden.

But if Floyd’s death has had a more galvanizing effect on the party’s elected officials than Ferguson, activists say that’s in part because Democrats — at both the local and federal level — have become more liberal and open to their point of view. It’s a process that accelerated after Trump’s election in 2016, when the party swept to victories at all levels with an infusion of new, more progressive candidates.

Gun control advocates, for instance, say they saw evidence of the same shift in 2018 after the death of 17 people at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., which helped galvanize Democrats on that issue.

“We’re electing younger and more diverse lawmakers who come to these issues more naturally,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America, a group that advocates for stricter restrictions on gun purchases and violence. “And we’re also changing the belief system of many lawmakers by either having their back or holding them accountable, or both.”

Watts said she saw the change in the party on an issue like gun control, when Democrats who as recently as five years ago had backed proposals loosening gun safety laws now count themselves as committed advocates for reducing gun violence.

And indeed, by 2018, even longshot Democratic candidates running in deep red House districts often supported proposals like banning assault rifles, an issue that terrified many party members a decade earlier.

Even if an issue like defunding the police stirs controversy and is rejected by many party leaders, advocates say that it’s being discussed at all is evidence of how far the conversation has shifted.

“That leading edge, a few years ago, nobody would have touched it,” said Maurice Mitchell, national director for the progressive Working Families Party. “No elected official would have touched that. And now you have elected officials openly talking about defunding the police.”

Austin, the former prosecutor, said he sees an opportunity for change in a way he never thought possible.

“I see the end of the death penalty,” Austin said. “I see the significant removal of jail for all low-level offenses. I see the potential investment, serious investment, in majority minority spaces. I see a complete remaking of the role of a prosecutor. I think it’s now all on the table.”

This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 11:14 AM with the headline "Democrats embrace sweeping police reforms ‘faster than warp speed.’ How far will they go?."