Vote Explainer – Police Week Bills

Transparency is vital to democracy. Below please find explainers for key votes I took in the 118th Congress.

May 12th–18th, 2024, was National Police Week. Since 1962, our nation has recognized Police Week as a way to honor and remember law enforcement officers who gave their lives in the line of duty and to commit ourselves to making our nation safer.

While the titles of these bills might sound foolproof, my job is to examine each bill on its substance, and not just on its title. A closer analysis reveals that most of these laws do nothing to support our police – nor do they increase public safety or fix our broken immigration system. 

I voted in favor of four bills: two resolutions that express the House’s appreciation for and gratitude to local law enforcement officers and condemn violence against them; as well as the “Recruit and Retain Act,’ which expands a grant program to allow for additional officer recruitment activities; and the “Improving Law Enforcement Office Safety and Wellness Through Data Act,” which requires the DOJ to report on attacks on law enforcement and make recommendations for improving data collection.
 

The bills I voted against include:

LEOSA Reform Act

This bill allows qualified active and retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed firearms and ammunition (including magazines) in school zones; in national parks; on state, local, or private property that is open to the public; and in federal facilities that are open to the public. It also allows states to reduce the frequency with which retired law enforcement officers must meet qualification standards.

This bill undermines longstanding precedent. When LEOSA was enacted in 2004, it expanded the rights of qualified active and retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed firearms across state lines—but it also carved out explicit exemptions for the exact locations this bill is now trying to allow firearms into. There is no reasonable explanation for eliminating that carve out. 

Increasing the number of guns while decreasing the training standards of those carrying them does not make our schools, restaurants, and parks safer.
 

Detain and Deport Illegal Aliens Who Assault Cops Act

This bill mandates immigration detention for any undocumented immigrants, DACA recipients, or refugees with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) who are charged with, arrested for, or convicted of, or who admits to, assaulting a police officer or first responder.

Any immigrant who assaults a law enforcement officer should face strong penalties. That is unquestionable. My concern with this bill, however, is that it violates fundamental American principles of due process.

Under current law, immigrants who are convicted of or admit to assaulting a law enforcement officer are already subject to mandatory detention. This bill simply expands that provision to anyone who is arrested, even if they are legally in the U.S. and are never charged with any crime with no evidence they’ve committed one. 

That is not how our justice system is supposed to work. Again, this bill is not a good faith effort to fix our immigration system. 
 

Police Our Border Act

If Republicans were to bring to the floor a bill that streamlined the migrant screening process, reduced the yearslong application backlog, bolstered the CBP workforce, provided targeted aid to countries where instability is fueling migration to our Southern border, or provided additional drug detection technology to CBP agents—in other words, took any steps to actually reduce illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking—I would vote for it.

This bill does not do that. Instead, it regurgitates the lie that President Biden is willfully manufacturing a crisis at our border by opening our borders. President Biden was clear in his support for the negotiated immigration provisions of the national security supplemental. In the end it was Republicans who perpetuated the crisis to retain its political value by walking away from a deal they knew would resolve the issue.
 

H.Res. 1210 – Condemning the Biden border crisis and the tremendous burdens law enforcement officers face as a result

This resolution claims that Democrat elected officials “prioritize illegal alien criminals over citizens and legal residents of the United States.” This is, simply put, a lie.

Another lie told by this resolution is that Trump’s immigration enforcement policies were effective. Under President Trump, in 2020, the removal of undocumented immigrants from the interior of the United States was the lowest as an absolute number and as a share of the undocumented immigration population since ICE was created in 2003. The total number of undocumented immigrants remained largely unchanged throughout his presidency.

We can do better than making things up.
 

DC CRIMES Act

This bill changes the D.C. Home Rule Act to prohibit D.C.’s City Council from changing the city’s criminal sentencing laws.

The Home Rule Act was enacted in 1973 to give D.C. the ability to have an elected mayor and city council. This allowed D.C.—which today has a population larger than Vermont or Wyoming—some measure of self-determination over their own laws. Every other state and city in the nation has this right, and I doubt any resident of any other city would enjoy the federal government swooping in to strip that right away just because some Members of Congress don’t like the laws they’ve enacted.

This bill is also ridiculous in that it prohibits not just lowering sentencing requirements, but raising them, too. Under this bill, D.C. wouldn’t be able to increase penalties for crime unless Congress were to vote to do so. And we all know how long Congress can take to act.

Lastly, Congress already retains the right to review and veto any new laws passed by D.C.’s City Council. It isn’t necessary to take away the city’s right to make these laws entirely just to prevent any given law from going into effect. This can be—and is regularly—done on a case-by-case basis.