State of the Union: Biden faces pressure on police reform following killing of Tyre Nichols

A year after President Joe Biden made a vocal call to “fund the police” in his State of the Union address, police reform advocates inside and outside Congress were closely watching his comments Tuesday night to see if he delivered a different message focused on fixing a system they say is still broken.

Advocates hope the attention on recent deaths, like that of Tire Nichols, the 29-year-old who was fatally shot by Memphis police in January, will help break the impasse in Congress and force lawmakers — including Biden — to be more aggressive about reform. Nichols’ mother and stepfather, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, will attend Tuesday as guests of Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Steven Horsford (D-NV), one of the lawmakers who asked Biden to address the issue in his speech.

“A year ago, you were shouting about funding the police,” said Amara Enyia, policy and research coordinator for Movement for Black Lives, which advocates for underfunded police. “Are they going to be cornered on this, or are they going to be more of the same?”

In a fact sheet released Tuesday, the White House promised that Biden would push Congress to pass the Justice George Floyd on Police Act in his 2023 State of the Union address while also providing funding for 100,000 more police officers.

The pledge is in line with Biden’s stance on policing, where he has immediately called for reforms and more funding for the police, an approach that supporters have criticized as inconsistent. In May 2022, Biden also signed an executive order that would create a database to track police misconduct and require federal agencies to create new use-of-force standards. So far, other federal action on policing has stalled in Congress because of differences between Republicans and Democrats on issues including qualified immunity, a provision that makes it harder to sue police for the harm and damage they cause.

As the national police reform rules have been established, incidents of police violence have continued unabated: In 2022, the police killed 1,192 people, the highest number in at least a decade, according to the Police Violence Mapping database; and in 2021, 1,147 people were killed by the police.

The Congressional Black Caucus also recently met with Biden to discuss police reform efforts, and urged him to use the State of the Union to drum up support for the bill and create a path forward. Both activists and lawmakers, including members of the CBC, have stepped up pressure on Biden to address police reform during his speech and delivered a rallying cry that built public support for the legislation in a divided Congress.

“State of the Union is one of the best governing opportunities today,” said Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, which supports the call for defunding. “This is a chance to give people an order.”

This evening’s State of the Union address is the latest test of how aggressive Biden is willing to be in his messaging on the issue. Although he has supported the Fairness in Police Act, the administration’s rhetoric on law enforcement — such as calls for funding — has raised concerns among advocates in the past. Additionally, some supporters hope Biden will more clearly articulate his police union opposition to certain reforms.

“What I want from the president is a stronger story and a stronger narrative,” Robinson said. “I think I just lost it.”

What activists and lawmakers want from Biden

First, advocates want to see Biden take a more active role in fighting for legislative police reform despite the political obstacles he faces. They argue that their role is to build public support and to maintain attention on the issue, which has seen more focus after the coverage of Nichols’ death. Biden’s State of the Union speech will show how dedicated he is to not only continue to urge action, but to explain any obstacles.

“The president must rally the American people to put pressure on Congress, or the big problem will continue to repeat, repeat, repeat,” said Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League.

Police reforms, including many of the Judiciary provisions in the Policing Act, have seen strong public support. In a 2022 Gallup survey, 81 percent of people support changing legal practices so that police officers face legal action for abuse of force or causing unnecessary harm, policies like curbing qualified immunity, and 78 percent support community-based alternatives like violent intervention.

Activists argue that Biden could use the bully pulpit to activate and increase this support, so that people continue to push lawmakers to focus on the issue.

Enyia, a policy coordinator with the Movement for Black Lives, also said she wants to see Biden and other lawmakers approach the issue through the lens of redirecting investment in police to provide more investment in communities.

Robinson also argued that Biden should clearly show how the opposition of the police union has contributed to the negotiations on the failed reform, so that the supporters of the policy understand the focus of energy. Morial told Politico Biden has said in the past that it would have been helpful for the president to be less vocal in order to move forward on the issue. However, Morial believes that this time a stronger approach is needed after past attempts at compromise have failed.

“Efforts to persuade quietly don’t work,” Morial told Vox.

Now, for police reform to pass, it needs House Republican support as well as the votes of at least nine Republican senators to remove the filibuster threshold in the upper chamber.

And Republicans have been hesitant to make sweeping changes to policing, worried that increasing the legal accountability of officers would make it harder to do their jobs.

Top congressional negotiators like Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Tim Scott (R-SC), as well as members of the CBC, have voiced both optimism and urgency on the subject, but it is not clear how the stalemate there will be. solved. Disagreements over the handling of qualified immunity have led to further talks in 2021, and Scott has noted that the Justice in Policing Act would be a nonstarter with his party.

That fact has led supporters to argue that Biden should continue to use his role to build momentum and potentially consider other executive actions.

Biden could use executive action on police reform

In addition to focusing on legislation, the CBC said there are more executive actions Biden could take. “We are exploring all options: legislative, executive, and community solutions,” Horsford told reporters after a White House meeting last week, though he declined to provide additional specifics.

Biden’s 2022 executive order sets up a new database aimed at tracking police misconduct, curbs the use of chokeholds at the federal level, limits the use of no-knock warrants, and uses federal discretionary grants to incentivize local agencies to comply.

Additional executive actions may direct federal agencies to issue other grants based on specific requirements. Each year, significant federal funding is distributed to law enforcement through discretionary grants, and it is possible that these resources may be withheld from police departments found to be engaging in discriminatory practices.

Robinson also pointed to federal funding allocated to traffic stops — including millions in annual highway safety grants — and said the administration could also block those resources. Udi Ofer, former director of the Justice Division of the American Civil Liberties Union and a professor at Princeton, added that Biden could use executive action to strengthen the provisions that have been passed before. They could set standards for the use of federal lethal force higher, for example, and limit the militarization of local police.

Both supporters and the White House have warned that there are limits to executive action because it can be applied more directly to federal law enforcement, which is only a fraction of the police, and they are not a substitute for real legislation on the issue. However, this additional policy change can still send an important message.

Beyond the additional executive action, CBC lawmakers also pressured the administration to find out how the existing executive order is being implemented. “One of the things we’re asking is the status of where we’re going in the implementation of that executive order from 2022,” Horsford told reporters. “And what else can we do if that executive order doesn’t include it?”

According to the Marshall Project, the establishment of the wrong database remains in the works, with Ofer, who previously worked with the White House, telling the publication that the implementation does not seem to have “closeness and level of commitment.”

In a fact sheet Tuesday, the White House claimed that several provisions of the executive order have been implemented, including updating the agency’s use-of-force policy and prohibiting the transfer of military-grade weapons to local law enforcement agencies.