Coronavirus, which has struck communities of color disproportionately. Today, we welcome Congressional Black Caucus chair, bass, atative karen democrat from california. Chairs theive bass Judiciary Committee subcommittee and was passed by House Speaker nancy pelosi and judiciary chair jerry nadler, shepherding the George Floyd Justice in policing act, through the legislative process. T, which passed the house in late june, bans chokeholds and no knock warrants, as well as lowering the legal barriers for bringing civil and criminal charges against police for misconduct. A Police Reform bill offered by a republican senator, tim scott, has stalled in the senate after democrats complained it did not police abusesurb and key components, including an end to qualified immunity for police. Senator scott and representative bass have tried to negotiate a compromise. It is something representative bass can claim is a bit of a specialty. To congress in 2010, inresentative bass served the california state assembly. Under her leadership, republicans and democrats in the assembly came together to address californias crisis. Colleagues,ee another democrat and two republicans, one award in 2010. The judges recognize the the with theor standing up Party Pressure that they faced. Now, political pundits are buzzing about represented of running matesible for joe biden. Before we asked represented of bass about her position on Vice President bidens shortlist, let me take a moment to thank the organizers for the event. Coordinator,ine Club Communications director lindsay underwood, and Club Executive director bill mccarron. Basssng represented of opening statement, we accept questions from the audience. I will take as many questions as time permits. To submit a question, please send via email to headliners pre ss. Org. Screen, i will turn the over to represented of karen bass representative karen bass. Thank you for joining us. Rep. Bass it is an honor to appear before you and an honor to meet you virtually. Future that i can appear before the club in person. Moment. N an historic i think back to a couple of months ago when the world witnessed the brutal murder of george floyd. We sat there and we could see it take place over almost nine minutes. To me, that represented a profound difference in any video we have seat then we have seen before. Saw protests in 50 states around the country, people of every race and nationality, every gender out there. We saw people protesting in countries around the world and, on the african continent, all 54 countries came together and essentially leveled the protest at the united nations, about racism in the United States. Now that i moment believe has developed into a movement that started with Police Brutality and has now taken even a bigger issue up like systemic racism. Civil rightsto the movement. Jim crow had been going on for over 100 years in the south. Place inities taking the south had been going on for years. Cameranot until the tv went down to the south, pictures were taken, the media was there, and reports were given, about what was happening in the south. That really raised consciousness just for the people, not in the United States, but around of theld, and one outcomes was civil rights legislation. In thatike we are moment again. Holy would be taking place every time there was a murder taken place on video, and the pulling was always the same. I will make up the numbers to make a point. 70 of white people who were polled would say there is no systemic problem with policing. Problem, one example. 70 of africanamericans would say, there is a systemic problem with policing in the United States. A united now reflect view. Thatf americans are saying there is a deep problem here, and it is a problem we need to address. To me, it presents a real opportunity. That was the basis in which the George Floyd Justice and policing act was conceived, put together, and passed. Matter thatall every democrat voted for the bill. I believe prior to what we saw happen, we would not even have had all of the democratic support. We even had the votes of three republicans. That was no small matter. If you remember, the president tweeted a couple of days before, and he called for all republicans to oppose the bill. Everyone knows when that happens, he usually gets his way because mike my republican colleagues are concerned about him tweeting or attacking them and they line up. In the process of putting the bill together, the hearings we of my republican colleagues approached me and said, you know, i cannot be in 100 favor of this bill. But we need to talk about this. The subject of the bill actually reflected bills that minute members of the Congressional Black Caucus worked on for many years. This is the 49th year of the Congressional Black Caucus. In the very beginning of the history, members introduce policetion to address abuse. This is a longstanding issue in our community. When i went to George Floyds service and looked up and saw the year he was born, 1970 three, that was the year i first became active on this issue in los angeles. I joined an organization, the coalition against police abuse, in 1973. We had terrible problems in our cities our city which led to numerous losses. A police chief which was very difficult and out of step. Africanamericans were being killed by chokeholds in large numbers. He had a press conference and he told los angeles in the press conference that the reason why black people die from chokeholds was because our veins were different than white people, and our veins did not open up as rapidly. That is what we were dealing with 47 years ago. Kingught after the rodney beating, when it was on video, i said, finally, everything will change now, because it is on video stop because we had been crying out about these problems for years, but no one believed us. Killed,me someone was it was always said, well, they assaulted a Police Officer, the officer was in fear for his life. We thought with rodney king, the world would see and those officers would for sure be convicted. We saw what happened. Fastforward in the cell phone camera is invented. Are athought, ok, there lot of videos. Every time before george floyd, people would say, we really do not know what happened before the video started. The officer said he was in fear for his life. And we do not know who Michael Brown was. And eric gardner, well, you know, he was doing something wasg, as though, even if he committing a crime, when do you execute people . What happened to innocent until Proven Guilty . What happened to arresting someone and putting them on that george floyd was just so egregious, no one could really argue. You did not need to know what happened before the video. You watched him being murdered over eight minutes and 46 seconds. You saw that he was completely subdued. I think that really led to people saying, we cannot debate this one this time. So the movement has raised other issues. It raised the issue of systemic racism. Withng at her history, movement around the statue, i certainly do not agree with the violence that has taken place, the looting that has taken place in the protests, but we all know now that protests happen every day, in the incidence of violence now, if you add the length of time of the protests, there have been a few examples. The statue, i would like to see them come down. But i think there is a way for them to come down, as opposed to vandalizing the statues. But the point is that, what started with a killing of george floyd has now led to bigger questions in our country, like systemic racism, and questioning very specific systems. The education system, the criminal Justice System, and i happy to say there is a lot of bipartisan support for and i will introduce a bill related to the criminal Justice System and women next week. If you look at the Health Care System and prior to George Floyds murder, as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, i was focused 100 on the disproportionate death rate of africanamericans and because of covid. We could have a discussion about covid and how it is being handled and the fact that they are now 138,000 americans who died in last few months and a president who does not seem to be moved by it at all. In fact, wants us to congratulate him that there are not more americans. And we do not know what the breakdown of those 138,000 americans are. The Congressional Black Caucus introduced legislation to tell the cdc they need to give us the demographics, but now the administration does not even want the cdc to have the information. Know, the Congressional Black Caucus works lockstep with the hispanic caucus, and now we have two native american women in congress, and we all Work Together and are in lockstep because these issues do not just impact black americans. The impact latinos, Asian Pacific islanders, even a disproportionate death rate has impacted all of our communities in disproportionate ways. So we Work Together. Policing, you can detail what the bill was about accountability measures, transparency measures. Are twoo add there parts of the bill, one on accountability, where we are uplifting the police. Why is it that your hairdresser has national accreditation, but your Police Department does not . When we met with the paternal order of police, they were excited by that part of the bill and we feel it actually helps them, because they have been fighting for National Standards and agitation for a long time, but they have to fight on a retail basis. There are 18,000 Police Departments around the country. Us passing the george floyd act and hopefully getting it on the president s desk will allow National Standards to then take ways around the country, that will help the order of the police. One thing i would like to talk about is the grants we provide to communities so they can reenvision policing. Addressed a lot of what the protesters are talking about when they are raising a russian about how we are spending money in our communities. I prefer to talk about refunding of communities to address communitybased problems like Substance Abuse and homelessness. Police officers should not have to pick up the pieces because we have to vested from cities. Inhink we are at a moment our country, and inflection point, and it is my thatnsibility and those of other members of congress, to take advantage of this. Forme thank you very much the honor of addressing you today. Hat stop i would like to start with, could you go in a little more about the transparency portion of the bill and specifically, how that might appeal to the folks with black lives matter . Rep. Bass sure. First of all, one thing we absolutely need to have is a National Registry of Police Officers. If you think of to mere rights, and i will remind you, he was a 12yearold child killed within seconds after the Police Officer jumped out of his car and killed him. That Police Officer had been fired from a nearby department and had been fired because he was viewed as unstable, with a propensity for violence. And he lied and did not acknowledge that he had been fired. We think there should be a registry for officers like that. I do not think any police chief in the country would willingly hire somebody that was known to be unstable and violent. That is an example. But i think, very significantly, the idf communitybased organizations, not law enforcement, can apply for grants. In a city, they can say, why dont we all come together across sectors. Why dont we look at what we need to keep our communities safe . What are parts of the community that are not safe and why . How should we look at our city budget . How should we prioritize . City of los angeles, the mayor decided to shift funds to address some of the problems in the community that are not directly law enforcement. In los angeles, we have a jail we call the twin towers. We say it is the nations most expensive mental institution. Yearse have done over the is we have systematically taken funding away from the safety net and supportive services, and we started criminalizing health problems. Mental illness should not be criminalized. Ago, we had mental institutions. People decided those are barbaric and we should not have those anymore. We made a commitment as a society that we were going to build communitybased institutions, and we reneged on that commute that commitment. That is obviously not the only reason people are helpless, but it is a contributing factor to the homeless situation. It should not be that a person with Mental Illness be at the point where they become violent. We should be sure they have the proper treatment and medication and whatever else they need so they do not reach the point of violence. I am not trying to say that you can send in the social worker to deal with a hostage situation. There are obviously times when you need Police Officers. But you do not need Police Officers to be marriage counselors. You do not need Police Officers if you took care of the problem on the front end. That is a little bit about transparency and community. Ok. Im curious to know more about how your work with senator tim scott. Your negotiations on the Police Reform matter. Can you give us a little insight into those discussions and what the next steps might be . Rep. Bass and let me correct something. Senator scott and i are not negotiating. We have talked. We came into congress together. A member of the house before he was in the senate. There are no formal negotiations going on. I am willing and interested to talk to a senator. I look forward to that again when i get back next week, but we essentially had a cordial meeting when we talked about the issue globally. But i have had a number of conversations with colleagues in the house. The republican colleagues that came up to me in the courts of conversations, we have been having conversations. They have talked about parts of the bill they feel good about, parts of the bill they have angst about, and they are presenting different ideas. I am willing to talk to whoever is interested in having a number station, but understand that my primary focus is trying to put the pressure on the senate to vote on the George Floyd Justice and policing act. That is the primary focus right now. We will see what happens. I am not pessimistic. I am optimistic. Anytime republican colleagues come up and say, there are parts of the bill i like, i will tell you something that i thought was funny. During the hearing, during the voting and committee on the colleaguesepublican talked about everything under the sun but the bill. They talked about everything. To me, i viewed that as, maybe there is an opportunity. To, especially where my republican colleagues tear apart the bill because they disagreed with it, instead, they express interest and support for different parts of the bill, but i cannot vote for it for x, nz. Ly x, y, and z. It would be an overstatement to say i am to go should with the senate considering i am with the house. Senator harris and senator booker have the George Floyd Justice and policing act in the senate, and i know they are working with their colleagues. Thank you for the clarification. We will remember you are only in conversations with some colleagues. Do you see senator scotts bill as a sincere effort, or Something Else entirely . Rep. Bass i saw his bill as a sincere effort, absolutely. Is ai talked to him, he black man in america and he understands the issue. He can account recount the numerous times he has been stopped. I know you are well aware of this. This is not just an issue for black men. Black women have the issue as well. We have conversations with our girls the same way we have conversations with our boys. Us fromlegacy issue for the time we arrived in this cant on this continent. How would you prepare the breach that is so apparent between the police and the black community, or communities of color in general . I have very specific ways of approaching it. Prior to being an elected official, 30 years ago, in 1990, i started a communitybased organization in the heart of South Central los angeles at the height of the crack cocaine crips and blood crisis going on. Had 1000 homicides in los angeles that year. I was so concerned about the issue because what i saw happening was, my background is in health care. I saw us criminalized addiction. Crack cocaine was a health issue. And then it was an economic issue because all of the factories closed, industries were leaving the area, nothing was replacing those jobs. I will never forget Newsweek Magazine calling crack cocaine an equal opportunity employer. As a health and economic issue that we refused to address and we criminalized it. I was doing grassroots organizing and trying to get my chief i the same police was talking about, i mentioned in 1973, we were still dealing with him in 1990. His solution to the problem was he started a program calle