U.S. Congresswoman Cindy Axne

While the Iowa Legislature passed police reform legislation in a relatively quick fashion this June, the U.S. Senate has yet to vote on a bill passed in the House which was cosponsored by Iowa Congresswoman Cindy Axne (D).

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 passed on a vote of 236 to 181 on June 25th and contains several provisions such as it would ban chokeholds at the federal level, create a nationwide police misconduct registry, establish public safety innovation grants for community-based organizations to create local commissions and task forces to help communities improve public safety, and limit the transfer of military-grade equipment to state and local law enforcement.

Representative Axne says this legislation is Congress’ first step towards making change a reality for Black Americans, tackling not only racism and bias in our institutions, but also making changes that will save lives and hold law enforcement accountable, “I think that there’s an opportunity here. The bill from the House has a lot of very similar pieces,like we have in the bill that was passed at the statehouse in Iowa. And so I’m hoping we’ll come to some type of conclusion, but I gotta tell you this is not the time for take-it-or-leave-it negotiations. We can get those important first steps passed at reform, in Iowa we did that, we can do that at a federal level as well.”

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law on June 12th that puts tougher restrictions on the use of chokeholds in arrests and prevents police officers fired for misconduct from being rehired in the state.