Sen. Cory Booker was “so excited” about a police funding amendment from Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Tuesday night that he wanted to hug him on the Senate floor.
After Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, introduced amendment 3113, saying, “Opposing my amendment is a vote in support of defunding the police and against the men and women in blue,” Booker called the proposal “a gift.”
“I am so excited!” Booker exclaimed. “This is perhaps the highlight of this long and painful and torturous night. This is a gift. If it wasn’t [a] complete abdication of Senate procedures and esteem, I would walk over there and hug my colleague from Alabama.”
HOW THE ‘DEFUND THE POLICE’ DEBATE IS PLAYING OUT IN OAKLAND
Booker urged “all of [the Senators], 100 people,” to “sashay down there and vote for this amendment” to “put to rest the lies” that there are members of the Senate who want to defund the police.
“There’s some people who have said that there are members of this deliberative body that want to defund the police, to my horror, and now, this senator has given us the gift that finally, once and for all, we can put to bed this scurrilous accusation that somebody in this great, esteemed body would want to defund the police,” he said, adding he is “sure [he] will see no political ads attacking anybody here over ‘defund the police.'”
The New Jersey Democrat then asked unanimous consent to add another change to the “obvious bill,” proposing the new amendment reflect senators’ support for “God, country, and apple pie.”
Amendment 3113, which would “establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to decreasing Federal funding for local jurisdictions that defund the police,” passed the Senate 99-0 on Tuesday. Senate Concurrent Resolution 14, with the Tuberville amendment attached, then passed the upper chamber 50-49.
Some on the Left, such as members of the liberal “Squad” in the House, have supported calls to “defund the police” by reallocating funding for police departments to other local initiatives.
“There are too many people that need help right now for me to allow that. So, if I end up spending $200,000, if I spend $10 more on [security], you know that I get to be here to do the work,” Rep. Cori Bush, a Squad member, said last week. “So, suck it up. Defunding the police has to happen. We need to defund the police and put that money into a social safety net.”
Democrats have charged the GOP with attempting to defund the police, saying Republicans’ uniform opposition to President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan amounted to stripping local police departments of funding.
“Let’s talk about who defunded the police,” said Biden senior adviser Cedric Richmond. “When we were in Congress last year trying to pass a rescue plan — I’m sorry, not the rescue plan but an emergency relief plan for cities that were cash-strapped and laying off police and firefighters — it was the Republicans who objected to it. And in fact, they didn’t get funding until the American Rescue Plan, which our plan allowed state and local governments to replenish their police departments and do the other things that are needed.”
Republicans bristled at the charge, with Sen. Ted Cruz saying it’s “like an arsonist showing up at a fire and blaming the firemen, it’s like the Chinese blaming Americans for the Wuhan virus, and it’s like O.J. saying he’s going to help find the real killer.”
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Several Democratic strongholds throughout the country have moved to reform police departments, often restricting funding in the aftermath of high-profile deaths connected to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Some of these localities have since reversed course, with Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington, D.C., announcing last month she would send an $11 million supplemental budget for the purpose of training and hiring additional officers following the city’s June 2020 vote to slash $15 million from its police budget.
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Tags: News, Cory Booker, Tommy Tuberville, Police, Law Enforcement, Senate, Congress
Original Author: Carly Roman
Original Location: ‘This is a gift’: Cory Booker enthusiastically endorses GOP amendment opposing ‘defund the police’
