Seared by history, inspired by street protests they’ve seen over the last two weeks, and burdened by a question they say has been voiced everywhere they go – "What are you going to do about it?' – members of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus took civil disobedience inside the state House chamber Monday to demand fast-tracked action on police reforms.
The members seized control of the rostrum shortly before session was gavelled in and held their ground for the next 90 minutes, seeking to break out of politics as usual at the Capitol that they said has seen their bills, as part of the minority party in the House, consigned to a legislative backwater.
By day’s end, they had won House Speaker Mike Turzai’s commitment to lead a push for a special session on policing issues, and the promise of a Tuesday follow-up meeting with senior Republican leadership to see if there is a set of bills both parties could agree on and push for floor consideration before the chamber’s summer break.
“Leaders from both caucuses will meet to kind of go over what bills we believe we can agree to get run out of committee and out of the chamber, and that’s just the starting point,” said Rep. Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia and the Democratic whip. “Is there resolution? No. Is there progress? Yes.
“We want them to run as many bills as we can run now," Harris continued. "But we also want to have a special session because we understand that there are some issues that will take a little longer.”
The takeover, which members said was spearheaded by first-term Rep Summer Lee, D-Allegheny County, and the details of which were finalized only Monday morning, appeared to catch GOP leadership by surprise, and it wound up turning the day’s scheduled agenda on its head.
The black caucus members – there are 23 in the 203-seat House – unfurled a large “Black Lives Matter” banner at the front of the chamber.
They stood in silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds in tribute to George Floyd, the unarmed black man whose May 25 death while in custody of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin – who is now facing murder charges – has set off a convulsion of national protests over police brutality against racial minorities.
And they railed at the traditional lack of attention to their issues just because they are in the wrong political party that, they said, forced this moment.
Rep. Steven Kinsey, D-Philadelphia and chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, said he was “frustrated, upset and feeling as though I’m carrying the weight of black folks on my shoulders. We cannot rewrite history. However, black and brown folks refuse to relive history.”
“No more thoughts and prayers. No more thoughts and prayers. We are legislators. Let us legislate,” said Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Philadelphia.
Turzai, a Republican from suburban Pittsburgh, was seen standing at the left of the rostrum for at least a portion of the floor demonstration, but he and his colleagues early on decided not to stop it.
About an hour into it, the Speaker did take the dais and added his remarks to the session, saying he was letting the demonstration proceed as “an act of peaceful civil disobedience” and asking the House’s Republican and Democratic leadership teams to meet at 3:15 p.m. to further discuss a response to the black caucus members’ demands.
“I understand silence is not the answer for what is happening,” Turzai said.
Several House Republicans appeared to be kneeling and others praying while seated during the silent vigil for Floyd.
Under special rules passed to cope with the pandemic, members do not have to be in the Capitol to vote, and attendance was spotty.
But Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon, said he and some of his fellow Republicans were unhappy about the protest. “The way to get 19 bills heard is to draft them properly, bring them before the House and hold a majority,” Diamond said.
Gov. Tom Wolf’s press secretary, Lyndsay Kensinger, said Monday that the governor – who had signaled his readiness to prioritize police and other criminal justice reforms in several recent public appearances – would be happy to engage with the legislature in whatever platform it chooses.
Among 19 reforms that the legislative black caucus had introduced, in most cases long before the Floyd homicide:
- Elimination of “effectuating an arrest” as a justification for an officer’s use of deadly force against a suspect. in other words, a suspect couldn’t be shot at simply because he is trying to escape, and banning the use of chokeholds or other pressure on an arrestee’s airways as a method of detention.
- Establishing a mandatory, independent review process like the appointment of a special prosecutor for all officer-involved deaths, ending the practice of local district attorneys ruling on deaths at the hands of officers they work with regularly.
- Creation of a statewide “red flag” database of police officers who have faced disciplinary actions, and requiring entities where the discipline occurred to make the full personnel files on those incidents available to any law enforcement agencies considering hiring that person anew.
- Making police officers mandated reporters of any action of misconduct, corruption or brutality by another officer, similar to the requirement already imposed on doctors, teachers, coaches and child care workers regarding suspected cases of child abuse.
- Requiring evaluations of police officers for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder every two years, and within 30 days of a use-of-force incident.
Attempts to reach House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rob Kauffman, R-Chambersburg, and normally the first gatekeeper for law and order bills in the House, were not successful for this report.
In the state Senate, meanwhile, leaders announced a series of hearings starting next week on law enforcement and criminal justice accountability reforms.
“We do not want to simply run legislation so we can pat ourselves on the back nor do we want to stick our head in the sand,” said Sen. Pat Stefano, R-Fayette County and chair of the Senate Law and Justice Committee. “Rather we want to engage in a thoughtful process. That means gathering information by bringing all sides together. It’s an emotional and personal issue. We need to gather the evidence to take us from a thoughtful process to thoughtful legislation.”
Harris and his colleagues made no apologies for the surprise attack after the series of Monday meetings that it had provoked and he said he expects several of the measures will pass easily if they can simply get called up for votes.
“Bills have been languishing while black folk continue to have to deal with fearing for their lives when they interact with law enforcement," Harris said. "Cities across this country are burning. I’m from Philadelphia. My city has been burnt. There’s been civil unrest all over. People are demanding action, so, we did what we could to take action.
“It’s nothing personal against them [the members of the GOP leadership],” Harris added. “What is personal to me is that I’m a black man, with a black father and black grandfather, and hopefully one day if God blesses me, I’ll have some beautiful black babies. What I don’t want is for my black son to have to go through some of the things that I’ve had to go through with law enforcement. While I have the power, I will do everything I can to get it done.”
Lee, who opened the protest, said, “We are not willing to go back to business as usual and we are not willing to go back to ‘normal.’” She has authored several use-of-deadly force reform bills based on the 2018 police shooting of Antwon Rose II, an Allegheny County teen who was shot in the back and killed by an East Pittsburgh police officer while fleeing from a traffic stop.
"What we are seeing across this nation is a crying out for freedom and justice that we cannot ignore. We work for the people of this commonwealth, the very folks who have been on the street calling for change. We just came here and did our job today.”
Turzai, ordinarily a fierce protector of the majority’s prerogative in Harrisburg, suggested he understood where the anger was coming from.
“Some of you might say: ‘Well, you’ve surrendered the majority.’ No. There’s not merely just majority and minority. We are the representatives of the people. It’s clear the entire country, the entire world, is up in arms over what began with the killing in Minneapolis. So why wouldn’t this august body try to address these issues as well?”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.