McEachin, Congressional Black Caucus discuss equality legislation

As protests demanding legislative action to hold police accountable and protect Black Americans continue throughout the country, Central Virginia’s Donald McEachin (VA-04) and a few other members of the Congressional Black Caucus convened for a town hall Monday to discuss how upcoming policy can address those concerns.

McEachin, whose district includes Eastern Henrico, was joined by Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman Rep. Karen Bass (CA-37), as well as Rep. Bobby Scott (VA-03), Rep. Bennie Thompson (MS-02), Rep. Cedric Richmond (LA-02), Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12) and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05) for a public town hall held over Zoom to discuss institutional racism, police brutality and legislation that has been introduced by Congressional Black Caucus members in response.

Bass sponsored H.R. 7120, or the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020. The bill intends to limit immunity and increase transparency for law enforcement.

“You saw the man who slowly murdered George Floyd look dead into the eye of a camera with his hand in his pocket while he strangled him to death, acting with complete impunity,” said Bass. “Well, we need to take that impunity away.”

The bill also would create a registry to prevent officers who have been fired by one department to be hired at another. The officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014, for example, had been forced to resign from a neighboring police department two years earlier.

The Congressional Black Caucus knows that the injustices black Americans face come from more than just the police, Bass said, so its members plan to reintroduce the Jobs and Justice Act. Originally introduced in 2018, the act seeks to reform the criminal justice system and provide economic empowerment to communities who have suffered from generations of inequality.

McEachin introduced the Environmental Justice for All Act in February. The bill would help marginalized communities keep their air, water and homes safe from industrial development.

“When you look at why black and brown people are so adversely affected by COVID-19, you understand that it attacks the respiratory system,” McEachin said. “Black, brown and poor folks live near places with bad water, bad air. They’re subject to stay at home orders, which are well intended but they have to stay at home in public housing which oftentimes isn’t properly ventilated, is subject to mold and subject to making their respiratory systems even worse.”

At the end of the town hall, the caucus members discussed the importance of the upcoming primaries and remarked on the notion that Americans can still create change by unifying.

“Democracy is fragile,” said Cleaver. “It is always hanging from a cliff, and it is the responsibility of every generation to pull democracy back from the edge of the cliff, and that’s what I think these young people are doing right now.”