Congress needs to come together on policing, GOP Sen. Rick Scott says
Speaking after Derek Chauvin's conviction, the Florida Republican called for bipartisan police-reform talks while defending qualified immunity protections.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said Congress needs to work toward bipartisan police-reform legislation rather than let the issue further divide the country, appearing on ABC's "This Week" days after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted in the killing of George Floyd, ABC News reported.
I think we ought to bring people together, not sort of incite people to do the wrong thing.
Scott called Floyd's death "horrible" and said he hoped nothing like it would happen again, according to ABC News' account of the interview. He also criticized Democrats for blocking a police-reform bill led by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the previous year, saying, "I'm disappointed with the Democrats ... all of us would like to make sure we keep our communities safe."
Where the talks were stuck
ABC News reported that qualified immunity — the legal doctrine shielding officers from many civil lawsuits — remained the central sticking point in negotiations. Scott said he did not want reform to "put a law enforcement [officer] in a position that they've got to second guess themselves when they're trying to make sure people are staying safe," signaling continued Republican resistance to changing the doctrine.
The other side of the negotiating table
Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on the same program that she believed a compromise remained possible through ongoing negotiations with Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., ABC News reported. Separately, the outlet noted President Joe Biden had signaled openness to pursuing police-reform measures through budget reconciliation if Republican votes were not forthcoming through regular order.
What it signals
Scott's comments illustrated the shape of the post-Chauvin-verdict negotiations: broad rhetorical agreement that Floyd's death was wrong, paired with an unresolved fight over the legal liability protections that any bipartisan bill would have to address. That gap between shared language and a specific mechanism — qualified immunity — was the same fault line that had already sunk the prior year's negotiations led by Tim Scott and Karen Bass.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by ABC News. It restores a story originally published on this site in April 2021; figures are as reported at the time.