These 10 power players are helping shape police reform behind the scenes

• Advocates, lawmakers, and the White House are hopeful Congress will pass a police reform bill soon.
• The House already passed a bill that would ban chokeholds and racial profiling in policing. 
• Know anyone else who should be on this list? Email Camila DeChalus at [email protected]
• Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

Police reform is shaping up to be one of the biggest challenges the Biden administration takes on, even with Democrats in charge of Congress and the White House.

The mass demonstrations and protests that erupted across the country in 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd prompted calls to overhaul policing practices. From California to New York, state legislatures and government officials have proposed bills that would drastically overhaul law enforcement.  

One of the most ambitious efforts yet has come from Ithaca, New York Mayor Svante Myrick who recently proposed replacing the city’s entire police department with a civilian-led agency.

In Congress, the House in early March passed a major police reform bill — formally known as George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 — on Wednesday that would federally ban chokeholds and racial profiling.

President Joe Biden has signaled his support for the bill but it faces a complicated path in the Senate where Democrats have a razor-thin majority and not enough GOP support for the kind of overhauls advocates are seeking. 

All 50 Democrats and at least 10 Republicans would have to support the bill to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to pass legislation under Senate procedures.

But it will take more than just lawmakers to make police reform happen at the federal level. Even if Congress doesn’t pass police reform legislation, civil rights activists will certainly keep pushing the White House for those kinds of changes through executive action. Police unions will be fighting back or advocating for law enforcement positions.

Here are the key players shaping police reform behind the scenes. 

Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat and lead sponsor of a House police reform bill

Bass has been a long-time advocate of police reform, dating back to when she was a community organizer in the 1990s in Los Angeles. 

The California lawmaker who has the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus in the last session is spearheading the latest effort on police reform in Congress by introducing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021. 

Bass introduced a similar version of the bill in the House last summer, which passed with the support of three Republicans. However, the measure was stalled in the Senate, which was then controlled by Republicans.

But with Democrats fully in charge and the House recently passing her bill for the second time, she is hopeful Congress will finally be able to pass a law enforcement reform bill completely “transform policing in America.”

“I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and across the aisle to ensure that substantive police reform arrives at the President’s desk,” she said in a news release Wednesday following the passage of her House bill.

Sen. Tim Scott, sponsor of Senate GOP's 2020 policing bill

Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, has also taken up the fight on police reform. Scott, who is the only Black GOP senator, introduced his own version of a police reform bill, known as the JUSTICE Act, in response to the death of George Floyd. 

Scott’s measure focuses on improving data collection on police misconduct and establishing more training for law enforcement on de-escalation. 

Several Senate Democrats refused to support the bill, arguing it was inadequate and did not go far enough to create meaningful police reform. For instance, the bill didn’t reform qualified immunity, a judicial doctrine created by the Supreme Court that protects law enforcement officers from civil lawsuits under certain conditions. 

The Senate voted on the bill in June, but it fell short of the 60-vote threshold by only five votes. 

Now with the House taking back up the issue. Scott has signaled that he is willing to work across the aisle to create a bill that has a better chance of getting Senate passage. 

“I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle will come to the table to find common ground where we can make meaningful changes that will bring us closer to the goal of a more just country,” he told Insider in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

Sen. Cory Booker, sponsor of Senate Democrat's 2020 police reform bill

Booker has for years pushed for criminal justice reform, including for overhauls to the police system.

In 2018, he played a critical role alongside then Sen. Kamala Harris in helping pass a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill known as the First Step Act that modified sentencing laws and expanded job training for federal prisoners. 

As one of only two Black Democratic senators, the former 2020 presidential candidate is certain to play a big role in lobbying GOP lawmakers to sign onto the police reform bill this time around.

“We will work to continue building a diverse coalition of support behind these reform efforts and advance policing reform through the Senate,” he said in a news release following the passage of the House police reform bill. “The time for action is now.”

Vanita Gupta,Biden’s nominee to be associate attorney general at DOJ

If Gupta is confirmed by the Senate, she will be the third highest-ranking Justice Department official to serve in the Biden administration.

Gupta has been a vocal supporter of police reform. She previously served as the CEO and president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

During her time at the organization, she advocated for Congress to adopt policies to eliminate qualified immunity and ban the use of chokeholds.

“Our nation will one day have a Justice Department committed to constitutional policing — one with the moral authority to lead a sincere reckoning with our history of state violence and white supremacy against black communities and other communities of color,” she wrote in a Washington Post op-ed on June 2. 

Susan Rice, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council

Rice previously served as former President Barack Obama’s former national security adviser as the US ambassador to the United Nations. 

As Rice leads the White House Domestic Policy Council, she will be tasked with the challenging responsibility of helping Biden carry out his domestic legislative agenda which includes police reform.

In the past, Rice has been a vocal critic of Congress’s inability to pass measures to overhaul law enforcement.

“Systemic reform can only come through the acts of a responsible Congress and president willing to sign those reforms into law,” she said in a July interview with The Washington Post.

Damon Hewitt, acting president and executive vice president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

For months, Hewitt’s organization has been lobbying behind the scenes to rally support for Bass’s policing bill. 

Hewitt took on the role of LCCR’s acting president after Biden nominated the group’s former president Kristen Clarke to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. 

Hewitt has extensive experience working on police reform. He spent 13 years as an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and served as executive director on former New York Governor David Paterson’s task force on police-on-police shootings. 

He’s called on Congress to move quickly to overhaul policing practices.

“The urgency is that black people keep dying. Brown people keep dying. And they’re dying at the hands of people who are supposed to protect and serve us,” he said in an interview with Insider.

James Cadogan, vice president of criminal justice at Arnold Ventures

At Arnold Ventures, Cadogan oversees a team that invests in research on police reform and provides assistance to support local governments that are trying to overhaul the criminal justice system.

Cadogan served under the Obama administration in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division where he worked on several policy initiatives including Obama’s Law Enforcement Equipment Working Group.

The group, which was created by executive order in 2015 in the aftermath of the protests over the death of Michael Brown, was designed to ensure that law enforcement agencies implemented better organizational and operational practices.

Biden’s team has been relying on Jame’s expertise in criminal justice reform. For three months, Cadogan served in the Biden-Harris transition team focusing on the Justice Department. He told Insider that he will continue to advocate for criminal justice reform policies.

“If communities are going to continue to be heard and elected officials are responsive to that, then we’re much more likely to get to that place that we all want, where policing practices, and public safety and community safety reflects the values that we hold together,” Cadogan said. 

“It feels like we’re on the cusp of doing that, especially with this new administration and thinking about all of the local, state and local elected officials, who’ve made a commitment to justice reform.”

Patrisse Cullors, Black Lives Matter co-founder

The Black Lives Matter movement has been a driving force in creating momentum around addressing police brutality. In 2013, Cullors co-founded the movement and began organizing protests all across the country. 

But the Biden administration has not always agreed with the movement’s stances on police reform. Cullors and other BLM leaders have embraced calls to “defund the police,” a slogan that progressive Democrats had campaigned on to re-energize voters to head to the polls in the 2020 elections. However, Biden has shied away from embracing this slogan, which calls for authorities to shift some funding away from police departments and invest in social services instead. 

“The demand of defunding law enforcement becomes a central demand in how we actually get real accountability and justice,” she said in an interview with WBUR news in June. “Because it means we are reducing the ability of law enforcement to have resources that harm our communities.”

As the organization continues to gain an influential voice in the discussion around police reform, the Biden administration will have to give its leaders a seat at the table.

Terrence Hopkins, president of Dallas Black Police Officers Association

Hopkins is a 30-year law enforcement veteran of the Dallas Police Department. He leads the Dallas Black Police Officers Association, which was created with the intention “to openly challenge the Dallas Police Department’s race and gender bias policies, duality and disparate treatment of the people of color and women,” according to the association’s website.

Hopkins has not shied away from addressing racism within the Dallas Police Department. 

He has called for the department to enhance its vetting and background checks on police officers to root out individuals who demonstrate implicit racial bias or who are affiliated with militant groups. 

Hopkins told Insider the Biden administration must listen to the voices of Black police officers on the ground.”We have two different points of focus, being a Black Police Association versus a white Police Association,” he said.

Larry Cosme, president of the National ofFederal Law Enforcement Officers Association

Larry Cosme advocates for the positions of law enforcement officers. His organization represents more than 26,000 federal law enforcement officers from more than 65 different agencies, according to the organization’s website.

Over the summer, Cosme worked with the Trump administration and Scott, the South Carolina Republican senator, on the lawmaker’s policing bill to ensure law enforcement officers’ rights were being protected.

With a new administration in charge, Cosme says his goals are no different and that he wants to work with lawmakers and the White House on this issue.

Cosme told Insider he is currently holding conversations with various officials in the Biden administration who will play a  role in police reform.  

“We want a seat at the table and the best way to advocate for any type of reform in policing is to rely on the professionals that have actually done the job,” he said.

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