Reps Barbara Smith Warner, Alissa Keny-Guyer, and Senator Michael Dembrow will be holding a pre-Special Session Zoom Town Hall this Thursday 5:30pm – 7:00.
During the first special session, the Legislature created a new House/Senate Joint Committee on Transparency in Policing and Use of Force Reform in order to keep working on policing reform. They’ve been meeting on a regular basis in public session, hearing from experts and taking public testimony on the problems they’re trying to address.
As I understand it, they are planning to meet this Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, but at this point an agenda is only posted for Wednesday.
It’s not clear at this point which of the concepts will be ready to be introduced as bills for the special session next week. There’s still a difference of opinion in the Senate about whether or not we should be doing anything other than budget bills next week.
I believe that we need to keep moving forward on the reform bills, at least addressing weaknesses that have surfaced in the bills that we passed in June. Last week’s hearings suggested that there are some that are going to need more work, but there are others that should be ready to go. This week’s hearings will be crucial for helping us to make this decision.
If you go to Wednesday’s agenda page linked below and then scroll down, you’ll find information on how to sign up to speak remotely or to submit written comment. You’ll also find links under MEETING MATERIALS to the drafts and redrafts of the legislative concepts on the agenda as they come in, as well as testimony that has already come in.
Here is the agenda for Wednesday’s hearing. Some have been seen before and others are new. Notice that not all the concepts have links yet. That means that we’re still waiting for the drafts to come back from the legislative legal drafters.
- LC 742 (use of “non-lethal” weapons).
- LC 743 (restrictions on police uniforms and requirement to have officer name visible). Here is the preliminary staff description of the concept.
- LC 745 (prohibiting “chokeholds” from police use of force). Here is the preliminary staff description of the concept. (This description was written before the most current version of the LC, which adds corrections officers to the prohibition. This analysis will likely be updated before Thursday.
- LC 751 (creates the Task Force on Uniform Statewide Law Enforcement Disciplinary Standards). This is a proposal from Senator Dallas Heard (Roseburg) to flesh out the disciplinary standards that arbitrators will be bound to follow in making decisions regarding officer misconduct.
- LC 761 Relating to the use of force by peace officer
- LC 762 Relating to public safety employees
- LC 763 (creates statewide database on use of force by peace officers).
Date/Time
Date(s) - 08/06/2020
5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
Location
5203 Holly St SE, Turner
Categories
Vote Dems out