In a letter to Nancy Pelosi and other House lawmakers on Friday, a group of Democrats warned against defunding the police — as if that was something their party leaders have been eager to do. “Now is the time to send a clear message that we support investing in our women and men in blue,” the Democrats wrote, urging Pelosi to bring bipartisan legislation boosting money to police departments across the country to a vote. “To make our communities safer, build a future with less crime, and save lives, we should not defund.”
“Instead, we must invest to protect,” added the Democrats, led by Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Cindy Axne of Iowa.
The 19 signatories, mostly moderate Democrats, were calling for leaders to bring the Invest to Protect Act to the floor for a vote, as part of an effort to combat rising crime rates. But they were also attempting to combat political attacks from Republicans, who have branded Joe Biden and his party as weak on crime, despite the president’s consistent calls to increase law enforcement funding rather than decrease it. “The answer is not to defund the police,” he said in his State of the Union address in March. “The answer is to fund the police with the resources and training they need to protect our communities.”
The Democrats, some of whom are facing tough reelection battles this fall, emphasized those remarks at the top of their letter to Pelosi, Jerrold Nadler and top Republicans Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan. “We strongly support the President’s words and leadership and applaud the more than 10% increase in funding for State and local law enforcement in the Fiscal Year 2022 appropriations bill,” the lawmakers wrote. But they also somewhat played into GOP attacks, railing against “to the bone” cuts in law enforcement budgets that no Democratic leaders have seriously discussed, let alone enacted.
The proposed legislation, introduced by Gottheimer in January, boosts funding for small police departments to increase training, recruitment, body cameras, and mental health resources. “We want our police officers to feel supported, especially when they are struggling with the realities of their profession,” Gottheimer said at the time. “We want them to know that we have their backs and that they are appreciated for the job they do.” A companion bill in the Senate was introduced in March by Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock, who said the legislation would “direct additional, much-needed federal support to some of the law enforcement agencies in Georgia and around our nation who are most in need, strengthening public safety and investing in our brave police officers’ mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing.”
“I’m proud to support it,” Warnock said.
The implication that police departments have seen massive disinvestment is false, of course. While “defund the police” became a rallying cry for police reform following the murder of George Floyd, most cities did not make meaningful cuts to law enforcement budgets, as Bloomberg CityLab reported. Instead, city governments from New York to Los Angeles expanded their police budgets in 2021. Biden, for his part, never supported defunding police: He said during his campaign that more funding was necessary to reforming law enforcement, and has made “public safety” a priority during his presidency. “The answer is not to abandon our streets,” Biden said during a visit this year with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain. “The answer is to come together, police and communities.”
How much any of this does to meaningfully address the real issue of crime is unclear. What is clear, though, is that none of this will stop Republicans from accusing Democrats of being anti-cop— or from attempting to capitalize on an uptick in crime across the country to attack their opponents ahead of the midterms. “Under Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Nancy Pelosi,” McCarthy tweeted Thursday, “Democrats are the party of rising prices, crime, and incompetence.”