Booker: End of police reform negotiations a ‘frustrating experience’

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on Sunday described the end of bipartisan police reform negotiations as a “frustrating experience.”

“It was a frustrating experience in the sense that we had the biggest civil rights demonstrations in this country’s history asking for change,” Booker said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“We wanted to have more transparency, higher professional standards and real accountability. If you break the law, you shouldn’t be shielded from that,” he added.

Sen. Cory Booker on the end of police reform negotiations: “It was a frustrating experience in the sense that we had the biggest civil rights demonstrations in this country’s history asking for change … Got major law enforcement groups to endorse it but we didn’t get it done.” pic.twitter.com/h0p3GuWkkw

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 26, 2021

Booker added that while “good faith negotiations” resulted in endorsements from powerful law enforcement groups, the reform effort still failed.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who was negotiating reform efforts with Booker, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the bill advocated for “defunding the police.”

“We said simply this: ‘I’m not going to participate in reducing funding for the police after we saw a major city after major city defund the police,’ ” Scott said of Republican demands in the negotiations. 

.@SenatorTimScott: “Many provisions in this bill that [Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)] wanted me to agree to limited or reduced funding for the police. That’s a lose-lose proposition. When you reduce funding for police, you actually lose lives in the communities.” pic.twitter.com/isUgBq0Q5o

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) September 26, 2021

Booker, however, argued on CNN that the reform would have allocated “millions of dollars more” to resources that would have benefited officers. 

“We want to help officers with mental health issues. We want to collect more data, so we should give more resources,” Booker said. 

Police reform talks ended last week after failed bipartisan negotiations. 

“After months of exhausting every possible pathway to a bipartisan deal, it remains out of reach right now,” Booker said in a statement at the time.