GOP Rep. Biggs: Congress Not the ‘Best Place’ to Provide ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Solution to Police Reform

Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other Democratic leadership unveiled legislation aiming to hold police departments more accountable in the wake of the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody. Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ) warned the Democrats’ legislation would scare away people from joining law enforcement in the future. He also said Congress is not the “best place” to provide a “one-size-fits-all” solution to police reform.

“They were long on philosophy and platitudes but very short on specifics, so we have to see the bill and read it of course, but I’m just going to tell you, Sandra, one of the things she mentioned was the elimination of the qualified immunity for police officers,” cautioned Biggs. “And what that’s going to cause is a flight away from serving in police duty, and what that means ultimately is … if this passes the way she described it may you’re going to actually see increases in crime rates because police officers, nobody’s going to want to be a police officer because you’re going to have some immunity problems. Instead of the department taking the immunity, it will be the individual, and nobody is going to want to put their lives and their family in that kind of harm’s away. And so that’s going to be a real problem in the future.”

“I’m not sure Congress is the best place to provide a unique situation with a one-size-fits-all solution,” he added.

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