If Democrats Seek to “Rally Blacks” Against Police Militarization, They Might Start with the Congressional Black Caucus

The New
York Times reports that, “At
Risk in Senate, Democrats Seek to Rally
Blacks.” Specifically, the Times says

Democrats are trying to mobilize African-Americans outraged by
the shooting in Ferguson, Mo., to help them retain control of at
least one chamber of Congress for President Obama’s final two years
in office….

“Ferguson has made it crystal clear to the African-American
community and others that we’ve got to go to the polls,” said
Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and a civil-rights
leader. “You participate and vote, and you can have some control
over what happens to your child and your country.”

Lewis might want to start with his colleagues in the
Congressional Black Caucus, many of whom were blase about police
militarization as recently as June. As
Ed Krayewski has noted, in June, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.)
sponsored an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act
(H.R. 4355) that would have prevented federal giveaways of military
equipment to local police departments around the country. “My
amendment,” explained Grayson, “would prohibit the Department of
Defense from gifting excess equipment, such as aircraft—including
drones—armored vehicles, grenade launchers, silencers, and bombs to
local police departments. Those weapons have no place in our
streets, regardless of who may be deploying them.” 

The amendment went down to spectacular defeat, with just
62 votes in
favor and 355 against. Lewis voted for the amendment, but he
was joined by just seven (out of a total of 41 House members with
voting privileges) of his Congressonal Black Caucus colleagues:
relatively few members of the Congressional
Black Caucus voted against the amendment: John Conyers
(MI-13), Donna Edwards (MD-04), Keith Ellison (MN-05), Mike Honda
(CA-17), Barbara Lee (CA-13), Bobby Scott (VA-03), Maxine Waters
(CA-43).

As Krayewski noted, among the African-American
members of Congress voting against the amendment (and thus in favor
of continued federally aided militarization of police: Rep. Lacy
Clay (D-Mo.), who represents Ferguson.

As I wrote at
The Daily Beast recently, events in Ferguson have done far
more than bring the scandal of police militarization (finally) to a
national audience. They also open up a space for new possibilities
in politics that break with the exhausted categories of Republican
and Democrat, conservative and liberal, white and black, and so
many other seemingly intractable antagonisms. The outspoken
response of libertarian-leaning Republicans (such as Rep. Justin
Amash, who voted in favor of Grayson’s amendment, and Sen. Rand
Paul) belied a congruence of interests that is rarely acknowledged
by contemporary political discourse:

What Ferguson demonstrates is how tightly related abstract
concerns libertarians have about the government’s power and the
very real-life fears of police harassment that many African
Americans have really are. So too are other issues of interest to
both groups, ranging from school choice to sentencing reform to
occupational licensing. As these sorts of newly recognized common
causes filter through the culture, all sorts of new coalitions and
possibilities can come to fruition. Glimpses of this are already
visible in actions such as the
nearly successful effort by Republican Rep. Justin Amash
and Democratic Rep. John Conyers to defund National Security Agency
surveillance programs last summer.

We should add eminent domain abuse to the list, and I’m sure
there are more shared issues that warrant inclusion. Does anyone
seriously doubt that standard-issue politics are as played out as
the Comstock Lode, which just like the Democratic and Republican
parties, predates the Civil War?

Read the whole Beast piece, “The Libertarian Moment in Ferguson,
here.