After the murder of George Floyd last spring, Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, wanted to bring Republicans and Democrats together to get something done on police reform. As a Black man who had experienced police discrimination, he did not want to let the moment pass without bipartisan action. So he introduced the Justice Act and incorporated a number of Democratic proposals into his legislation, including making lynching a federal hate crime, creating a national policing commission to conduct a review of the U.S. criminal justice system, collecting data on police use of force, barring the use of chokeholds by federal officers, withholding federal funds to state and local law enforcement agencies that do not similarly bar chokeholds and withholding funds to police departments that fail to report to the Justice Department when no-knock warrants are used.

The guilty verdicts in the Derek Chauvin trial give President Biden a once-in-a-presidency opportunity to deliver on his promise of unity and bipartisanship. To seize it, he should immediately call Scott and offer to work with him to pass the legislation.

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