DFL-led panel OKs sweeping police reforms.

Byline: Kevin Featherly

After 13 hours of special session hearings over two days, the DFL-led House Public Safety committee on Monday passed three mini-omnibus bills that constitute a sweeping police-reform package.

For all their efforts, House Democrats attracted just one GOP committee member's votethat of Rep. Tim Miller, R-Prinsburgon just one of their three bills.

As this edition was going to press Tuesday, the Senate was taking up a much smaller and more targeted set of police-reform bills, which were heard by the GOP-led Senate Judiciary earlier in the day.

Despite the lack of Republican support for the House proposals, House Public Safety Chair Carlos Mariani, DFL-St. Paul, said on Monday night that he was heartened by his committee's accomplishment. Several minor amendments to the bills did receive significant GOP support.

"I am more encouraged than discouraged by the common ground that I think that we have," Mariani told his committee as work wrapped up late Monday. "We'll continue to work on the space that we don't. I certainly understand people's votes either way."

The three House bills, assembled by the House People of Color and Indigenous Caucus in the wake of George Floyd's May 25 death in police custody, largely consist of DFL House bills that have been introduced previously but never crossed the finish line. The packages include:

House File 93, the Reclaiming Community Oversight Act. This bill, the most far-reaching of the three, contains a police choke-hold ban and a duty for police to intercederegardless of their rankwhenever they see another officer applying unreasonable force. Both measures also are favored by Senate Republicans.

The bill also bans "warrior-style" police training that could "increase a peace officer's likelihood or willingness to use deadly force." An amendment to tweak that provision got a 17-0 Public Safety vote, but the measure is not present in the Senate bill.

HF 93 also reforms police arbitrations to make it easier to dump bad cops; allow Minneapolis and St. Paul to impose police residency requirements; and require cities with police departments with more than 50 officers to form "civilian oversight councils" with investigative powers.

It would also repeal the statute of limitations for citizen wrongful-death suits against police, to prevent departments from running out the clock by slow-walking internal investigations.

A measure that had been in the bill, to make some forms of police personnel...