What might have been the fairly routine passage of several police-related bills on the Senate floor this afternoon turned into a surprisingly bitter intra-Democratic argument, with Senator Cory Booker sparring with two of his fellow Democratic senators over how willing their party should be to work with Republicans and President Donald Trump.
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) took to the floor to ask for unanimous consent to pass seven bills related to policing and public safety, all of which have a bipartisan list of co-sponsors and one of which even lists Booker himself as a co-sponsor. But Booker objected to five of the bills, accusing the Trump administration of shifting police grant funding away from states like New Jersey in retaliation for their Democratic-leaning politics and their hesitance to cooperate with the president on immigration enforcement.
“Why would we do something today that’s playing into the president’s politics, and that’s going to hurt the officers in states like mine?” Booker said. “I believe in these bills – I’m a co-sponsor on some – and that’s why I’m standing here to fight to ensure police departments in New Jersey aren’t excluded from accessing these vital funds.”
Booker asked to pass an amendment ensuring that grant money is equally allocated; Cortez Masto objected, calling it a “poison pill” to the package. Cortez Masto also noted that Booker could have offered the amendment during the Judiciary Committee hearing on the bills, where they passed unanimously; Booker said he was unable to attend the meeting due to a conflict.
That prompted Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), the sponsor of one of the bills in question, to enter the fray and essentially accuse Booker of grandstanding. She also noted that she and Booker have clashed over police funding previously, before the current battles with the Trump administration entered the picture.
“We have committees for a reason, and we have hearings for a reason,” Klobuchar said, with anger audible in her voice. “You can’t do one thing on Police Week, and not show up, and not object, and let these bills go through, and then say another [thing] a few weeks later in a big speech on the floor.”
Booker responded by refocusing the dispute on loftier questions within the Democratic Party: to what extent should Democratic members of Congress focus on day-to-day legislating, and to what extent should they treat the Trump era as an aberration that needs to be resisted at every turn?
“That is complicity with an authoritarian leader who is trashing our Constitution. It’s time for Democrats to have a backbone. It’s time for us to fight. It’s time for us to draw lines,” he practically shouted. “Don’t question my integrity, don’t question my motives. I’m standing for Jersey, I’m standing for my police officers, I’m standing for the Constitution, and I’m standing for what’s right.”
Booker ultimately allowed two of the seven bills to pass – both of which don’t relate to grant money, and one of which was sponsored by Cortez Masto – while blocking the other five, leaving their fate uncertain.
Broadly speaking, Booker has made a name for himself during the early months of the Trump administration as one of the Democratic Party’s most visible and indefatigable anti-Trump crusaders. Most famously, Booker took to the Senate floor for a full 25 hours this spring, setting a new record with his speech decrying the Trump administration’s policies.
Today’s argument, however, is the first time that Booker’s frustration has been publicly directed at fellow Democrats, rather than at Trump or Republicans. The high emotions running between Booker and Klobuchar are especially notable, given that they’re both members of Senate Democratic leadership: Klobuchar is the caucus’s #3 Democrat, and Booker is #4.
Leaving the Senate chamber after the fight, Booker told reporters that he believes his fellow Democrats like Klobuchar and Cortez Masto are allowing Trump to “broadside” his state and others.
“There’s a lot of us in this caucus that want to fucking fight,” Booker said, per Punchbowl News’s Max Cohen. “And what’s bothering me right now is we don’t see enough fight in this caucus.”
The post Booker feuds with fellow Senate Dems in surprise dispute over police bill package appeared first on New Jersey Globe.
