On the lack of police reform in Massachusetts: Is this who we are?

The longer we wait, the less urgency there is to go big.

The Massachusetts State HouseCraig F. Walker/Globe Staff

After a summer of pain and promises, we’re still waiting for meaningful policing reform legislation in this state.

How can that be?

Everything was so much more urgent in June, when the whole world was reeling from the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. That video of a white man in uniform calmly kneeling on a pleading Black man’s neck for close to nine minutes seemed to mark a turning point in modern history. Polls showed large majorities of Americans, including white Americans, were with those protesting police brutality here and across the country. Finally, it seemed there had been enough Black pain and suffering to force that hardest thing — action.

Our leaders promised change, to remake policing and deal with decades of systemic racism. In June, the governor proposed legislation to license police officers in Massachusetts and decertify those who no longer deserve their badges. In July, the House and Senate passed bills that would do that and also put limits on the use of force, reexamine hiring practices, and make it easier for some civil rights claims against police to go forward.

Let’s pause to note here that, even though the House legislation did not go as far as the Senate proposal, 66 state reps voted against it. In a chamber that routinely passes legislation by veto-proof margins, and where members generally fall into lockstep with Speaker Robert De Leo, who backed the legislation, that is remarkable: Even in July, at the height of this country’s reckoning over race and police brutality, 66 of our elected representatives concluded that their constituents would be fine with them siding with the police unions rather than addressing Black suffering and injustice.

That calculation, together with the fact that the bill still is not law, says a lot about deep-blue Massachusetts: When you look closely, we’re not to so deep or so blue.

Ordinarily, the two chambers would have had until July 31 to send a compromise bill to the governor’s desk, but the session was extended until the end of the year because of the pandemic. And so House and Senate negotiators appear to have spent months noodling over their differences, which appear to be over two main points: the makeup of the panel that would decertify police officers and whether to weaken a legal doctrine called qualified immunity, which makes it harder to bring some civil suits against police officers.

But here’s what happened between the old deadline and the new one: A bunch of white Americans moved on, polls showing their support for Black Lives Matter waning. And police unions launched a massive campaign to water down the reforms, including arguing that ending qualified immunity would mean they could lose their livelihoods and houses for just doing their jobs. Never mind that even when a suit succeeds, it is municipalities that pay settlements, not the officers themselves.

“We lost the moment,” said Russell Holmes, a Boston Democrat who has been pushing for more than a decade to hold police more accountable. Extending the deadline, he said, “gave too many people an out, and the unions have used the time very wisely. Police officers' wives calling the State House and saying ‘You’ll take away my house’ has had a significant impact.”

It doesn’t matter that the claim is false, Holmes said: “We live in a world of Trump. Everything he does is built on a lie, and these are his people.”

Now it seems clear that there won’t be a vote on police reform until after the election, as legislative leaders try to protect incumbents from anything that might lose them electoral support. What a profile in timidity. What a damning failure.

Not that reform advocates are giving up the fight.

“This is a unique opportunity to redefine what is acceptable policing,” said Rahsaan Hall, director of the racial justice program at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Minor reforms only perpetuate the injustices that communities of color, and particularly black communities, have suffered at the hands of police.”

But Holmes has resigned himself to a less ambitious package. And he thinks those refusing to compromise are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

“Sixty-six legislators voting against this Speaker," he said, "and progressives are saying we didn’t get enough? We barely got what we had.”

Those 66 define us, it is sad and infuriating to say. That’s the state we’re in.