WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Clay Higgins (R-LA), a former law enforcement officer, released the following statement and summary assessment in response to a leaked draft of President Biden’s planned executive order on police reform.
“I obtained a draft copy of President Biden’s planned executive order in December 2021, and I have carefully analyzed every word,” said Congressman Higgins. “The policies within would empower criminals, greatly restrict American law enforcement, and launch a new era of twisted anti-police agenda. This leftist executive order should be strongly challenged at every level.”
Congressman Higgins’ summary assessment examines the first section of the executive order and outlines the detrimental impact on federal, state, and local law enforcement. Key excerpts include:
- “This Executive Order includes incredibly radical policy mandates that will fundamentally injure professional law enforcement at the Federal, State, Tribal, and local level. Within the carefully scripted writ of this leftist agenda E.O., Presidential authority is used to create sweeping new law enforcement policies within the Executive Branch, while at the same time using Executive power to restructure the application requirements for Federal grant dollars and Federal recognition of every sovereign State’s standardized training certification policy and curriculum (Peace Officer Standards and Training, or “P.O.S.T.” certification). This strategy is designed to threaten and coerce sovereign States and over 17,000 non-federal Law Enforcement agencies that currently operate in America.”
- “Cops cannot afford heavy legal teams to defend themselves against unrighteous civil suits. Qualified immunity is all that protects a solid cop from targeted civil suits. This Biden Executive Order would create a litigation wild wild west in every court jurisdiction across America, with the deck stacked against any cop who actually gets out of their car and enforces the law.”
- “Section 1 further states: ‘… Fair and just policing necessitates reform of law enforcement recruitment, hiring, promotion, and retention practices.’ This broad statement describes the intent to federalize administrative practices of ALL law enforcement agencies across America. As I’ll explain over the course of this summary, Biden intends to use the Executive Branch control of federal grant monies to force State, Tribal, and local law enforcement agencies to comply with these new federal standards.”
- “Section 1 states: ‘…require accountability for misconduct and transparency through data collection and public reporting.’ This misguided policy alone would destroy law enforcement in America. Anyone who supports a national public database of accusations of ‘misconduct’ within a law enforcement agency is woefully under-informed as to the realities of the street.”
- “A national database of accusations against cops will result in one thing: criminals easily pushing the actual street cop muscle off the street and out of law enforcement.”
- “America needs tactically sound, courageous street cops to respond when a wheel comes off in life, and hundreds of thousands of hard-core cops will just disappear from departments across America if this Executive Order is enacted and qualified immunity is lost. Law and order will falter under the woke weight of the agenda-driven policies of the anti-law enforcement Biden Executive Branch summarized thus far, and I’m only in Section 1 of the Executive Order.”
The full summary assessment is available here.
