Once again, health care is on the ballot this fall.
In today’s Congressional Corner, Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern, a Democrat from the second district, wraps up his conversation with WAMC’s Alan Chartock.
Alan Chartock: Jim McGovern, it's so wonderful to have you here with us, the beautiful second district of Massachusetts, right next to my beautiful first district of Massachusetts, represented so ably by our mutual friend, Richie Neal. Okay, so I'm guess I'm going to ask you the first question. It’s this has been a bit of a summer of protests in America? What should our listeners know about the Democratic police reform package?
Well, look, I think the public wants us to push forward with some sensible reforms. I think the public, the general public is not satisfied with the status quo that allowed for the murder of George Floyd. And as we all know, that's not unique in this country. And the challenges associated with racism and even police brutality, have been with us for a long, long, long time. So I mean, the bill that we passed in the House deals with a qualified immunity eliminates that, which has allowed some of the bad police officers to hide behind that in order to not be held accountable. It calls for more transparency. It calls for the demilitarization of the police. And we have this program where the Pentagon can provide police departments with everything from rocket launchers to tanks. A lot of the police departments in Massachusetts don't utilize that. But there are police departments in other parts of the country that do. And so we talked about demilitarizing the police. The citizens of this country are not enemy combat and so we don't need military approaches to policing. And it calls for investments in other agencies and other departments that quite frankly may be more qualified to deal with some of the cases the police currently are responding to, whether it's mental health challenges or whether it's truancy issues at school. I mean, they've got to be having schools take care of the school population, and we got to be funding mental health services so that appropriate medical professionals could respond to situations that revolve around that. Look, it's not perfect, but nonetheless, it is a step in the right direction. It was a bill written by the Congressional Black Caucus. But the problem now is that Mitch McConnell has said, we're not interested in taking it up. So as to where it goes from here is uncertain. But by not taking it up, you have individual state legislators, including here in Massachusetts, doing their own thing. But I've received a lot of calls from some of my friends who were in the police who were upset about some of these bills and received calls from activist friends who say these bills don't go far enough, but I remind them that those of us in public office need to listen to what public sentiment is. And for members of law enforcement, if you do not have public sentiment on your side, if you're not responding to the concerns of the public, then you lose their trust. And I think that that's not good for anybody.
I guess the question is, has this policing thing, become a Republican and a Democratic issue?
It shouldn't be a Republican or Democratic issue. But unfortunately, like everything, you know, issues kind of fall into those categories oftentimes. And I think the President, rather than invoking Nixonian rhetoric like law and order, and, you know, and in between retweeting racist tweets, and basically not acknowledging the severity of some of the crimes that have happened against civilians in this country from individual police officers, quite frankly, who shouldn't even be police officers. But his downplaying all of that has inflamed emotions. And I would like to think that we should have leaders in this country, including presidents who want to solve problems, who want to make this country better. Look, we have a problem in this country with systemic racism. We have had that problem for a long, long, long time. And what happened to George Floyd is not an aberration. It's not unique. I mean, it happens all the time. What's made this case a little bit different, is that some young teenage girl she videotaped it, so it's, it's there for everybody to see what happened. I think most Americans were horrified by that. And then let's figure out how we deal with this issue and how we respond in a way. So we prevent those kinds of incidents from happening in the future. But let's not kid ourselves. When we're talking about institutional racism or systemic racism, it's not just the police departments that need to be looked at. I mean, it's our education system. It's our healthcare system. It is our housing system. It is where we invest state and federal money, what communities benefit from those resources. And so these are uncomfortable conversations. And it because they're uncomfortable, politicians don't want to engage in them. And institutions and agencies and departments don't want to engage in them, but by not dealing with them, the problem doesn't go away. So let's in the midst of all this controversy, in the midst of this tragedy, let's see where we can find some common ground. And let's see what we can come together and move forward in a way that makes our country better. I don't know why that would be a radical idea. But yet it is in this current climate and, and that's unfortunate.
So, okay, let's go to a different subject, because we really have limited time. But the second House district where of course, you're working, you represent, is there anything special about it when it comes to combating the corona virus? In other words, is what's happening in the second district? What's happening in the country or do you see something in particular, that concerns you in your district?
Let me just speak to the entire Commonwealth. I mean, you know, we're doing pretty well compared to other states around the around the country in terms of lowering the infection rate and also lowering the number of fatalities. We're doing that because we’re following the best medical advice. And I, you know, cuz I'm a Democrat, but I give Governor Baker credit for not burying his head in the sand, for understanding that this pandemic is serious, and that the way we're going to deal with it is listening to the doctors, the people who know what they’re talking about, listening to, relying on science. And so, we did social distancing, we wore a mask, I mean, we shut down our economy for a period of time, and we’re now figuring out how to get back out, get schools reopened, and we have to be very careful about that, to make sure we're doing this in a way that doesn't result in an uptick in in cases. But I think here, we were faced with it with a terrible catastrophic event. And the way we responded to it, I think was effective. And one would have hoped the other states would have learned from that but they didn’t. You see what's happened in Florida, you see what happened in Texas. But look, this is this is real. And I continue to get frustrated. You know, every once in a while I read the comments on my social media, which my daughter tells me not to read, but I do every once in a while. And you have people who will say that this is a hoax. This is not real, or this is just like the flu. We have millions of people who have been infected.
Well, that's the president.
And over 125,000 people are already dead. You know, when people say to me that this is not a big deal, I tell them to talk to our doctors and nurses in our local hospitals, many of them who are dealing with post-traumatic stress because of what they've witnessed, these terrible deaths of people dying alone because family members couldn't be with them. You know, and it's not just older people. I mean, we are seeing this is also impacting younger people as well. Not at as is larger scale. But nonetheless, this is serious, and that's why how we reopen our schools is going to be key. And the president saying that those places that don't open reopen their schools are going to be denied federal money, that's just ridiculous. That's stupidity at its worse. The bottom line is our local officials know when it's safe to open our schools and know how to open our schools in a way that's safe for our kids, our teachers and those who work at our schools. So we need to rely on them and not be intimidated by the president.
Jim McGovern, love talking to you, always love talking to you. You’re guy who tells it straight, and to me, that's all you want. So when we come back the next time, I'm going to ask you the F question. Fauci. Okay?
Alright. Thanks.
