U.S. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Jared Golden, Pete Stauber and Conor Lamb (D-PA) re-introduced the Defund Cities that Defund the Police Act. This piece of legislation would prevent jurisdictions that defund the police from receiving certain federal grants, preventing specific federal taxpayer dollars from bankrolling jurisdictions that intentionally make their communities less safe.
Under the Defund Cities that Defund the Police Act, a defunding jurisdiction is defined as a state or political subdivision of a state that abolishes or disbands the police department with no intention of reconstituting the jurisdiction’s police department or significantly reduces the police department’s budget without reallocating a portion of that money to any other community policing program, provided that the jurisdiction did not face a significant decrease in revenues in the previous fiscal year.
“At a time when police departments and our men and women in blue around the country are being threatened by certain politicians and movements to defund or abolish the police, steps must be taken to ensure that state and local governments do not legitimize or bow to the will of the dangerously misguided ‘Defund the Police’ movement,” Fitzpatrick said. “Our support for the men and women of law enforcement, who put their lives on the line on a daily basis for our communities, must be clear. This legislation would prevent jurisdictions that defund the police from receiving certain federal grants, preventing specific federal taxpayer dollars from bankrolling jurisdictions who intentionally make their communities less safe.”
The bill is supported by the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, the Bucks County Fraternal Order of Police and Maureen Faulkner, whose husband Daniel was a police officer murdered in Philadelphia in 1981.
