Reform

Ecuador's Constitutional Court has eliminated parts of a fast-track tax reform due as unconstitutional while leaving income tax reform intact, the country's ...

State Senate Republican Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, and Sen. Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver, released statements on Monday calling for reform of state laws ...

She also says new technology allows the Legislature to make decisions without meeting in Olympia, which Wilson believes undermines part of the reasoning behind current laws on emergency powers. Braun said it’s important to not shut “the people” out of the law-making process. “Ending the state of emergency is long overdue.

Two years after states around the country passed an unprecedented number of police reforms after the killing of George Floyd, some are struggling to make ...

“This lack of consistency is very dangerous and it could be the difference between life and death,” Blanding said. Also named as a defendant is former Police Chief Sam Dobbins, who was fired in July after he was heard on an audio recording using racial slurs and saying he had killed 13 people in the line of duty. He watched as states around the country enacted a wide assortment of police reforms while no police accountability measures were approved in Mississippi. “We were able to get ourselves out of that one,” said Mike Sherlock, executive director of the Nevada Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, the state’s regulatory agency for law enforcement. Ultimately, she said, it’s up to the public and the police departments themselves to make sure change happens. Details will include type of force and whether the civilian had a mental health condition or was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Of the eight agencies that responded, a few said they made small changes, like tweaking their use-of-force policies to align with the new law. Police had historically been allowed to use force to briefly detain someone if they had reasonable suspicion that the person may be involved in a crime. Police had argued that some of the reforms went too far and would interfere with their ability to arrest criminals. And officers had to de-escalate situations “whenever possible or appropriate” and only use an “objectively reasonable” amount of force. And if the range of outcomes has varied as well, that comes as no surprise to Thomas Abt, a senior fellow with the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank. States collectively approved nearly 300 police reform bills after Floyd’s killing in May 2020, according to an analysis by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland.

The national reckoning on race and policing that followed the death of George Floyd — with a Minneapolis police officer's knee on his neck — spurred a ...

He watched as states around the country enacted a wide assortment of police reforms while no police accountability measures were approved in Mississippi. And officers had to de-escalate situations “whenever possible or appropriate” and only use an “objectively reasonable” amount of force. Police had argued that some of the reforms went too far and would interfere with their ability to arrest criminals. Among other things, police rights measures gave officers the power to sue civilians for violating their civil rights. States collectively approved nearly 300 police reform bills after Floyd’s killing in May 2020, according to an analysis by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland. And while governors in all but five states signed police reform laws, many gave police more protections, as well.

Activists are pushing for police reform, building on the struggles of the past to improve the future of policing in the U.S. To long-time activist Elaine ...

“And those of us who are in the business of creating a humane and egalitarian society will have a platform to build on. “You have to stay in the forefront with everything.” “I wish that law enforcement would know and understand that nothing is going to change without intentionality,” he said. “It’s like we don’t look at what’s happened in the last 50 years and say, ‘Well, maybe we need to do something different.’” “We’re going to continue to be out here for Jayland Walker and stand in solidarity with the family,” Austin said. “It’s almost like the police need a Hippocratic oath.” Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle in 2021won a lawsuit against the Baltimore Police Department that claimed police aerial surveillance technology violated the First and Fourth Amendment rights of the public. Although he’s a rarity in the ranks, Armstrong shares most police chiefs’ dismay at demands to “defund” the police. He speaks in front of a mural at Fruitvale station dedicated to the life of Oscar Grant III, not far from that coin-sized gouge in the platform. Officer Johannes Mehserle was one of the Bay Area Rapid Transit officers who responded to reports of a fight at the Fruitvale station that day. On a hot summer day years later, Armstrong brought a phalanx of media, police and city staff to a park in his old neighborhood. The “goal was to educate and liberate,” she said.

The national reckoning on race and policing that followed the killing of George Floyd — with a Minneapolis police officer's knee on his neck — spurred a ...

The Howard Centers are an initiative of the Scripps Howard Fund in honor of the late news industry executive and pioneer Roy W. This story is a collaboration among The Associated Press and the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism and at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He watched as states around the country enacted a wide assortment of police reforms while no police accountability measures were approved in Mississippi. "If you want my opinion, mostly it was feel-good legislation that somewhere along the lines, somebody thought they were making a huge difference," said Sheriff Gerald Antinoro of Storey County, an area outside of Reno. Officers had to de-escalate situations "whenever possible or appropriate" and only use an "objectively reasonable" amount of force. Among other things, police rights measures gave officers the power to sue civilians for violating their civil rights.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is escorted by Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts following her formal investiture ceremony at the Supreme Court in ...

And so states can often do a great deal that they want to do within the bounds of a Supreme Court decision.” That would return the length of justices’ tenure to actually what it was for the first few hundred years.” States that decide they’re going to protect abortion even if the Supreme Court doesn't, they're complying also. “It takes away this random element that causes some presidents who are luckier than others to have more opportunities to select members of the court,” Baum says. Term limits could end the political gamesmanship in the U.S. I don't want to suggest it's illegitimate in that sense, but I think it's deeply problematic for the court itself to be so disconnected from the democratic process.” “Supreme Court decisions often leave a lot of room for people to respond in different ways. Forty percent of people polled describe the court as being "about right" ideologically, while 37% say the court is “too conservative.” The Constitution gives Congress the authority to expand the Supreme Court, which lawmakers have done seven times in the past. [court reform](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-pm/2022/06/27/new-poll-voters-oppose-overturning-roe-back-court-reform-00042585) in the aftermath of the U.S. But there's also something to be said for giving the other branches the chance to address what they see as an imbalance.” Public approval of the U.S.