UPDATED: House Speaker John Diehl issued a statement responding to the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus that can be found below.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The Missouri Legislative Black Caucus held a press conference today in which they slammed House Speaker John Diehl and his fellow Republicans for failing to advance legislative measures related to police practices and racial profiling.
“Missouri is sending out a message that we’re racist and we don’t care,” said Rep. Brandon Ellington, a Kansas City Democrat and Chair of the caucus. “It’s shameful for this House not to act when we have evidence that there’s racist practices going on in this state right now.”
Ellington said a number of bills filed mostly by black caucus members largely related, directly or indirectly, to Ferguson were either never referred to a committee or referred but never given a hearing. Beyond hearings, black caucus members some bills were simply never given a vote to advance to the floor. Ellington said that Diehl’s comment on the first day of session that there was “ no Ferguson agenda” was “unacceptable.”
“We’re hopeful the speaker will reverse his position from the first day of session and utilize the evidence of Ferguson to make sure we have justice for all the citizens in the state of Missouri,” Ellington said.
Black caucus leaders also welcomed the news of Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson’s retirement, which began to leak during the press conference. Rep. Tommie Pierson and Rep. Courtney Curtis both called on Mayor James Knowles to also step down.
“It’s not enough for all the king’s men to fall, the kind has to fall too,” Pierson said.
Black caucus members told The Missouri Times that bills dealing with racial profiling, police sensitivity training, community outreach, audio and video recording devices for law enforcement and more have all ground to a halt in their progression through the House.
“As we know with this building, if we don’t get some of these bills moving soon then they are going to be dead,” Ellington said.
Most of the black caucus members present agreed that their legislative agenda would have even less momentum next year. Branden Mims, a Kansas City pastor at the Greater Metropolitan Church of Christ and director of the Human Dignity and Economic Justice Coalition, said the problem was statewide. Mims’ church is located in the poorest part of Kansas City, and his coalition was responsible for shutting down the senate last year over Medicaid expansion when they took to the chamber and began to chant, refusing to leave.
“When the state messes people over, for lack of a better term, they come to the church,” Mims said. “We have to pay the light bill or the gas bill and we have to pay for the medical benefits and bills or whatever it might be.”
Mims said that, like every other African American in the state, he had been targeted for his race in the past. Mims told reporters that the second day after moving to an all white neighborhood, police visited his home in the night.
“They asked me what I was doing there,” Mims said. “And I didn’t have this suit on. They didn’t think I was a pastor. They thought I was a young thug that came up on somebody.”
Black caucus members said they hoped that the recent Department of Justice report and media pressure would force House Republicans to embrace some of their legislative agenda. Diehl did not immediately respond to requests for a comment.
UPDATED: Diehl issued the following statement a few hours after the press conference.
“I am disappointed with the inaccuracies reflected in the comments made today by Rep. Ellington. As he well knows, I have referred 42 of the 43 Ferguson-related bills to committee, and many of these have already received public hearings, including his HJR 17 to eliminate grand juries. It is my understanding that after the hearing was held on his HJR that Rep. Ellington asked that the matter no longer be pursued because of overwhelming opposition to the proposal, including from members of his own caucus. It is also my understanding that Rep. Ellington has failed to attend any of the public hearings to support the other Ferguson-related bills working their way through the committee process.
As I said in January, we will have all bills dealing with this important issue referred before the legislative spring break. As they move through the process, we will weigh their merits with a reasoned approach based on facts not emotion. Results are accomplished through hard work not grandstanding.
It is important to emphasize that our focus is on the underlying systemic issues that must be addressed to give the people of Ferguson, and throughout Missouri, access to the educational and economic opportunities they need to live healthy, prosperous lives. We will not make the men and women in our law enforcement community, or our first responders, the scapegoats for the tragic events that occurred in Ferguson last year.”
