{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=32951191-AB99-4501-A559-99DFFF48F5D9", "Democrats\u2019 Response to Crime: Defund the Police", "2022-11-30", "2022", "2022-11", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding law and order:\n\n\u201cA few days ago, the Washington Post published a major report on the explosion of violent crime that has shattered communities across America. This terrible trend is familiar to many of us by now, but the tragic human stories are still shocking.\n\n\u201cIn St. Louis, 25-year-old Damion Baker was killed in July in an attempted carjacking while escorting a woman to her car downtown. \u2018Damion cannot just be some random number of homicide,\u2019 his mother told reporters. \u2018It\u2019s gotta look different.\u2019\n\n\u201cIn New Orleans this past March, 20-year-old Shane Brown didn\u2019t come home from work one day. His body was found five days later in a canal, and his family still doesn\u2019t know why he was killed.\n\n\u201cIn Birmingham, 13-year-old Jaylon Palmore was on his front porch when he was cut down in a drive-by shooting that police say was targeting someone else. The family home now holds so many painful memories that Jaylon\u2019s parents have decided to sell it and move elsewhere.\n\n\u201cThe national media may just be coming around now, but the American people have known for a long time now that the erosion of law and order is a terrible and pressing problem.\n\n\u201cAfter the nationwide murder rate clocked its largest single-year increase in more than a century in 2020, it climbed even higher last year. A record-high majority of Americans report that crime in their communities is getting worse.\n\n\u201cThis is an area where our two political parties, the two sides of the aisle, have totally opposite instincts about the right way forward.\n\n\u201cRepublicans are focused on making American communities safer, and we know accomplishing that takes compassion for innocent people, not weak justice for the violent criminals who hurt them.\n\n\u201cMeanwhile, Democrats are focused on making it even harder to secure real justice. They\u2019ve spent two years doubling down on anti-law enforcement rhetoric and putting radical local prosecutors at the center of their plans to make America softer on crime.\n\n\u201cFar-left special interests have poured massive amounts of money into the political campaigns of radical, soft-on-crime prosecutors in major cities from New York to Chicago to Philadelphia to Los Angeles.\n\n\u201cUp to one in five Americans now live in the jurisdiction of prosecutors a Democrat megadonor has handpicked for their willingness to ignore entire categories of criminal law.\n\n\u201cThis soft-on-crime campaign has gone to such absurd lengths, communities are taking it upon themselves to push back. Earlier this year, voters in San Francisco showed their radical left District Attorney the door for using their neighborhoods as a proving ground for soft-on-crime experiments.\n\n\u201cAnd just earlier this month, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives impeached Philadelphia\u2019s liberal District Attorney for \u2018misbehavior in office\u2019 after violent crime in the city soared.\n\n\u201cHere in Washington, things are no different. Our colleague the junior Senator from Connecticut, made this crystal clear a few days ago when he kicked off a fresh wave of Democratic calls to defund the police.\n\n\u201cSenator Murphy says that because, in his estimation, \u201860% of the counties in this country\u2019 are friendlier to citizens\u2019 Second Amendment rights than Senator Murphy would like, those communities should be punished by defunding their police forces.\n\n\u201cFewer resources for peace officers. Less safety for local communities. Unless every county in America kowtows to Senate Democrats\u2019 particular view of the Second Amendment.\n\n\u201cDemocrats spent all this past year insisting they don\u2019t support de-funding the police \u2014 but here they go, yet again, proposing to do just that.\n\n\u201cOne wonders how the American people \u2014 the people of Georgia, for example \u2014 feel about this renewed push to respond to the violent crime wave by defunding local police. After all, the per-capita homicide and assault rate in the city of Atlanta is now even higher than it is in Chicago.\n\n\u201cWorking American families deserve safety in their communities.\n\n\u201cGrieving families deserve the small measure of peace that comes from actual justice.\n\n\u201cAnd the people of Georgia deserve a check and balance against Washington Democrats\u2019 reckless and radical defund-the-police proposals. Not a rubber stamp.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:38:01Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=32951191-AB99-4501-A559-99DFFF48F5D9"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8074359502643347, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}