House Republicans: Let’s Defund the Police

Plus: The great resignation happening in the House.

Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, photographed in October 2023. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The Republican Study Committee’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 has been picked apart for its embrace of slashing entitlements like Medicaid, raising the retirement age to delay the collection of Social Security benefits, eliminating school lunch programs, and restricting access to abortion and related services.

These proposals and others in the budget are all very much in line with longstanding Republican orthodoxy; it’s well attested that GOP lawmakers support doing these things, even if they sometimes downplay their positions on the campaign trail or in interviews. But among the cuts in the group’s budget proposal this year is one that goes against the Republican grain: The RSC also calls for stripping federal funding meant for local police departments.

Sandwiched between an erroneous section about “prevent[ing] funding for woke activities at the Office of Justice” (there is no such office; they mean the Office of Justice Programs) and a section calling for reining in the “radical climate agenda” in the Department of Energy, the RSC proposes reductions in funding for the Department of Justice-administered grantmaking program called Community Oriented Policing Services, otherwise known as COPS:

COPS was created in the 1990s as a means to support state and local law enforcement agencies with expenses like salaries, court programs, and juvenile justice programs. Conservatives support our men and women and blue but should question whether the government should involve itself in state and local law enforcement, even if it is only a matter of funding. In recent years, we have seen elected officials in urban areas vilifying their law enforcement officers, disincentivizing any new police recruits. While COPS funding goes to small towns and big cities alike, it is unfair to provide funding to larger cities that championed major cuts to their police budgets. In one example, San Francisco’s mayor announced that she would cut the city’s police budget by $120 million. Later in 2021, San Francisco received a $6.25 million COPS Hiring Program grant. The same story applies to D.C. In 2020, the city council approved a $15 million cut to the city’s police budget only later to receive a $3.125 million COPS Hiring Program grant. The federal government should not bail out cities that wish to cut their police budgets, so the RSC Budget would support a reduction to this program.

COPS started in 1994 and since then has provided billions of dollars to more than 13,000 different police departments. The website for the program claims that more than 136,000 new officers have been added as a result.

At the behest of Donald Trump, the great reframer of GOP orthodoxy, Republicans have for some time been advocating stripping federal policing at the Department of Justice. Going after COPS extends that project to reach the local level.

The RSC’s issue with COPS funding is that it sometimes goes to cities that Republicans don’t like, such as San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Worse, sometimes those cities alter their police budgets while receiving COPS grants. The RSC proposal is quite vague, only going so far as to recommend broad cuts to the program. There isn’t an additional proposal to create some kind of commission that determines which police departments are “woke” vs. “based,” so it’s safe to assume the proposed cuts would be applied generally, in the spirit of “this [liberal city’s adjustments to its police budget] is why we can’t have nice things.” The cuts would hurt police departments in cities and small towns all over the United States. 

Here’s a snapshot of some of the most recent recipients of COPS money that the Department of Justice touts as success stories:

• Phoenix, Arizona

• Detroit, Michigan

• Buncombe County, North Carolina

• Gresham, Oregon

• Fairfield Bay, Arkansas

• El Paso, Texas (right on the southern border!)

It’s important to understand that a budget proposal like this one isn’t the final product, but it does certainly represent an intent. When the White House submits the president’s annual budget request to Congress early each year, Congress immediately tosses it in the recycling bin, regardless of whether the president is at odds with either of the majorities in the House or Senate; this is the treatment almost every budget proposal receives. To create the actual budget, members of the relevant committees undertake a laborious, months-long process that accommodates a ton of input—namely, amendments and pet projects from virtually every rank-and-filer in the Capitol—that no external proposal would ever need to make room for because those external proposals are crafted in isolation from the realities of workaday congressional politics. Most of the time, the actual budget process is a chaotic scramble that includes continuing resolutions, combination packages, and even the occasional government shutdown. In fact, Congress has passed all 12 of its required appropriations bills on time only four times since 1977, and the last year it did so was 1997—over a quarter century ago.¹

But the RSC’s budget proposal carries more weight than any request from the White House for two reasons: First, Republicans are the current majority, and second, the RSC is by far the largest ideological caucus in the House, claiming some three out of four Republicans in the chamber. This means the real budget will more closely reflect the wishes of the RSC’s 166 members. Past RSC chairs include Mike Pence, Jim Jordan, and Mike Johnson.

The current RSC chairman, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.)—you might remember him as one of the brave individuals willing to don the heavy mantle of the House speakership last year—said of the budget proposal: 

Our budget is proof that it's possible to balance the budget, it's possible to operate in the black. The federal debt is daunting, but it's not hopeless. Conservative policies work together across the whole of government to lower spending, lower taxes, decrease the size and scope of the federal government, and spur economic growth. Chairman Cline and our Task Force Members have done incredible work to get this done a month early. Conservatives have a plan to restore fiscal sanity - it's time to get to work!

Seeing as this quest for “fiscal sanity” includes a side quest to reduce funding for local police departments, I guess Hern believes operating in the black means not backing the blue.

Ight Imma head out

The Great Resignation by House Republicans is something to behold. In case you missed it, I discussed the most recent departure, that of Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), on The Bulwark Podcast yesterday with my colleagues Tim Miller and Bill Kristol.

Our conversation will give a sense for the broad shape of things, but I wanted to get a bit deeper into the numbers to show you how significant these departures are. The scale is unprecedented for a period in which Republicans have the majority.

In addition to Gallagher, Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), Bill Johnson (Ohio), and Kevin McCarthy (lol) all stepped down over the last few months. Buck and McCarthy moved so fast that they both jumped out of the plane without the parachute of another job in hand. 

The 21 total departures is also staggering, only five of which are bids for another office. Every cycle sees groups from both parties depart for various reasons: to seek higher office, because they got old, or sometimes because a district has been redrawn in a way that makes their re-election virtually impossible. But the Republican retirements include four committee chairs, including some who wouldn’t be termed out if they stayed. Chairmanships are typically awarded based on seniority, so it’s odd that in addition to the retiring chairs, several other members are retiring this year who are either right behind or two spots away from receiving the gavel for their committees (provided Republicans can hold on to or expand their majority in November).

The number of retiring committee chairs was at one point even larger, but Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) of the Homeland Security Committee reversed his decision after pressure from leadership to stay in Congress. 

As you can tell, the mood among House Republicans right now is not positive. In all my years covering Congress, I have never seen such a miserable majority. 

When Gallagher steps down on April 19, Republicans will only be able to afford one defection on key votes (and that’s assuming full attendance). I can envision scenarios where more lawmakers suddenly step down or a vacancy is created as a result of unforeseen situations (including tragic ones²). This would not immediately result in a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, but it could make one of the least-effective Houses in a generation even less productive.

1. Still not as long as it has been since the Dallas Cowboys have returned to the Super Bowl.

2. With such an old legislature, the presence of members who are seriously ill is a given. There has already been one death in this Congress: Weeks after he won re-election during the 2022 midterm, Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) passed away after a long battle with cancer. It’s worth noting that the age issue is lopsided: A tenth of the membership of the House—43 members—are 75 or older, but only 10 of those 43 are Republicans.