This is the Kator Daily Podcast for Wednesday, August 25, 2021.

I'm Caleb Brown. Qualified immunity is the big sticking point for policing reform in Congress.

Many Democrats may not support reform

without curtailing the doctrine that lets police get away with violating your

rights and some Republicans say they won't support reform that includes an end to qualified immunity.

Cato's Jay Schweikert and Clark Neely provide some of the context.

At what point did Republicans decide that policing reform was going to be essentially anywhere on their radar?

Well I think the, certainly the events of last spring and summer in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers was a, you know, a galvanizing moment.

I think we see this coming cycles. I mean we have really serious problems in our

criminal justice system and really really serious problems with at least some

police departments in this country and public confidence in police has never been lower. some police

has never been lower.

So it's perhaps not so surprising that Republicans would express

some recognition of those problems.

What was interesting and for at least a time encouraging

was that they seemed not only to acknowledge

that they needed to, you know, sort of express some understanding of public frustration but at one

point seemed like they actually might be serious about doing something about it.

Jay Republicans have decided that qualified immunity reform a fix to it or ending it is going to be nowhere in

policing reform as far as they're concerned.

What does that mean and what was on the table?

Well the issue of qualified immunity has been

...