House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn trekked to Staten Island to throw his support behind former Rep. Max Rose’s bid to return to Congress, saying the fellow Democrat is a trusted ally in the fight to tighten federal gun laws and stamp out the “defund the police” movement.
Mr. Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, said Mr. Rose backs expanding universal background checks and closing the so-called “Charleston loophole” that limits to three days the period the FBI has to conduct a background check.
“These two pieces of legislation must pass,” Mr. Clyburn said at a Friday campaign event in what is traditionally a conservative bastion in New York City.
He zeroed in on the “defund the police” issue that has been a weight around the necks of Democrats.
“While we are doing that we must not allow sloganeering, headline seeking, 30-second sound bites to ruin our communities’ relationship with our peacekeepers,” the South Carolina Democrat said. “We support policing.”
Mr. Clyburn stressed that police departments should not be defined by a few bad apples.
“If there’s a problem in the church, we don’t get rid of the church, we don’t nail up the church door,” Mr. Clyburn said. “If you have a problem with the police officer, get rid of the police officer, but let the other peacekeepers stay here for the rest of us.”
Chants of “defund the police” became a familiar refrain in the at-times violent protests that exploded after the 2020 murder of George Floyd. The push seeks to shift money away from police and toward social services.
The slogan caused major headaches for Democrats running in competitive races, including Mr. Rose.
The former U.S. Army officer lost his reelection race against Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis after she accused him of embracing the movement and cast him as soft on crime.
The attack had particular resonance in Staten Island, which is well known as a home to many police officers.
Now with voters growing more and more concerned with the threat of rising crime, top Democrats have been vocal in denouncing the movement, sensing it could add to the political headwinds in what is already shaping up to be a brutal midterm election cycle.
President Biden, in his State of the Union Address, drew applause from Republicans when he said the “answer is not to defund the police.”
“It’s to fund the police,” he said. “Fund them with resources and training.”
For his part, Mr. Rose said the nation must push to “obtain justice for all and safety for all,” while applauding New York City Mayor Eric Adams for taking a “correct stance against defunding the police.”
“We know with the leadership we have here today and with our collective, continued, resiliency and fight there will come a day where we will rein in the violence and evil of assault weapons, that we will pass universal background checks, and that we will build an America and build a New York City and a Staten Island where no one is afraid to leave their home,” he said.
Mr. Rose is running in a primary race that includes Brittany Ramos DeBarros and Komi Agoda-Koussema.
Mr. Rose’s chances of making a triumph return got a boost after New York Democrats approved a new congressional map that snaked part of the Staten Island-based 11th Congressional District into more Democratic-friendly areas in Brooklyn.
J. Miles Coleman, of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said House Democrats have the chance to flip about a dozen seats this fall, including in New York’s 11th Congressional District.
“That is one of the Democrats’ best pickup opportunities this year because it is a significantly more liberal district,” said J. Miles Coleman, of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “I think Rose fits that district well. He is a former blue dog, plus he has been getting some progressive endorsements,” he said.
Mr. Coleman said it makes sense for Mr. Rose to stiff-arm the “defund the police” movement given the large number of police that call the district home.
On Friday, Mr. Clyburn said the final conversation he had on the House floor with the late civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis centered on their concerns about the negative impact the defund push had on the Black Lives Matter movement.
“He said to me, ‘You know, Jim, this ‘Defund the Police’ has the potential to do the same thing to this movement that ‘Burn, Baby, Burn’ did to ours,” he said, referring to the civil rights movement.
“What did it do to us?” Mr. Clyburn said. “It destroyed the movement.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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