U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes slammed incumbent Ron Johnson for an alleged lack of support for law enforcement. Evidence for Barnes' claims comes up empty, or is indirect at best.
noted that"Before the American Rescue Plan passed, the Menino Survey found that 27% of mayors anticipated making significant cuts to their police budgets and services."this claim from U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Virginia:"Every Republican in Congress voted to defund the police when they voted against the American Rescue Plan.
""The $1.9 trillion stimulus dedicates $350 billion to compensating state, local and tribal governments for lost revenues during the coronavirus crisis. The law gives the governments wide flexibility in using the money, and one option is to spend it on essential workers or their departments. "But the bill never guaranteed that the money would go to essential workers — including police and their departments — when Republicans voted against it. And there’s a huge difference between voting against a possible one-time cash injection into police departments and cutting their existing funding, as Scott implied."Opposing"a plan to recruit and train new officers" Here Barnes argues Johnson opposed a Biden police and crime prevention plan to recruit and train 100,000 new officers, citing an Aug. 8, 2022memo from the White House aims to provide funding to communities for several initiatives including"hiring and training 100,000 additional police officers for community policing and setting aside dedicated funds for small law enforcement agencies.""I’m sure he’s going to spend more money that we don’t have, exacerbating inflation, not accomplishing whatever goal it’s trying to accomplish." Johnson campaign spokesperson Alexa Henning argued the quote, cited by the Barnes team,"completely takes out of context the Senator's remarks at the media gaggle following his American Legion speech." "The Senator was not aware of the exact legislation prior to the reporter asking him the question," Henning said in an email to PolitiFact Wisconsin."He wasn’t opposing the specifics of the bill, instead he was commenting on how Democrats' massive spending bills are exacerbating inflation and mortgaging our kids' future." Fair enough. But that muddle is partly on Johnson, for expressing opposition to a bill before understanding what was in it. In any case, there have been multiple other occasions where Johnson has backed spending for law enforcement, such as establishingto hire 100,000 new police officers nationwide to combat the crime wave and the proposed JUSTICE Act, which included $100 million in federal grants to assist law enforcement officers in training, and access to new technology for body worn cameras. The measure also authorized $50 million to establish new funding for state and local law enforcement agencies to pay for costs related to training. In addition, it is Johnson – not Barnes – who has the most public backing from police groups and law enforcement officials in the race, including an endorsement from theBarnes said"Ron Johnson has voted against funding for law enforcement and recently opposed a plan to recruit and train new officers."On the first part of the claim, Team Barnes makes an ARPA-related claim PolitiFact has already rated False. In addition, Johnson’s vote on a budget balance bill was cited, but the best evidence is cuts to law enforcement funding might have happened down the line. On the second part of the claim, the criticism of Johnson’s response to Biden’s Safer America Plan is indirect at best – albeit, the response apparently came in knee-jerk fashion.We rate this claim False.
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