House Democrats have scrapped imminent plans to introduce safety-related legislation that involves funding the police and banning assault weapons, with the expectation of resuming these same talks in August.
Citing various media reports, Democratic Party leadership, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has lingering concerns about the substance of the respective bills.
There's even speculation that neither measure would have garnered enough approval from various factions of the House Democrats, if they had been forced to vote in the coming days.
As such, the Democrats, as a whole, will revisit these measures next month.
"The agreement is, we have to get it right," said Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, who leads the Congressional Black Caucus. "I will be discussing accountabilities for the bill. We want to make sure that we're proceeding and that we are united, and the Congressional Black Caucus will continue to be steering the process."
During 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd murder and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests throughout the country, a number of top Democrats — covering the House and Senate — endorsed or even campaigned off the platform of defunding the police.
However, polling in right- and left-leaning states generally found defunding police to be a losing issue, among likely voters.
Fast forward to the present: With less than five months before the November midterm elections, Democrats might require a last-minute reprieve with high-profile safety bills, as a means of quieting GOP complaints of Democrats being soft on crime, or indifferent about maintaining law and order in blue-controlled cities and states.
However, the passage of bills remains a logistical problem for Democrats, as time draws closer to November.
For example, back in May, 19 House Democrats introduced the "Invest to Protect Act," a bipartisan piece of legislation that would have provided local police departments with more resources, according to the New York Post.
Two months later, though, the bill doesn't appear to be any closer to a formal House vote.
"We have a broad-based caucus that has multiple interests," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., after Wednesday's private meeting among Democrat leadership. "The overwhelming majority want to make sure that people understand we want safe communities."
The Washington Examiner reports that House Democrats will be focused on drawing in suburban women voters over the next few months. Assuming that's the case, a police-funding bill might have greater urgency than a ban on assault weapons.
Earlier this week, while speaking to Punchbowl News, Pelosi acknowledged that coming back for reconciliation in August "has made our plans a little bit different."