I 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 6327 
To ensure that the United States, States, and local governments are liable 
for monetary damages for constitutional violations by law enforcement officers. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
DECEMBER 20, 2021 
Mr. CICILLINE (for himself, Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, and Mr. RASKIN) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Ju-
diciary 
A BILL 
To ensure that the United States, States, and local govern-
ments are liable for monetary damages for constitutional 
violations by law enforcement officers. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Constitutional Ac-
countability Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The 14th Amendment to the Constitution of 
the United States was passed by Congress and rati-
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fied by the people of the United States against the 
backdrop of numerous State laws, policies, and prac-
tices that denied African Americans and others their 
enjoyment of fundamental rights. 
(2) Congress drafted the 14th Amendment to 
broadly protect fundamental rights and guarantee 
equality to all persons. 
(3) To help realize the promise of equality pro-
tected in the 14th Amendment, Congress passed sec-
tion 1979 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 1983) 
(referred to in this section as ‘‘section 1983’’), cre-
ating a statutory remedy for violations of the Con-
stitution of the United States and Federal law. Ac-
cording to Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U.S. 225, 242 
(1972), section 1983 was intended ‘‘to interpose the 
Federal courts between the States and the people, as 
guardians of the people’s Federal rights’’. 
(4) By creating this remedy, Congress recog-
nized that civil suits are a necessary and powerful 
tool to protect individual rights. Suits under section 
1983 can not only make whole victims who are 
wronged. The suits can incentivize actors to take the 
steps necessary to avoid wrongdoing in the first 
place. 
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(5) Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s current 
crabbed interpretation of section 1983 undermines 
its ability to accomplish these goals. 
(6) Private employers are responsible for the 
torts of their employees under the doctrine of 
respondeat superior. The risk of liability incentivizes 
private employers to effectively hire, supervise, train, 
and discipline their employees. 
(7) In contrast, under Monell v. Department of 
Social Services of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 
658 (1978), municipal defendants are not subject to 
respondeat superior liability for the constitutional 
torts of their officers. Cities may only be held liable 
for the constitutional torts of their officers only 
when the plaintiff can show that the violation was 
the result of a municipal policy or custom. Under 
Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 
U.S. 58 (1989), States cannot be held liable at all. 
(8) The Monell doctrine requires judges to re-
solve difficult questions regarding which officials are 
policymakers, whether an official was acting in State 
or local capacity, and municipalities’ training and 
hiring processes. 
(9) In Board of County Commissioners v. 
Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 430 (1997), Justice Breyer 
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criticized this ‘‘highly complex body of interpretive 
law’’ and called for a reexamination of ‘‘the legal 
soundness’’ of the Monell doctrine. Numerous schol-
ars, as well as other jurists, have criticized the 
Monell doctrine as convoluted, inconsistent, arbi-
trary, and unintelligible. 
(10) There is no statutory cause of action for 
constitutional violations by Federal officials. Victims 
can only bring their claims if courts infer a cause of 
action, which they are increasingly unlikely to do. 
(11) Police officers are regularly called upon to 
make split-second, life-or-death decisions. The cur-
rent liability regime, however, is not sufficient to en-
sure that police departments adequately hire, train, 
supervise, and discipline their officers so that they 
can respond to these situations in a constitutional 
manner. 
(12) There are over 18,000 police departments 
in the United States and no uniform standard on 
how officers should be trained. Departments gen-
erally require significantly more training on how to 
deploy force than when it is appropriate to do so. As 
recently as 2017, 34 States did not mandate de-es-
calation training for all officers. 
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(13) A National Public Radio study of fatal po-
lice shootings of unarmed Black people nationwide 
found that several officers were involved in multiple 
shootings without consequences. The same study 
found that departments hired officers with histories 
of domestic violence, as well as officers who were 
fired or forced out of other police departments due 
to prior misconduct. 
(14) According to United States v. Georgia, 
546 U.S. 151, 158 (2006), Congress has the power 
under section 5 of the 14th Amendment to the Con-
stitution of the United States to provide for direct 
enforcement of section 1 of the 14th Amendment 
‘‘by creating private remedies’’, including ones 
‘‘against the States’’. 
(15) Eliminating restrictions on the liability of 
State and local governments is necessary to ensure 
that no ‘‘State [shall] deprive any person of life, lib-
erty, or property, without due process of law; nor 
deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal 
protection of the laws’’. 
SEC. 3. CIVIL ACTIONS FOR DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS. 
Section 1979 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 
1983) is amended— 
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