(Radio Iowa) – Third district Congresswoman Cindy Axne of West Des Moines is one of the Democrats who pressed for votes on a package of public safety initiatives that cleared the U.S. House Thursday. “I think it dispels that lie about ‘defunding’ the police,” Axne says. The package would provide money to recruit and retain officers and would set aside funding specifically for small police departments.

“To ensure that cities like Atlantic, Red Oak, our sheriffs’ departments that are under 125 people or less have their own system to go through,” Axne says. “We’re not going to compete with the Chicago’s and the New York’s anymore to make sure that they get the funding that they need.”

The House passed four different law enforcement measures. One would provide money to hire social workers to respond to 9-1-1 calls involving people in a mental health crisis. “So that our police officers aren’t engaged in those issues, they can focus on the job, and we can have experts who deal with those,” Axne says. The House also voted to increase federal funding for crime victim support services and provide grants to police and prosecutors to investigate sexual assaults, shootings and homicides.

“Just to ensure that, quite honestly, we start solving more of these crimes,” Axne says, “and making sure that we’re addressing victims’ needs at the same time.” There were some tense moments yesterday (Thursday) as a few progressive Democrats refused to support bringing the bills up for votes, but after months of internal negotiations, a majority of House Democrats got the bills passed. Republicans in the House voted for some of the bills and opposed others.

All three Republicans from Iowa voted for the Invest to Protect Act, to provide federal grants to police departments.