One of the greatest strengths of our nation is that our military, by tradition and law, does not engage in politics, because the dangers of doing so are far too high.
But police unions, who view themselves as a sort of military, frequently referring to citizens as “civilians”, despite the fact they themselves are civilians, do so as a matter of course, in order to influence elections in their favor. There are many examples of police unions threatening political candidates with “soft on crime” smear campaigns in order to extract greater budgets and less oversight from elected officials.
Most of the calls for reform are resisted by police, frequently violently. Most attempts at reform are rendered toothless by police unions.
Police unions, like the military and for the same reasons, should be barred from engaging in political activities of any sort, and to criminalize threats to politicians made in order to influence policies, because as with the military engaging in politics the results are very negative to society.
Police officers would be free to exercise their political rights as individuals, but the dangers in allowing their unions the freedom to intimidate candidates or elected officials must end.
Police unions are unique among unions, as they exist more to protect their members from legal and moral accountability than to address normal union concerns. They enjoy protected status from right-wing politicians because they are almost exclusively right-wing anti-democratic organizations. In every state where state employees are forbidden to unionize, police are the one set allowed and supported, hardly equal treatment before the law. As a union member myself, while I support unions in principle and in general, I can see the clear differences between my union and the destructive activity of police unions.
Of course the other solution is to ban police unions altogether as terrorist organizations. There is ample evidence in the current police riots against peaceful protesters that their intent is to terrorize citizens to prevent them from exercising their constitutional rights. In that they protect clearly criminal cops who violate policy, laws, and morals, they could rightfully be regarded as criminal organizations.
No reform will ever work so long as police unions continue to wield outsized power for personal protection from justice by co-opting politicians to do their bidding.