WASHINGTON, D.C. — In press conferences on Capitol Hill, meetings at the White House and events across the country, Ohio Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, OH-3, has spent the last 16 months publicly trying to get a police reform bill and voting rights legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk.

While Democrats have passed versions of both in the U.S. House, the bills have stalled in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats have the slimmest majority possible.

It’s been a setback for the party at large, but specifically for Beatty, a Columbus Democrat who chairs the influential Congressional Black Caucus and has become one of Biden’s most vocal supporters in Congress.

In an interview in her Capitol Hill office Wednesday, Spectrum News spoke with Beatty about where her efforts stand and about a report that she’s seeking a job outside Congress.

When asked if she genuinely thinks there’s any chance police reform legislation could pass both chambers and get to Biden’s desk this year, Beatty referenced to her opposing party.

“I think that’s a question that we have to ask Republicans… it’s going to take us more time than we probably thought it would have taken,” she said. “And again, that’s because of how it has been stalled with members in the Senate.”

After a Minneapolis Police officer killed George Floyd two years ago, it looked like Congress might act on reforming policing.

But Republicans ultimately blocked a bill named after Floyd, and Beatty, as chair of the CBC, has struggled to revive negotiations.

She said Wednesday the caucus discusses police reform about daily, but attempts since last fall to write a new bill remain in the beginning stages.

The same can be said for voting rights legislation.

“Sometimes you have to look at progress and define it as moving the needle,” Beatty said.

Beatty led the charge last year to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, but it also remains stalled in the Senate.

She said Wednesday that the caucus is actively working to break up the bill to pass components of it piece by piece, but the November midterms are quickly approaching.

“We’ve actually looked at how we will dissect it,” Beatty said. “We’ve actually started having conversations with key players.”

Amid it all, a headline appeared last week that signaled Beatty, despite having just won her OH-3 primary for reelection May 3, is potentially pursuing a professional life after Congress.

Punchbowl News reported May 6 that Beatty is lobbying the White House to appoint her as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas. The report said Beatty even sent a letter to the White House about it.

“That is true. That is true,” Beatty said. “And it’s not a secret that probably for more than seven or eight years, I have said an ideal thing for me would be to be ambassador, specifically of the Bahamas.”

She said she fell in love with the Caribbean country on family trips throughout the years.

On a congressional visit to the Bahamas earlier in 2022, she met with the prime minister and they talked about how the country has not had a formal ambassador in more than a decade.

Spectrum News asked Beatty, since she recently won her primary, if her constituents should at all be concerned that between now and the general election, she could get the ambassador job and leave Congress.

“They should absolutely not be concerned,” Beatty said.

But moments later, she made one final plug.

“The Bahamas deserves an ambassador,” she said. “And sometimes, as a leader, you can be that vehicle to move the needle and get just as much reward.”