WASHINGTON — Senate Judiciary Committee chair Lindsey Graham told BuzzFeed News he will start crafting legislation next week to expand police powers to preemptively seize firearms from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others.

Graham is angling to get bipartisan support for his bill, and has been in discussions with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Neither would outline specifics Thursday beyond saying it will be an original piece of legislation. Graham said work on hammering out the contents of the bill will begin next week.

Despite a string of mass shootings in recent years, Congress has not taken action on any significant new gun control measures, only authorizing funding to improve the national background checks system.

Graham told BuzzFeed News on Thursday his bill will provide grants to states that pass extreme risk protection orders, or ERPOs. Also known as “red flag laws,” they allow judges to authorize police to temporarily seize a person’s guns, with no advance notice, if there are grounds to believe the person may commit a violent act.

“I’m seeking to incentivize states to produce extreme risk protective order legislation that has ample due process but also is meaningful in protecting the public from somebody who is dangerous,” said Graham.

ERPO laws have broken through at the state level since the Parkland, Florida, shooting a year ago, where the shooter exhibited a pattern of disturbing behavior leading up to the attack but was able to keep his guns. Before Parkland, only five states had such laws. Today, Colorado is about to become the 15th state, plus the District of Columbia, to pass ERPO legislation.

“The benefits are enormous. If you just stop one, that’s enormous. And there has to be due process, we all get that,” Graham said last week at the end of a Judiciary Committee meeting studying red flag laws.

Democrats widely welcomed ERPO legislation, while also saying more reforms are needed.

“I think that Republicans know they can’t do nothing any longer. Republicans know they can’t go into 2020 exposed on the issue of guns like they were in 2018,” said Sen. Chris Murphy. “I don’t think red flags law are sufficient from a policy perspective or a political perspective. They’re diversionary.”

Other Democrats were surprised that a powerful Republican like Graham would be willing to try to pass any kind of red flag law legislation.

“We are literally talking about provisions that result in people’s guns being taken away,” said Democratic Sen. Chris Coons. “You would think in this environment that would be something nobody would want to talk about in the other party.”