“Don’t Let Senators Off The Hook”: There Is No Logical Way To Argue Expanding Background Checks Infringes On Constitutional Rights
Every Senator who is refusing to support expanded background checks — Republican or Democrat — needs to be asked a simple question: Do you support the current background system, or do you see it as an infringement on the rights of the law-abiding?
Every one of them will answer with a Yes, because they are taking refuge behind the idea that the current law needs to be strengthened in various ways but not expanded. Once they are on record confirming they don’t view the current system as a threat to Constitutional rights, the arguments against expanding it dissolve into incoherence.
The Senators who are threatening to filibuster Obama’s gun proposals (Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee) have said that they will “oppose any legislation that infringes on the American people’s right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to any additional government surveillance.”
But even libertarian Tea Party chieftain Rand Paul has allowed that current background checks “work.” And on the Sunday shows yesterday, other Republican Senators, such as Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake, said they could support improving the current system through better data sharing by states on the mentally ill and other such moves, while opposing expanding checks to private sales. As Steve Benen notes, this means “leaving the massive gun show loophole in place.”
That’s true, and I’d add one other point: It means these Senators view the current background check law as constitutional. Which means there is no logical way to argue that expanding background checks is an infringement on Constitutional rights. Here’s why: The compromise background check expansion being negotiated would simply build on current law, which requires gun dealers (who would conduct the checks on private sales) to keep records on those sales; it explicitly forbids the creation of a national registry; and it requires the feds to destroy info collected on legit gun transfers within 24 hours. None of this — none of it — would change. If the current law is not an infringement on constitutional rights, then neither is an expanded one.
To be fair, in their Sunday appearances, Graham and Flake didn’t argue against the proposal on Constitutional grounds, as the four Tea Party Senators have. But they both dissembled about the plan, with Graham falsely suggesting a father-son gun transfer could be targeted (the compromise proposal under discussion exempts family members), and Flake lamenting new “paperwork requirements” (which would be identical to current ones).
All these Senators should be pressed on whether they support the law requiring private citizens who purchase guns from federally licensed dealers to undergo a check. When they confirm that they do, they need to be pressed on why applying that same system to private sales — in which private citizens who buy guns from another private citizen must undergo a check — is objectionable, particularly since for the buyers, nothing changes, and since these Senators themselves concede we need to do a better job preventing criminals and the mentally from buying guns.
Senators holding out against expanded checks need to be pushed hard on this stuff. This is an important proposal, with American lives potentially at stake.
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, The Plum Line, April 1, 2013
“The Public Be Damned”: GOP Senators Fear A Debate On Gun Legislation
When President Obama delivered his State of the Union address last month, he urged lawmakers to simply give a bill a fair hearing. Referencing parents of Newtown victims, the president said, “They deserve a vote. Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek and Tucson and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence — they deserve a simple vote.”
And right now, Senate Republicans’ top goal on gun legislation seems to be making sure that doesn’t happen.
Sen. Mike Lee (R) of Utah argued today that he intends to block a floor debate on gun legislation in order to ensure a “full debate.” I don’t mean to be picky, but that’s gibberish — one does not guarantee a debate by blocking a debate.
Nevertheless, Lee’s efforts are drawing more support from the far-right. We talked the other day about a trio of conservative Republican senators — Lee, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz — who’ve vowed to filibuster any legislation that changes any gun laws in any way. Their little group is apparently growing.
Sen. Marco Rubio R-Fla. will reportedly sign the letter from Sens. Mike Lee R-Utah, Rand Paul R-Ky., and Ted Cruz R-Texas to require 60 votes to bring the Senate gun control bill to the Senate floor.
“Sens Rubio and Inhofe have signed the Lee-Paul-Cruz letter stating they will object to bringing new gun legislation to the floor,” announced Lee’s press secretary on Twitter earlier this afternoon.
Soon after, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) followed suit.
Just so we’re clear, what these five senators are saying is they intend to filibuster the motion to proceed on any gun bill. In other words, they’re not only going to try to prevent legislation from passing, they also intend to block any bill related to gun violence from even being debated on the Senate floor.
I’m not sure what they’re so afraid of.
Why not welcome the debate? Why try to prevent both sides from presenting their views and voting on a proposal?
From the far-right’s perspective, the worst case scenario is easy to imagine: the Senate might pass a bill that Republicans and the NRA don’t like. But even under these circumstances, the legislation would go to the Republican-led House, where progressive legislation has no credible chance of success.
So why go to so much effort to block a Senate debate?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, March 28, 2013
“A Devastating Blow To The Scientific Process”: The Idea That Politicians Decide What Is Worthy Of Research Is Perilous
This week, ten years after swearing to destroy Saddam Hussein and build democracy in Iraq, the United States took a step toward dismantling its investment in studying how democracy works.
For more than 15 years, congressional Republicans have been trying to do away with federal funding for political-science research. Every time until now, political scientists successfully fought back. One reason they could: The pot designated for political science in the National Science Foundation (NSF) was a tiny percentage of overall research money—about $10 million out of a $7 billion budget. That’s less than two-tenths of a percent. But it’s also the majority of total grant funding for political-science research. The field provides us with much of what we know about how democracies, including our own, function (and don’t function). Political scientists study how and why opinions change on key issues, what motivates people to vote, and how public opinion influences elected officials. For a relatively small sum, the nation that loves to tout its democratic ideals has been funding projects to investigate how that democracy works (and doesn’t).
Last May, when House Republicans passed an amendment by Congressman Jeff Flake to stop funding the NSF’s Political Science Program, Senate Democrats stopped it from going anywhere. Even New York Times columnist David Brooks got agitated by Flake’s selective targeting of the program, arguing, “This is exactly how budgets should not be balanced—by cutting cheap things that produce enormous future benefits.” (If he’s like most political journalists, Brooks uses plenty of NSF-funded data.)
But tucked inside the 600-page continuing resolution the Senate passed on Wednesday afternoon—the measure that must pass to avoid a government shutdown—is an amendment from Republican Senator Tom Coburn, designed to cut off the vast majority of federal support for political-science research. The amendment prevents the National Science Foundation from funding its Political Science Program, “except for research projects that the Director of the National Science Foundation certifies as promoting national security or the economic interests of the United States.”
Perhaps most surprising, the resolution passed by a voice vote, meaning there was no real opposition from Democrats. It’s quite a turnabout. Democrats have long supported research grants for the social sciences. When Coburn introduced a similar amendment in 2009, Democrat Barbara Mikulski went on the offensive: “This amendment is an attack on science. It is an attack on academia,” she said. “We need full funding to keep America innovative.”
But this time around, Senator Mikulski, as appropriations chair, was shepherding a difficult piece of legislation through the body as Republicans threatened a government shutdown. Democratic leaders were afraid that if Coburn didn’t get his way on the amendment, he would slow down the continuing resolution. That might have doomed the thing, with Congress headed to recess. Instead, it seems Coburn modified his original amendment to assuage the Democrats. His new language permitted the NSF to allow exceptions for political projects that “promote national security or the economic interests” of the country. Instead of cutting the $10 million allotted for the Political Science Program, the measure simply prohibits grants in political science. The NSF gets to keep the money for other purposes.
“It reflects the nature of the Senate more than it reflects any shifting views or shifting support,” says Thomas Mann, political scientist and congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution. “If there were a [roll call] vote on this, it never would have passed.” The House has already shown its support for a similar measure. The die has been cast, at least in the short term. Democrats will have a chance to undo the measure in October, when Congress will need to pass another budget for the next fiscal year.
The American Political Science Association called the decision “a devastating blow to the integrity of the scientific process.” That’s not overstating things, even if $10 million looks like a drop (if that) in the national budgetary bucket. If you care about scientific process generally, it’s not hard to see why the amendment is an ominous portent for other NSF programs. Growing up as the daughter of a political scientist who received several NSF grants, I was well aware of their importance, not only to political-science research but to the social sciences in general. Fields like sociology, psychology, and economics also rely heavily on NSF funding—and could also fall victim to the whims of an influential member of Congress. What if Senator Coburn next decides that sociological studies of gender and homophobia are frivolous? House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has already expressed his support for getting rid of funding for all social-science research, even though the combined budget for those programs is less than 3 percent of total NSF funding.
The situation could easily spread further, into the many parts of the hard sciences that are just as easily politicized—say, evolutionary biology or climate change. When the Flake amendment entered the House, the science magazine Nature wrote an editorial detailing the threat to all fields: “Scientists should ask themselves which vulnerable research programme could be next on the hit list,” the piece read. “The idea that politicians should decide what is worthy of research is perilous.”
Second, political-science research is important. NSF funds a number of major projects that inform much of how we understand our system. For instance, for decades, the Political Science Program has funded the National Election Study, a multimillion-dollar project run out of the University of Michigan. The data, freely available to anyone, provides the most comprehensive look at how American political opinion has changed over time on key issues. Through the study, we can track the evolution of partisan identification, public opinion, and a variety of other key issues over decades. The findings are used by journalists and campaigns, and they’re used to train undergraduates and graduate students in research. If the study ceases, there will suddenly be no way to see long-term trends in the American electorate.
Other Political Science Program studies have investigated questions that are important to our functioning democracy but not particularly easy to raise money for—like gender gaps in political ambition or how responsive elected officials really are to public opinion. Furthermore, the research has helped develop a number of statistical and methodological tools, like computer-assisted interviewing, which has since become standard in private-sector research.
Without NSF, many of these projects may go unfunded. Political-science research, like most academic research, relies on outside funding. Universities pay professors’ salaries and offer basic infrastructure—the buildings in which the research can take place, for instance—but most of the actual dollars for research come from grants. NSF funds 61 percent of political-science research. “There are other opportunities out there” for funding, says John McIver, who ran NSF’s Political Science Program in the mid-1990s. “But there are no pots as big as the NSF program. It’s going to be hard for big political science to continue.”
Why would political science be singled out for cuts in the first place? Coburn says he opposes the funding because the $10 million spent on political science takes away $10 million from studies of diseases or other causes deemed more worthy. In a letter to the director of the National Science Foundation earlier this month, he argued, “Discontinuing funding for these types of studies will increase our ability to fund research into basic fields of mathematics and science such as engineering, biology, physics, and technology.”
Of course, the National Science Foundation has a number of programs that have no direct economic or medical benefits. Physicists spend millions studying dark matter; not only have some of those studies failed to reach a conclusion but the research has no impact on most of our lives. Political-science research also makes its way into Congress—as the political scientist John Sides noted in 2011, even Coburn hasn’t let his opposition to NSF’s political-science grants stop him from relying on NSF-funded political-science research when the research bolsters his own positions. In one debate, he cited NSF-funded research to demonstrate the lack of congressional oversight of the Government Accountability Office.
Singling out political science for a cut seems absurd, until you consider that political scientists conduct research about elected officials and also that this research (usually) doesn’t rely on access or parlor games. Unlike reporters, who must establish relationships to gain access and information—and risk getting shut out when they write something controversial—political scientists have been free to critique and explain our political process, warts and all, and have never had to fear political repercussions. Until now, it seems. “Members of Congress don’t like research being done about members of Congress,” McIver says. “In a world in which Congress has an 11-percent approval rate, Congress is not happy to know there’s research being done specially on that topic.” As if to prove his point, Senator Coburn has repeatedly insisted that there’s no need to fund studies of the GOP’s use of the filibuster. It just so happens that many political scientists are eager to examine how the tool has been used (if not abused) under the current Republican leadership in the Senate.
Coburn’s attempt to stifle political science probably won’t succeed for long. Democrats are expected to restore the status quo by next October. But the fact that this decision was made at all is worrying. Flake, Coburn, and Cantor aren’t likely to let this go, especially now that they’ve had a taste of success.
By: Abby Rapoport, The American Prospect, March 23, 2013
“An Ornery Piece Of Work”: Ted Cruz On How Not To Make Friends And Influence People
Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) career on Capitol Hill has spanned less than three months, but he’s clearly made an impression. Frank Bruni noted that Cruz is “an ornery, swaggering piece of work,” preoccupied with “grandstanding and browbeating.” The Atlantic added that “a remarkable number of both Republicans and Democrats” have already come forward “to say that they think Cruz is kind of a jerk.”
The New York Times reported that “even some Republican colleagues are growing publicly frustrated” with the right-wing freshman.
And all of this came before Cruz objected last week to a routine Senate resolution commemorating Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week.
Congress passes hundreds of resolutions, meant to commemorate everything from a special awareness week or Little League champions. The resolutions lack any real power of law and are predominantly ceremonial. For example, earlier this month the Senate passed resolutions to mark “World Plumbing Day” and commemorating the three-year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake.
In order to keep business moving and not clog the Senate floor, they are normally passed in bulk through a “unanimous consent agreement,” meaning a vote isn’t tallied since both sides agree to it.
But last week, Cruz objected to including the MS Awareness resolution. He was unhappy with a clause in the resolution describing the purpose of the Multiple Sclerosis Coalition, according to a Democratic staffer.
Wonkette published the entire text of the uncontroversial resolution, and the only provision that seems remotely controversial — at least to someone on the far-right fringes of American politics — was language about “expanding access to medical treatment” for those affected with multiple sclerosis.
Maybe “expanding access” sounds to Cruz like code for “socialized medicine”? Perhaps, in the senator’s mind, those who can’t afford health insurance haven’t rightfully earned “access to medical treatment”?
Cruz’s office, meanwhile, said that the senator objected because he received a copy of the resolution “less than 48 hours” before it was brought to the floor. He wanted more time to review the measure before voting, so Cruz felt compelled to block unanimous consent.
For context, it’s worth noting that the symbolic resolution, which doesn’t actually do anything substantive, is only about 500 words; it was already approved unanimously by the Republican-led U.S. House; and as Steve M. noted, it “passes without objection every freaking year.”
But Ted Cruz balked anyway. It’s almost as if he wants to be disliked, not just by the American mainstream, but by his own colleagues in both parties.
In theory, this would do real damage to Cruz’s ability to be an effective lawmaker — who wants to partner with a senator they actively dislike? — but since he doesn’t seem interested in legislating, I suppose it doesn’t much matter.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, March 20, 2013
“Flying Under The Radar”: Senators Quietly Do The NRA’s Bidding In Spending Bill
Most lawmakers in both parties believe there will not be a government shutdown in two weeks, but to avoid one, Congress will need to pass something called a continuing resolution. It’s a temporary spending bill that will keep the government’s lights on through the end of the fiscal year. The House has already passed its version and the Senate is advancing its alternative.
Ordinarily, you might think the partisan disputes over the stopgap bill would be over spending levels and possible cuts, but as it turns out, the most contentious issue might be, of all things, gun policy. The New York Times reports that some unnamed lawmakers “quietly” added some “temporary gun-rights provisions largely favored by Republicans” to the CR.
The provisions, which have been renewed separately at various points, would prohibit the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from requiring gun dealers to conduct annual inventories to ensure that they have not lost guns or had them stolen, and would retain a broad definition of “antique” guns that can be imported into the United States outside of normal regulations.
Another amendment would prevent the A.T.F. from refusing to renew a dealer’s license for lack of business; many licensed dealers who are not actively engaged in selling firearms can now obtain a license to sell guns and often fly under the radar of the agency and other law enforcement officials, which gun control advocates argue leads to a freer flow of illegal guns.
A final measure would require the bureau to attach a disclaimer to data about guns to indicate that it “cannot be used to draw broad conclusions about firearms-related crimes.”
Keep in mind, it’s pretty tough to defend the provisions in question. What’s wrong, for example, with having gun dealers conduct inventories to make sure firearms haven’t been lost or stolen? I don’t know, but under a Republican measure in the temporary spending bill, the ATF would be prohibited from enforcing this basic regulation.
Also note, some of these ideas aren’t new — they’ve been temporary policies included in previous spending bills — but the new GOP-backed proposals make the policies permanent.
What’s worse, these provisions appear likely to pass because Senate Democrats see related measures in the House bill as even worse.
[A Democratic Senate] aide characterized the permanent provisions as a trade-off in negotiations that occurred late last year with House appropriators, who had sought to make additional gun-related riders permanent in the continuing resolution. Other riders — such as one banning the activities of the ATF from being transferred to another government entity, such as the more powerful FBI — are included in the Senate bill but not on a permanent basis.
According to the Senate aide, House appropriators also sought to include another provision that Democrats and the White House viewed as far more objectionable. […]
Although the Senate’s gun language was agreed to late last year — before the fatal shooting of 20 first-graders at a Connecticut elementary school — gun-control advocates and some Democratic members of Congress said the deal now looks like poor timing. They said it undermines a concurrent effort in both chambers to crack down on gun violence.
Third Way’s Jim Kessler, a former aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), told Roll Call, “It shows that the NRA is always on offense and rarely on defense. Even in a very adverse situation for them, in which many in Congress and the White House are trying to do something constructive to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and crazy people, the NRA continues to advance its agenda.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, March 15, 2013
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