“A Political Price To Pay”: Obstruction Of The Gun Violence Bill Will Further Damage The GOP
On Wednesday, supporters of legislation to limit gun violence failed to muster the sixty votes necessary to stop a Republican filibuster of the Toomey-Manchin compromise that would expand background checks to include all commercial gun sales in the United States.
Polls show that universal background checks are supported by 90% of Americans – including a vast majority of gun owners and Republicans. A clear majority of Senators are fully prepared to pass a background check measure. But no matter – the Republican Leadership decided to obstruct the democratic process in the Senate to prevent an up or down vote on the measure.
Conventional wisdom continues to hold that, while the vast majority of Americans support universal background checks, in many areas it is still smart politics not to antagonize the NRA and their relatively small number of very active – very passionate – supporters. Conventional wisdom is wrong. Here’s why:
1). Wednesday’s Washington Post poll shows that 70% of all voters and nearly half of Republicans already think the GOP is out of touch with the needs and interests of the majority of Americans. By opposing a common sense measure like universal background checks, that is supported by nine of out ten Americans, the GOP leadership threatens to further tarnish the GOP brand by appearing to be way out of the mainstream and not on the side of ordinary voters.
2). It is no longer true that large number of voters who favor measures to limit gun violence are less “passionate” about their views. It is also no longer the case that those views will be less likely to affect their voting than opponents of restrictions on guns.
In a poll released Wednesday by Project New America, over 60% of voters in Arkansas, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Ohio said they strongly support background checks for gun purchasers.
And an overwhelming number of voters said they would be more likely to support candidates for Senate that supported background checks – 70% in Maine, 65% in North Carolina, 64% in Illinois, 64% in New Hampshire, 62% in Nevada, and 56% in Arkansas.
3). The GOP lost women 55% to 44% in the last election. Republican obstruction of gun violence legislation will only make their problem with women voters worse, since they are particularly passionate supporters of legislation to stem gun violence. The same goes for Millennial voters who overwhelmingly support gun violence legislation.
4). Some pundits will say that Democratic Senators contributed to the failure to muster 60 votes to end the Republican filibuster by refusing to vote to cut off debate. Forty-one of forty-five Republican Senators voted against background checks. Over 90% of Democratic Senators voted to support the background check legislation and there would have been no need for 60 votes in the first place if the Republican leadership had not decided to filibuster the bill.
The fact is that everyone in America knows that the President and Democratic Leadership strongly favor background checks, and the Republican Leadership – as well as most Republican Senators – opposed them. That is what will create a lasting impression among voters.
5). Many Republicans and some Democratic Senators have made the judgment that the money and energy of the NRA and weapons industry are more potent politically than the forces who promote legislation to curb gun violence. That may have been true in the past — no longer.
The fact is that in the last election the major NRA PAC had a .083% success rate. And now Mayor Bloomberg, the Giffords/Kelly organizations and many others are amassing substantial resources to target against the enemies of legislation to stop gun violence.
Bloomberg already showed the potency of these efforts by investing $2 million in the Illinois 2nd District Congressional District and virtually sinking pro-NRA candidates who had otherwise been strong contenders in this spring’s special election. There will be more of that to come.
6). On a press conference call Wednesday, Democratic pollster Geoff Garin pointed out that Republican opposition to legislation to limit gun violence, further shrinks the playing field where they will be competitive – both in 2014 and the next Presidential race. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a list of 27 Republican incumbents who represent swing districts where voters are supportive of anti-gun violence legislation.
Already Republicans have a very narrow, difficult path to 270 electoral votes in the Presidential map. They need to broaden their electoral playing field. But their opposition to gun violence legislation will make their path to victory in states like Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon even more difficult.
What does all of this add up to?
The fact is that Democrats and supporters of strong legislation to curb gun violence have the high moral and political ground in this debate — and the issue is not going away. This is, after all, a 90%-10% issue.
The background check bill would have won by five votes. Instead, Republican abuse of arcane Senate rules required that it receive a super majority of sixty votes to pass. This, by the way, is yet another excellent reason to change those Senate rules to end the misuse of the filibuster.
Over the next weeks, it is up to those who support common sense gun violence legislation to come down on those who voted no like an avalanche.
There is simply no excuse for their failure to pass legislation that is supported by 90% of the American people.
Simply put, we cannot let that stand – and those who opposed the measure must be made to pay the political price.
There continues to be a perceived “passion gap” on the gun issue. Members of Congress still believe that while the majority of Americans support legislation to curb gun violence, they lack the passion of opponents. As we have seen, this is no longer true.
Now it is up to us to demonstrate that it is not true to the Senators who are more concerned about contributions and support from the weapons industry than they are about the lives of the 26 people who died at Newtown – and the thousands of others who have died since.
By: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post, April 17, 2013
“A Shameful Day For Washington”: The NRA Willfully Lied On Guns
Speaking just minutes after a minority in the Senate killed a bipartisan bill to expand background checks on gun sales — something 90 percent of Americans support — President Obama stood in the Rose Garden in front of weeping gun violence victims, including former Rep. Gabby Giffords, to give a searing indictment of the forces that just blocked even this modest reform.
Showing flashes of anger and passion rare for this president, Obama laid into the National Rifle Association and Senate Republicans, saying they “willfully lied on this bill,” especially by erroneously claiming the bipartisan background check legislation known as Manchin-Toomey would create a national gun registry when, in fact, the bill made creating one a felony punishable by 15 years in prison. Even though politicians lie all the time, the word “lie” is almost never uttered in public discourse in Washington, let alone by the president, underscoring his unusual anger.
“Unfortunately, this pattern of spreading untruths about this legislation served a purpose. Those lies upset an intense minority of gun owners and that in turn intimidated a lot of senators,” Obama said. “There were no coherent arguments as to why we shouldn’t do this, it came down to politics.”
He even took a highly unusual shot at four senators in his own party who voted against the amendment to expand background checks out of fears that the gun lobby would come after them, saying, “Republicans had that fear, but Democrats had that fear too. So they caved to the pressure. And they started looking for an excuse — any excuse — to vote no.”
“Too many senators,” Obama said, “failed” their test of leadership. Behind him parents of children killed at Sandy Hook and in other massacres visibly wept.
But he reserved special criticism for Sen. Rand Paul, who said Obama was using gun violence victims as “props.” “Are they serious?” Obama said of Paul’s comments without mentioning him by name. “Do they really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don’t have a right to weigh in on this issue?”
“So all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington,” Obama concluded, before promising to try again and asking citizens to put pressure on their members of Congress.
Indeed, after Columbine in 1999, when Republicans in the Senate killed a robust bill to expand background checks, the public outcry was so strong that they immediately backtracked and approved a stronger bill (it later died in the House).
By: Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon, April 17, 2013
“Democracy Works No More”: Irrational And Insane Republican Filibuster Kills Background-Check Compromise
Almost exactly four months after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, the Senate took up a bipartisan compromise on firearm background checks — the heart of the larger effort to reduce gun violence. It was a watered-down compromise written by two conservative senators, but it enjoyed the support of a majority of the Senate and the overwhelming support of the American public.
And yet, this afternoon, it died at the hands of a Republican filibuster anyway.
As the dust settled, a 54-member majority supported the Manchin/Toomey amendment, while 46 opposed it. Because of Republican obstructionist tactics, proponents needed a 60-vote supermajority and came up far short. (Technically, it would have been 55-45, but Majority Leader Harry Reid had to switch his vote for procedural reasons.)
A woman in the Senate gallery shouted “shame on you” at the members below, but she, like the Newtown families, Gabrielle Giffords, and 90% of the country were ignored.
The vote fell largely along partisan lines, but not completely. Four Republicans — Sens. Collins, Kirk, McCain, and Toomey — broke ranks and supported expanded background checks, while four red-state Democrats — Sens. Baucus, Begich, Heitkamp, and Pryor — sided with the NRA. Three of the four Dems face challenging re-election campaigns in 2014.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), one of Congress’ staunchest supporters of gun-safety measures, has been absent from the Senate for several weeks with a serious ailment, but made it to the floor today anyway, in case his vote was needed. Indeed, Lautenberg cast a vote from a wheelchair this afternoon.
Given the numbers, the Democratic defections give the opposition a bipartisan veneer, but they were ultimately inconsequential — even if every member of the Democratic caucus voted together, the background-checks measure still would have lost given the scope of the opposition from the Republican minority.
There is a larger indictment to keep in mind. A filibuster killed a popular and worthwhile proposal today, but that’s not all that happened.
Watching the vote, I was reminded of something President Obama recently said while traveling the country to generate support for his gun-safety agenda.
“Ninety percent of Americans support universal background checks. Think about that. How often do 90 percent of Americans agree on anything? … And yet, there is only one thing that can stand in the way of change that just about everybody agrees on, and that’s politics in Washington. You would think that with those numbers Congress would rush to make this happen. That’s what you would think. If our democracy is working the way it’s supposed to, and 90 percent of the American people agree on something, in the wake of a tragedy you’d think this would not be a heavy lift.
“And yet, some folks back in Washington are already floating the idea that they may use political stunts to prevent votes on any of these reforms. Think about that. They’re not just saying they’ll vote ‘no’ on ideas that almost all Americans support. They’re saying they’ll do everything they can to even prevent any votes on these provisions. They’re saying your opinion doesn’t matter. And that’s not right.”
That’s true; it’s not right. But thanks to the way our political system currently works, it happened anyway.
Think about this: everything was in place for success. This one simple idea — close the gun-show loophole and apply background checks to online sales — had all of the pieces lined up in its favor. The White House invested considerable energy in giving the proposal the best possible chance to prevail; the American mainstream strongly endorsed it; the memory of national tragedy still weighed heavily on everyone’s minds; and the only meaningful organization lobbying against it has become a national laughingstock.
“If our democracy is working the way it’s supposed to,” the bipartisan compromise should have passed while barely breaking a sweat.
Is it not time, then, to look anew at whether our democracy has stopped working the way it’s supposed to?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, April 17, 2013
“Before A Rooster Crows, Will They Be Denied?”: Newtown Families Ask For Meeting With Mitch McConnell
A representative for families of the Newtown shooting victims has asked Senator Mitch McConnell to hold a meeting with them, according to sources familiar with the request. McConnell’s office initially declined the request on the basis of scheduling, a source says — and now family members are set to call McConnell and reiterate the request personally.
How will McConnell respond?
The request – if granted — would allow the families to come face to face with the primary architect of the GOP’s strategy of blocking everything Dems propose to slow the tide of gun violence. If it is denied, it would be a big story, and could lend support to the argument that Republicans are callously rebuffing the families — and prioritizing the gun lobby over them – in the wake of a massacre that claimed the lives of 20 Newtown children.
The request — which was made by a representative of Sandy Hook Promise, a group that includes around a dozen family members who are lobbying Washington lawmakers – represents something of a shift in strategy by the families, and carries interesting implications for later stages in this battle. Previously, the families, who had met with many Democratic and Republican Senators, had shied away from asking for a meeting with McConnell, on the theory that they should focus their energy on Senators they deemed persuadable. This irritated Democrats who wanted to see more public pressure put on their GOP counterparts.
But now the families are asking McConnell for a meeting. The families are not optimistic that the meeting will move McConnell, a source familiar with their thinking says, but this will placate Dems who want public pressure put on the leader of Senate Republicans. What’s more, if the legislation fails, the families don’t want to be in the position of retrospectively wondering if they had done all they could to get it passed, particularly since a round of bitter finger-pointing would be all but inevitable. And finally, the source says, the families are hoping to initiate a longer term conversation — one beyond the current battle – with even hostile lawmakers about other ways of combatting gun violence, such as school safety and addressing mental illness.
Asked for comment, McConnell spokesman John Ashbrook emailed me this:
Our office recently sat down with folks from Newtown for a lengthy discussion and we’re certainly open to doing it again. We actually offered another meeting and are waiting to hear back.
It’s unclear which Newtown residents this refers to or whether McConnell is willing to meet personally with families.
There’s another angle worth considering here, too. While McConnell obviously wants to sink the Manchin-Toomey background check proposal via procedural means — whether by filibuster or by voting it down as an amendment, which would require 60 votes to pass – Democrats and gun control advocates believe he wants a few red state Dems to oppose it in the procedural vote, too. That would mean that the proposal was blocked by a bipartisan group of Senators — insulating the GOP from some blame — as opposed to meaning it was defeated solely by Republicans who were determined to avoid allowing it come to a simple majority vote.
If the families put more pressure on McConnell, it won’t move him, but it could perhaps make it tougher politically for the GOP alone to sink the proposal. And so, if the remaining hold out red state Dems ultimately do support moving the bill forward past the next supermajority procedural vote, it would then become harder for the remaining Republican holdouts — Kelly Ayotte and Dean Heller — to vote No, because then the blame for killing the whole proposal by procedural means would fall on the GOP.
By: Greg Sargent, The Plum Line, The Washington Post,April 16, 2013
“Unbelievably Dangerous And Blisteringly Stupid”: Republicans Plan To Use The Debt Limit, Yes, As “Leverage”
Americans have seen quite a few congressionally imposed crisis in recent months, from the so-called “fiscal cliff,” to the sequestration cuts that are already hurting the country as planned, to threats of government shutdowns. But there’s still one more storm on the horizon, which happens to be the easiest one to deal with and the one that has the potential to do the most damage.
I’m referring to the next debt-ceiling increase — or for those who watch The Rachel Maddow Show closely, Congressional Storm Gertrude.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) sat down with Politico this week and said, “Let’s use the debt limit, yes, as leverage.” As a practical matter, what he meant was, congressional Republicans should threaten to hurt Americans on purpose unless President Obama agrees to slash public investments. Because the White House won’t want such a catastrophe, Republicans will have “leverage” that Portman wants to see his party “use.”
The Ohio Republican isn’t the only one thinking this way.
House leaders are planning to bring a debt ceiling “prioritization” bill to the House floor before the end of April, bringing the divisive issue to the forefront ahead of the government hitting the ceiling sometime this summer.
The legislation tries to mitigate the damage of the government reaching the debt limit in the event that negotiations to raise it fail. But Democrats have panned the idea, meaning it is unlikely to be taken up by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Tom McClintock of California, says the government must pay the interest and principal of its debts with incoming tax revenue before any other obligations.
“It removes default as an option,” said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee.
Well, not exactly. “Default” is a tricky thing, a fact House Republicans may not fully appreciate.
In effect, here’s what this proposal is all about: Republicans are preparing to hold the debt ceiling hostage — again — and are preparing for what happens if Democrats fail to pay the ransom and GOP lawmakers are forced to shoot the hostage.
At that point, because Congress will have blocked the United States’ ability to borrow the funds necessary to meet our legal obligations, these House Republicans are looking to prioritize who’ll get paid first after the debt ceiling is breached. Under the right-wing vision, the nation will start by focusing on our debt payments, paying them in full, and then using whatever money is left over to pay for literally everything else.
And while that might prevent part of a potential default, it would leave open the possibility of another — the United States has passed laws obligating the government to pay for plenty of other things, and we’d almost certainly have to default on those obligations unless the debt ceiling is raised as it always has been.
The fact that House Republicans find this confusing is not at all reassuring.
But even if we put that aside, the fact that this proposal exists at all is a little insane, since it intends to prepare for congressional Republicans to undermine the full faith and credit of the United States, on purpose, in just a few months, for the first time in American history. In other words, while lawmakers should be working on a plan to avert an easily avoidable crisis, House Republicans have decided to spend time working on a plan on what the government should do when the easily avoidable crisis hits.
This is unbelievably dangerous, and so blisteringly stupid that it’s almost hard to believe a group of American elected officials would be willing to think this way. And yet, here we are.
What remains unclear, however, is how much of the bluster and chest-thumping is sincere. Congressional Republicans have been caught bluffing on this issue before, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) conceded just last month, “I’m not going to risk the full faith and credit of the federal government.”
If that’s true, the House GOP’s antics are full of sound and fury signifying nothing. If Boehner wasn’t telling the truth, Americans have cause for alarm, since it’s their economy and world standing Republicans are threatening to deliberately destroy.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, April 12, 2013
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