“Counting On Public Confusion”: Sen Jeff Flake Hopes Dissembling Will Solve His Gun Problem
A month after Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) joined his GOP colleagues in killing a bipartisan background-check bill, the rookie senator is still struggling with the political fallout. This ad from Mayors Against Illegal Guns is the latest to put Flake on the defensive. Watch on YouTube
Flake’s strategy, at least for now, is built entirely on dissembling.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is pushing back against attack ads that say he broke his promise to support passing new gun laws.
“If you are anywhere close to a television set in Arizona in the coming days, you’ll likely see an ad about gun control financed by NYC Mayor Bloomberg,” Flake wrote Friday on his Facebook page. “Contrary to the ad, I did vote to strengthen background checks.”
I can appreciate why the ads have gotten Flake’s attention, but this “vote to strengthen background checks” rhetoric is exactly the sort of thing that rankles. Flake must realize how misleading this is, but is counting on public confusion to make his political troubles go away. It’s cynical, and the public deserves better.
Indeed, it’s apparently become the standard strategy for every Republican senator facing pushback from his his/her constituents — Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) is pulling exact same stunt.
Let’s set the record straight once more.
Flake’s pitch — “Contrary to the ad, I did vote to strengthen background checks” — is technically true. It’s also true that Flake filibustered the Manchin/Toomey compromise on background checks that enjoyed broad public support. So, Flake is relying on semantics games as a defense for doing the wrong thing? Yes, that’s exactly what he’s doing.
As we’ve discussed before, conservatives are relying on specific definitions of words and phrases that don’t quite line up with what everyone else is talking about. As Sahil Kapur explained recently:
There’s a critical distinction to be made between universal background checks, a robust policy that would require criminal checks for virtually all gun purchases — and a more milquetoast proposal to beef up mental health information in existing databases. The former is championed by gun control advocates and experts who say it would have a significant impact. The latter is supported by the NRA and does nothing to make it harder for criminals to buy firearms at private sales or gun shows, where background checks are not required by law.
It’s obviously an important clarification. The right is generally comfortable with improving the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, by integrating mental health records, for example. When Flake endorses stronger “background checks,” this is what he’s talking about, not closing the gun-show loophole.
Flake is counting on voters losing sight of the distinction.
Just as important, though, is the unstated concession: Flake is feeling defensive, which gives away much of the game. Under the NRA’s worldview, which Flake supports and defends, there’s nothing for conservative senators to be embarrassed about — by crushing expanded background checks, Republicans are taking a stand against tyranny. Voters love freedom and need not fear electoral consequences for voting the way the NRA demands.
Or so the argument goes.
But Flake’s cynical defense suggests that below the surface, he knows the NRA’s boasts about the political landscape aren’t true.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 20, 2013
“An End To The NRA’s Angry Swagger”: Republicans Who Voted Against Manchin-Toomey Scrambling For Excuses And Political Cover
When the National Rifle Association gathered in Houston last weekend for its annual confab, the theme was “Stand and Fight.” The rhetoric ranged from truculent (“Let them be damned,” NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said of the group’s adversaries) to weird (Glenn Beck adopting the mantel of Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King for the gun movement). This is what passed for moderation: The group asked a vendor to stop displaying a target-range dummy (they “bleed when you shoot them” the manufacturer advertises) bearing an unmistakable resemblance to a zombie-fied President Obama; the target was still for sale, mind you, just not on display.
The group welcomed a new president, Alabama attorney James Porter who declared the struggle over guns part of a broader “culture war.” And that was tame for Porter, who has called Barack Obama a “fake” president, Attorney General Eric Holder “rabidly un-American” and the Civil War “the war of Northern aggression,” while proclaiming the need for universal arms training so that citizens can resist “tyranny.” That’s the NRA’s public face months after Sandy Hook.
As recently as 1999 – after Columbine – the NRA deployed the slogan “be reasonable,” while supporting universal background checks. But the group and its allies have dropped “reasonable” from their lexicon, assuming a belligerent, swaggering posture while stopping a bill last month to institute … universal background checks.
It was a big week all around for the weapons movement. The world’s first printable, plastic gun was unveiled, holding the promise of every household potentially becoming its own arms manufacturer (the schematics were downloaded 50,000 times on the first alone day but by week’s end the blueprints had been taken offline by order of the State Department). Meanwhile a self-described “revolution czar” named Adam Kokesh announced he would lead a group of gun activists with loaded rifles on a July 4 march from Virginia into Washington, D.C. (where guns are generally illegal). “This will be a nonviolent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent,” he wrote. It would be the cheapest sort of political intimidation but for the possibility of it being the most costly sort.
Gun fanatics seem to fancy themselves as enjoying the kind of political invulnerability that comes from being in synch with an overwhelming majority of the public. They are way off the mark.
It’s true that since the 1994 elections the NRA has possessed (and cultivated) such a reputation. But that was then. The group dropped more than $11 million in the 2012 elections, yet only 0.83 percent was spent on races where it got its desired outcome, according to the Sunlight Foundation. And while gun safety advocates mounted relatively little resistance in recent years (the NRA spent 73 times more on lobbying in the 112th Congress than the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and more than 3,000 times as much on the 2012 elections, notes Sunlight), a new anti-NRA infrastructure has developed. Americans for Responsible Solutions, the group founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly, raised $11 million in it first four months of existence, while Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has been running television ads against key senators who helped kill the background check bill.
The NRA has also eased its opponents’ task by taking uncompromising positions (the group voted unanimously last weekend to oppose “any and all new restrictions” on gun ownership). Polls show that overwhelming majorities of Americans, and even of NRA members, favor universal background checks. NRA extremism is creating an exploitable common-sense gap. Giffords and her husband, for example, aren’t talking about handgun bans or (as people like LaPierre fantasize) confiscation – they’re gun owners and Second Amendment supporters themselves.
All of which helps explain why some senators who voted against the background-check bill returned this week from their states sounding more conciliatory on the issue. GOP Sens. Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Jeff Flake of Arizona, for example, have expressed willingness to revisit the bill, while New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte felt compelled to pen an op-ed asserting that she supports some other universal background checks (putting her in favor of checks after she was against them). All of this prompted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to tell reporters that West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the leading sponsors of the bipartisan background-check bill, “thinks he has a couple of more votes.”
And it belies the NRA’s smug bombast. As the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent noted this week, if the pro-gun forces were as unassailable as they think they are, then these Republicans would defiantly brandish the Second Amendment and be done with it. Instead they’re scrambling for excuses and political cover. That isn’t to say that universal checks will be enacted this year. The Giffords-Bloomberg forces, for example, must still exact measurable ballot box punishment before the NRA’s fearsome reputation is truly neutralized. It will take time.
But time is on their side: A recent study by the Center for American Progress noted that the percentage of households owning guns has declined steadily for three decades. And a steady drop in gun ownership among young Americans specifically has driven this trend. The most vocal gun control opponents are aging and diminishing, in other words.
Future political scholars may mark this moment as when the NRA started the decline from swagger to stagger.
By: Robert Schlesinger, U. S. News and World Report, May 10, 2013
“Scheduling Conflicts”: Senators Who Voted To Kill Background Checks Dodge Meetings With Gun Victims
Senators who voted against a bipartisan amendment expanding background checks for firearm purchased at gun shows and online refused this week to meet with families impacted by gun violence, citing scheduling conflicts or ignoring requests altogether.
The push, part of an effort organized by the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, comes as lawmakers who opposed the popular measure are facing pointed questions from angry constituents at town halls and seeing their approval ratings plummet. As a result, some are simply dodging the tough questions, particularly from families who have been most affected by gun violence:
– SEN. KELLY AYOTTE (R-NH): Anne Lyczak — who lost her husband Richard in January 1994, when he was killed in a drive-by shooting in Portsmouth, N.H — “wrote a letter to Ayotte, inviting her to dinner at her house to talk about ways to prevent gun violence…. Ayotte’s office, however, turned down Lyczak’s request, saying the senator would keep it under consideration for the future. Ayotte’s office cited scheduling constraints” [Huffington Post, 5/3/2013]
– SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R-AZ): “Caren Teves, whose son was killed last summer in a mass shooting in Aurora, Colo., said she invited Flake to dinner to sit in her son’s empty chair. He replied with a hand-written note affirming his support for expanded gun control measures. “I am confused and would like an answer,” Teves said. “I would like Sen. Flake to look me in the eye and tell me why he ignored me.” Teves said Flake has ignored many emails and phone calls from her and her husband, but she remains determined. [KTAR, 5/2/2013]
– SEN. MARK PRYOR (D-AR): Neil Heslin — whose son was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School — “said he invited Senator Pryor to a private dinner to speak about how legislation he wants to eliminate gun loopholes. However, Heslin told us he never heard back from Pryor, but plans to speak with him at a public event in Lonoke County Thursday.” [KATV, 5/2/2013]
– SEN. RICHARD BURR (R-NC): “Fran Lynch of North Carolina’s Religious Coalition for a Non-Violent Durham sent a letter to Burr, asking that he join her and her friends for a discussion on gun control… Burr’s scheduler replied that the senator was unavailable “due to previously scheduled events already on his schedule.” [Huffington Post, 5/2/2013]
– SEN. ROB PORTMAN (R-OH): “[A] Springfield, Ohio woman whose 27-year-old son was killed in last year’s Colorado movie theater rampage tried to arrange a dinner with Portman so she could express her frustration with his vote….A Portman aide told The Plain Dealer the senator’s schedule did not permit him to meet with Jackson this week, but he would consider it in the future.” [Plain Dealer, 5/2/2013]
– SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): Parents of a woman who was killed in the Colorado theatre shooting “said they initially invited both Cruz and Senator John Cornyn to their home for dinner…. Though Cornyn has not accepted their invitation, Cruz, who was in town on Wednesday for a North Side Chamber of Commerce event, met briefly with the couple at a local restaurant.” [KSAT, 5/1/2013]
The National Rifle Association has begun running radio ads thanking Ayotte for voting down background checks and the senator continues to justify her opposition to the amendment by falsely claiming that additional screenings would lead to the creation of a gun registry. The claim, widely debunked, has been advanced by the NRA.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the sponsor of the bipartisan measure, has pledged to slightly modify his amendment and bring it back for a vote in the Senate. Gun advocates remain hopeful that the growing public pressure could convince more than 60 senators to support the bill, forcing House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to put it up for a vote in House of Representatives. The House version of the Manchin compromise has more than 120 co-sponsors, including three Republicans.
By: Igor Volsky, Think Progress, May 4, 2013
“A Willingness To Say Things That Aren’t True”: The Facts Kelly Ayotte Doesn’t Want Her Constituents To Know
When the bipartisan compromise on expanded background checks died two weeks ago at the hands of a Republican filibuster, only one senator from New England voted to kill the bill: New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte (R).
This week, as Ayotte returns to the Granite State, many of her constituents are expressing their dissatisfaction. Take this town-hall meeting today, for example.
When another man rose to ask Ayotte to explain why she voted against expanding background checks, several people in the audience of more than 250 people applauded.
“I know people have strong feelings about this issue,” Ayotte began. She said she voted against the bipartisan compromise on background checks last month because she believed gun owners would face an undue burden and she feared it could lead to a federal gun registry.
What bothers me about the senator’s response is how wrong it is. The “undue burden” Ayotte is worried about adds a few minutes to gun purchases, and it already applies to existing firearm sales in gun stores. If it helps prevents gun violence, why is it “undue”?
More importantly, the fears of a possible federal gun registry are ridiculous. As we talked about a couple of weeks ago, there is no federal registry. The proposed measure explicitly prohibits a federal registry. Under the bill, anyone even trying to create a federal registry would be a felon, subject to 15 years behind bars. No one has even proposed the possibility of a federal registry.
The irony is, if Ayotte was worried about a possible registry, she should have loved the compromise plan — it strengthened the prohibition on the very registry she’s so worried about.
And best of all, Ayotte surely knows this. The U.S. senator has had two weeks to think of an excuse and the best she can come up with are talking points she knows aren’t true.
Have I mentioned lately how difficult it is to have a serious policy debate when those engaged in the discussion are willing to say things that aren’t true?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 2, 2013
“Unfinished Business”: Next Time, The NRA Will Lose
How stupid does the Senate background-check vote look now, I ask the pundits and others who thought it was dumb politics for Obama and the Democrats to push for a vote that they obviously knew they were going to lose. I’d say not very stupid at all. The nosedive taken in the polls by a number of senators who voted against the bill, most of them in red states, makes public sentiment here crystal clear. And now, for the first time since arguably right after the Reagan assassination attempt—a damn long time, in other words—legislators in Washington are feeling political heat on guns that isn’t coming from the NRA. This bill will come back to the Senate, maybe before the August recess, and it already seems possible and maybe even likely to have 60 votes next time.
You’ve seen the poll results showing at least five senators who voted against the Manchin-Toomey bill losing significant support. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire is the only one of the five from a blue state, so it’s probably not surprising that she lost the most, 15 points. But Lisa Murkowski in Alaska lost about as much in net terms. Alaska’s other senator, Democrat Mark Begich, lost about half that. Republicans Rob Portman of Ohio and Jeff Flake of Arizona also tumbled.
Egad. Could it possibly be that those pre-vote polls of all these states by Mayor Bloomberg’s group were … right? All the clever people pooh-poohed them, because, well, they were done by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and because it just seemed impossible that 70 percent of people from a red state could support the bill. But the polls were evidently right, or at least a lot closer to right than the brilliant minds who laughed at Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey and Harry Reid.
Something remarkable is happening here. Now, the pressure is on the other side. It’s on the NRA—gathering this Friday and Saturday, incidentally, for its annual convention, its first annual convention since Newtown. I think you’ll agree with me that the group has put a tremendous amount of thought into how to change its image, do a little outreach, present a picture of itself that will confound its critics. Or not: Sarah Palin will open the meeting, and Glenn Beck will close it. The list of eight political speakers—current and former elected officials plus John Bolton—features not a single Democrat. They’re really battening down the hatches.
And they are going to lose. I talked with a couple of knowledgeable sources about what’s going on now. Five Republicans, I’m told, have expressed some degree of interest in the bill: Ayotte, who would appear be a near-certainty to switch her vote; Flake, also a likely; Murkowski; Dean Heller of Nevada; and Bob Corker of Tennessee. Tennessee seems like a tough state to be from when casting such a vote as a Republican, but Corker is someone who at least tries once in a while to have conversations with Democrats.
On the Democratic side, as you’ll recall, four Democrats voted against Manchin-Toomey: Begich, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and Max Baucus of Montana. I’m told that Begich would like to switch, just needs to figure out how he can get there. Heitkamp is a bigger question mark. Pryor is probably lost.
That leaves Baucus. Shortly after the last vote, he announced he was retiring. That ought to mean that he should feel free enough to vote for the bill this time. It’s hard to know what Baucus actually believes—if that matters. He has a solid NRA career rating, but he’s cast enough votes the other way (supporting the assault weapons ban and the Brady waiting period) to make the other side suspicious. Before he announced he was quitting, the NRA was running ads against him.
What he believes may matter less than how he wants to spend his Senate afterlife. If he wants to stay in Washington and make money, he’ll be more likely to vote for Manchin-Toomey, because he’ll be dependent to some extent on Democratic money networks that were furious with him after the vote. If he just wants to move back to Montana, who knows.
That’s eight potential switches, where six are needed. One of those six, remember, is sure to be Harry Reid. He cast a procedural no vote because only senators who vote against a bill can bring it to the floor again, but obviously, if it is going to pass, he’ll vote for it. Even so getting to 60 will still be a heavy lift. And then there’s the House. So certain matters remain unclear.
But some things are quite clear. Manchin and Toomey deserve great credit for sticking with this. Democrat Kay Hagan of North Carolina, also up for reelection next year but a supporter of the bill, is every bit as at risk as Pryor and Begich are, and she makes them look like cowards. And clearest of all is the fact that, far from that vote being some kind of devastating blow to Obama or the Democratic Party, it accomplished a lot. It pulled a few bricks loose from the wall. Next time, that wall just might crumble.
By: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, May 2, 2013
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