CNN reports that a bipartisan deal has been reached on background checks:
– Sens. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Patrick J. Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, plan to announce a bipartisan deal on background checks for gun shows and Internet sales at an 11 a.m. press conference today, CNN’s Dana Bash has learned.
A Democratic leadership source says the compromise will likely be the first amendment to gun legislation being considered, after the Senate votes to begin the gun debate Thursday.
The breakthrough background check agreement is a key part of gun legislation. Because it has been struck by two senators with strong support from the NRA, they hope to find the 60 votes that will be needed to overcome opposition to pass their amendment
So the key question again becomes: is compromise possible in 21st century America where compromise is now seen as “caving” in an age of hyperpartisanship and hyper-ideologists. And, we might add, hyper-NRA rhetoric?
The senate is expected to debate gun legislation for at least two weeks.
Democrats believe as many as a dozen GOP senators will vote with them, making up for the handful of pro-gun Democrats who might vote against beginning debate on the bill. Fourteen Republicans promise to filibuster taking up the measure.
Several Republican senators told CNN Tuesday they would only vote to begin debate on the bill if they were assured by Democrats they would be allowed to offer amendments to the legislation.
Democratic leaders want to give senators from both parties ample opportunities to amend the bill and are prepared to debate it beyond a scheduled recess the first week in May, if doing so will increase the chances of passage.
“The way you put together a coalition to pass the bill is to allow as many amendment votes as you can. We are willing to take the time to do that and have that process,” the aide said.
Those negotiators will now have more time to find common ground on language, since the gun debate is expected to be lengthy. Democratic leaders also argue any bill they put on the floor will represent a substantial improvement in gun safety.
Many of those additional votes could be politically difficult for centrist Democrats, especially those up for re-election in red states, as Republicans are expected to craft amendments designed to put those senators on the spot. Nevertheless, Democratic leaders have determined it’s a risk they need to take if they want to pass substantive legislation to respond to the mass shootings that have plagued the nation in recent years.
Yes note:
1. That it really comes down to the self-career-preservation calculations of politicians. PRIORITY ONE: Will this hurt me? PRIORITY TWO: Is this for the good of the nation. Can this dynamic change?
2. Even if this passes, unless it is not watered down and a strong compromise THIS TAKE on gun control still holds.
3. Note how “gun control” is rapidly being replaced by “gun safety.” Its like “pre-owned cars” displacing “used cars” or “progressive” replacing “liberal.” Because the phrase is repeated enough times it becomes the accepted phrase even though every knows a)what it really means and b)that the new phrase is used to cushion the meaning of the real phrase.
The Huffington Post reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid now has the votes he needs to get gun control to clear the first hurdle — a victory but not victory enough in terms of passage:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) likely has the votes on gun control legislation to clear its first procedural hurdle — a victory for the gun control community, though one that hardly guarantees the bill’s passage.
The majority leader announced on Tuesday evening he would submit for a vote the bill to expand background checks, implement a federal trafficking statute and enhance school safety measures. That would set up a Senate vote on Thursday. To help push matters along, President Barack Obama was spending Tuesday calling senators to lobby them on the gun measures, a White House official confirmed. The official did not reveal which senators would be receiving calls.
At least eight Republican senators said that they would support bringing the measures to the Senate floor for amendment and debate. A number of others said they had not ruled out voting to clear that first procedural hurdle.
Should those numbers hold, Reid will have the 60 votes needed to move forward on gun policy reform. Two members of his own caucus said they were noncommittal on the first procedural vote, but their defections (should they happen) would be insufficient to sustain a filibuster.
The procedural victory would give gun control advocates much-needed time to alter the language of the bill. Reid announced that negotiations over the bill were still ongoing between the two parties. But it won’t resolve the bill’s fate: Reid will have to secure 60 votes once more to end the debate and amendment period. And none of the Republican senators who said they’d support the first procedural vote would go as far as to say they’d sign off on the second.
In the high-stakes debate over gun policy, however, procedural victories are nothing to scoff at, especially with 14 Republican senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) threatening a filibuster of all measures.
Meanwhile, in an editorial, the Wall Street Journal showed it gets it — but doesn’t get it at all — in an editorial on GOPers threatening to filibuster gun control and not let it get to a vote.
The editorial begins:
‘This is about these families and families all across the country who are saying, ‘Let’s make it a little harder for our kids to get gunned down,'” President Obama declared Monday, in unusually demagogic remarks even by his standards. He added, “What’s more important to you: our children, or an A-grade from the gun lobby?
Mr. Obama is lapsing into such crude appeals—support his gun-control agenda or suborn mass child murder—because he knows his real problems aren’t the gun lobby. They’re members of his own party who answer to law-abiding voters who support Second Amendment rights. So the political wonder is that some Republicans and conservative activists seem determined to convert the gun debate (such as it is) that Mr. Obama is losing into a 2014 Democratic advantage.
Curious. The WSJ might look at its own polls and see where the problem lies on the partisan side with gun control. And unless all new reports are wrong, the people threatening a filibuster — the ones the WSJ is writing about — are Republicans, too. And unless news reports are wrong, police chiefs all over the country are clamoring for gun control, too. So it isn’t a politically craven Obama who’s making up or exaggerating a need.
But the WSJ is saying a filibuster now on gun control would be a terrible political mistake.
But not in the future:
The President’s calculation seems to be that even if gun control fails, at least he’ll have a keep-kids-safe political issue to help flip the House back to Democratic control in the next midterm. In that sense his inflammatory rhetoric is meant to bait Republicans, some of whom are biting.
If conservatives want to prove their gun-control bona fides, the way to do it is to debate the merits and vote on the floor. They can always filibuster the final bill if they want to, but it makes no sense to paint themselves into a political box canyon before even knowing what they’re voting on.
Attention Wall Street Journal: any filibuster not letting gun control be subject to an actual defeat will COST the GOP. A filibuster now or when a final vote comes up will make little different. And now you don’t just have the NRA out there cracking the political and financial whip. You have Michael Bloomberg. So a filibuster against gun control will most assuredly be used against GOPers who are involved in it, or enable it. And if that has little impact on House or Senate elections, it will be one more big setback that will prevent the Republican Party from expanding its national coalition to win national elections.
But that kind of argument doesn’t work for those inside an echo chamber.
deal graphic via shutterstock.com
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.