Posted on 07/24/2008 7:08:45 AM PDT by neverdem
The National Rifle Association is putting the election-year squeeze on conservative Democrats, demanding that they buck their leadership to support a bill to erase more of the District of Columbia’s gun laws.
Democratic gun rights supporters will risk losing their A-plus rating if they don’t sign a discharge petition to be filed Wednesday bringing the gun-rights bill directly to the floor.
It will be the first time in more than 20 years that the NRA has “scored” a discharge petition in determining the grades it gives lawmakers before the November election, said spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.
“We’re making this a priority. We’ll put resources into this,” Arulanandam said. “Our members don’t want lawmakers to just pay lip service to the Second Amendment, they want to make sure these members vote to support it.”
The vote could put vulnerable Democrats, many of them freshmen elected in 2006 from conservative rural districts, in a bind.
Supporters, building on their historic Supreme Court victory on gun rights in June, think they have a good chance of getting the bill to the floor because 250 House members signed an amicus curiae brief to the high court calling for repeal of the handgun ban, including 65 Democratic members. The bill, by Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), has 247 co-sponsors, including 56 Democrats.
But Democratic leadership aides say they’re not concerned because many of those supporters have a policy of not signing discharge petitions. They are also betting that gun issues won’t gain much traction with voters more worried about the souring economy.
“Republican procedural tactics in Washington don’t have much impact back home,” said Nick Papas, spokesman for House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill).
Still, leadership aides said Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and John Tanner (D-Tenn.) are trying to work with members and the NRA to try to forge a compromise on the issue.
A Tanner spokesman described the situation as “very fluid.” A Dingell spokesman denied any involvement, saying Dingell is “not working with the NRA on any discharge petitions and does not know of any discharge petitions on gun-related matters currently in the House.”
Since losing West Virginia and Southern states like Tennessee in the 2000 presidential election, Democrats have been gun-shy when it comes to firearms issues. In the 2006 election, Democrats won many conservative districts where voters are at odds with traditional big-city Democrats who support gun control.
In Congress, Democratic leaders have tried to stay away from big floor fights on guns.
In March 2007, Democrats withdrew a bill granting voting rights to the District rather than allow Republicans a vote on attaching a similar gun bill, for fear that the attempt would pass.
Democratic leaders deflected political fallout from the Supreme Court decision by muting their reaction. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the decision “left a lot of room to run” for local governments. Presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he agreed that the Constitution gives people the right to own guns, but said they’re still subject to regulation.
There have been 13 discharge petitions filed since Democrats took control of the House in 2007. None have succeeded and only one – an immigration bill that emphasizes enforcement – is well-known.
Ten Democrats have signed onto that petition.
The Republican discharge effort on guns is a follow-up to the 5-4 Supreme Court decision in June that threw out the District’s decades-old ban on handguns.
Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) believes that the District government has been flouting the Supreme Court ruling. Souder spokesman Martin Green said the city has simply created a new exemption in its registration rules to allow for handguns in the home rather than repealing the ban. Among other problems, D.C. law, he said, still bans many pistols by deeming them to be machine guns.
“What the mayor and council is doing is not adhering to the majority opinion,” Green said. “They’re still trying to ban an entire class of firearms.”
So Souder earlier this month started taking the steps necessary to file a discharge petition, which allows a bill to go to the floor if 218 members sign on.
The bill, introduced last year by Ross and Souder, would eliminate gun registration, allow some handguns that are still banned and end criminal penalties for possessing an unregistered firearm. But it’s never gotten out of committee.
Gun control advocates say Republicans and the NRA are overreaching to get more political mileage out of the Supreme Court decision.
“The other side has said it’s about gun bans, and taking away your guns,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “They no longer need to do that because the court said it’s an individual right.”
The last time the NRA scored a discharge petition was in 1986, when the House passed legislation by Rep. Harold Volkmer (D-Mo.) and Sen. James McClure (R-Idaho) to loosen a range of federal gun laws.
Many of the NRA’s 4 million members use the rankings, distributed in NRA magazines in October, to decide their vote. They’re done as letter grades, and are published in copies of the NRA’s different publications.
They are also used by the NRA’s political action committee in deciding which candidates to endorse. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said she will urge members to reject the discharge petition, since District officials are working to comply with the ban.
“It’s tragic to see Congress take any time on a local gun matter already under the jurisdiction of the federal courts because some can’t wait to get more guns in our city,” Norton said in a statement.
District officials say they’re not familiar with the discharge petition, but see little reason to be concerned.
“We’re confident that Congress will leave local laws in the hands of local governments,” said Dena Iverson, spokeswoman for Mayor Adrian Fenty.
Keep the torches, tar and feathers, but lose the pitchforks. The arm in common use today is an intermediate power carbine. Something from Olympic, Bushmaster, Armalite or , Rock River Arms, DPMS, Colt, etc .... or out of Romanian, Russian, Bulgarian, Yugoslavian, Czech, etc factories.
Blue B-——s is what I call them.
Gee I wasn’t aware the HRA’s magic vote making machine was broken. I guess they finally fixed it.
One of the NRA's newest board members, Cong. Dan Boren (D-OK), will be one of the ones on the spot. I relish the results of this ballsy move...
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