http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/gun-amendment-democrats-216389Dems ready gun amendments to pressure GOP
By Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim
12/03/15 10:54 AM EST
Updated 12/03/15 02:33 PM EST
Senate Democrats will offer a pair of gun-related amendments to a budget bill on Thursday, seeking to put Republicans on record on the charged issue in the aftermath of Wednesday’s mass shooting in California.
At a special caucus meeting on Thursday morning, Democratic senators agreed to offer legislation that would make it more difficult for people on the terrorism watch list to buy guns, and a re-vote on universal background checks that failed in 2013, senators and aides said. The votes could become major campaign fodder in next year’s Senate races.
"The entire country will know where every member of the Senate stands on tightening background checks, on keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists and on strengthening and improving mental health in this country," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday at a news conference detailing the strategy. "There are a good number — not all — but there are a good number of our Republican colleagues dreading these two votes. Dreading them."
A third amendment proposed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that would restrict gun ownership for people convicted of intimidation at abortion clinics will not be offered, sources said. Democrats only want to a narrow list of amendments and that measure is viewed as overlapping with another amendment that would seek to strip out a provision defunding Planned Parenthood.
As he has done in the aftermath of massacres this year, Minority Leader Harry Reid took to the Senate floor on Thursday morning to chide his colleagues to “take a good, hard looking this morning, maybe in the mirror, and ask themselves: ‘Where do I stand?’” Reid oversaw the most serious effort in 2013 for new gun control legislation, which failed due to opposition from most Republicans and several pro-gun rights Democrats.
“We don’t do anything. We as the legislative body of this country do nothing. So I have a question for every member of this body: How can we live with ourselves for failing to do the things that will reduce gun violence?” Reid said. “We’re complicit through our inaction. And if we continue to fail to act, we’ll be complicit today and every day into the future.”
Schumer, Reid’s top messaging strategist, had planned to lead a news conference berating Republicans for using budget reconciliation to put an Obamacare repeal on the president's desk. But Democrats changed the topic of the event “to call for amendments to [the] reconciliation bill to address gun violence.”
Democrats believe the so-called terrorism “loophole” amendment may be the most popular of the proposals and are hoping to put vulnerable Republicans on record in the hopes of either criticizing them for not supporting the legislation or to tout its bipartisan support and call for an eventual binding vote.
"Members of Congress don’t get elected in order to send out sympathy tweets," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said. "Members of Congress get paid to change policy to make people safer ... in this Congress, we’re not even trying. We’re not even making an attempt. That’s offensive."
And Democrats want to see how incumbent GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania will vote when presented with another Senate ballot on a background checks bill that he helped write.
