WASHINGTON – Put up or shut up time may be approaching for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
The issue is guns and how best to keep them out of the hands of potential terrorists. You may remember that shortly after the bloody slaughter at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL, earlier this month that left 49 dead, the Louisville lawmaker solemnly intoned that he was open to suggestions from experts on legislation that could address the issue.
“No one wants terrorists to be able to buy guns or explosives — no one,” McConnell promised.
Of course it ultimately took a 15-hour Democratic filibuster to twist McConnell’s arm sufficiently to force a vote on a quartet of measures aimed at keeping various killing machines out of the hands of those who have no business holding them. All failed to reach the 60-vote threshold now necessary to move ahead on the simplest proposal before the world’s greatest deliberative body.
One of the bills offered by Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-CA, which McConnell, of course, opposed, would have permitted the attorney general to ban those on any one of the FBI’s various terrorist watch lists from purchasing guns. Those insisting they were improperly placed on the list and denied access to their firearm of choice gun could then challenge that decision in court.
The Feinstein measure also contained what is referred to as a look-back provision, which would have required the notification of law enforcement if anyone whose name appeared on a terrorist watch list at any point during the previous five years sought to buy a gun. That language was included because Omar Matee, the monster, was on a list at one point but his name had subsequently been removed.
A Republican alternative, which also bit the dust, held that in instances where someone on a no-fly list or the subject of a terrorism investigation within the past five years attempted to purchase guns the attorney general could delay the sale for up to 72 hours in order to obtain a federal court order to halt the transfer. Failing that it could then go through.
Democrats and Attorney General Loretta Lynch argued that 72 hours isn’t sufficient to make a terrorist case, rendering the proposal useless. Regardless, it fell and provided GOP lawmakers with cover – however sheer – to convince voters they tried to do something.
So okay, another 49 people dead at the hands of a man who claimed allegiance to ISIS, prayers and condolences to the victims and their families, couldn’t get anything passed to address the abomination, too bad, what’s next on the agenda? Time to move on.
Nothing to see here.
Except the train didn’t stop at the station. Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME, is piecing together a compromise that could take one from column A and one from column B. In an outline, Collins said her measure, which already carries some Democratic support, likely will prohibit gun sales to people on the No-Fly and FBI terrorism watch lists and allow those prohibited from completing their firearm purchase to appeal and recoup attorney’s fees if they succeed in having the declaration reversed. Like the Feinstein bill, it will include a look-back provision.
All of which leaves McConnell in something of a pickle. The GOP leader is desperate to retain the Senate majority for the two years after the November election – and that’s using an entirely new meaning for the word desperate. Frothing at the mouth and wild-eyed over maintaining the reins of power are likewise inadequate but you get the picture.
Republicans currently hold 54 seats in the 100-member chamber, meaning McConnell could lose the majority if the GOP drops five seats – four if Democrats retain the White House and the vice president serves in the chair.
Gun control measures in wake of Orlando are widely popular. A CNN poll conducted after the shooting shows that a whopping 92 percent of Americans questioned support expanded background checks before a person can purchase a gun while 85 percent support preventing those on terror watch lists from buying guns.
McConnell doesn’t care to run in the face of public opinion while clinging to a majority but at the same time he doesn’t want to alienate his sugar daddy — the National Rifle Association. When the gun nuts in the organization command Republican lawmakers to sit up and beg these days, they comply with a smile. It’s not going too far to say the Republican caucus is now a subsidiary of the NRA – McConnell is on record saying he can’t imagine a Republican president nominating a justice to the U.S. Supreme Court without a nod of approval from the NRA.
The association will almost certainly oppose the Collins bill. Should it pass, and NRA support become tepid during campaign season, retaining the majority could prove more difficult.
But there’s an even more problematic circumstance falling into play. Unfortunately for McConnell, the Democrats are starting the get smart, difficult as that may be to believe after witnessing them wander aimlessly in the wilderness for so many years.
It’s not going too far to say the Republican caucus is now a subsidiary of the NRA – McConnell is on record saying he can’t imagine a Republican president nominating a justice to the U.S. Supreme Court without a nod of approval from the NRA
Democrats are not so much playing up the gun control aspect of the debate as they are the anti-terrorism aspect, a gambit that could very easily attract the public’s attention when November and Election Day roll around. Sen Dick Durbin, D-IL, in a floor speech Wednesday, said terrorists “are opening up new fronts and one of those fronts very specifically was when the terrorists warned us that we know where to buy automatic assault weapons in the U.S.’’
“We know about your gun shows,’’ Durbin cited the terrorists as thinking. “We know about your internet sales and that’s where we’re going to turn. They’re calling on their aspiring terrorists around the world to fight for access to assault weapons and turn them on innocent Americans.’’
Durbin is wrong in one respect – automatic weapons like machine guns already are banned. But semi-automatic weapons like the one used in Orlando – that can fire off an estimated 45 rounds a minute – are readily available to ambitious terrorists who can simply walk in and purchase one at a flea market. That practice will continue lest legislation like that coming from Collins is passed.
McConnell, Durbin said, “can help us by making America safer and keeping automatic weapons out of the hands – assault weapons and semi-automatic weapons – out of the hands of would-be terrorists,’’ he said. “That would mean defying the National Rifle Association and many on the Republican side are scared to death of them. Just scared to death.’’
It was Karl Rove, the campaign manager for President George W. Bush, who preached you don’t attack an opponent’s weakness – you attack his strength. Anti-terrorism has consistently been a strength for Republicans but if Democrats can turn the tables and use a bill filed by a Republican – Collins, in this case – to create GOP vulnerability, things could get dicey for McConnell’s yearning to maintain the majority.
So McConnell now finds himself playing a version of the old game show Let’s Make a Deal. Behind door number one, support the Collins bill and alienate your sugar daddy and make your majority position vulnerable. Behind door number two, oppose the bipartisan measure and appear weak in the war against terrorism, riling a significant portion of the electorate.
Door three is the most interesting to work around and the one McConnell will likely try to open. That will allow vulnerable Republican lawmakers like Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-NH, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-PA, and Sen. Mark Kirk, R-IL, to break from the GOP pack and vote for the Collins bill while holding back enough votes to defeat it – providing cover to those who require an electoral edge while keeping the NRA satisfied.
You can already tell that McConnell is, to quote Roy Orbison, runnin’ scared. In a speech to the Senate on Wednesday morning, he failed to mention the Collins bill while taking a copious amount of time to excoriate President Obama and the Democrats on their anti-terrorism efforts, calling for everything short of a D-Day type invasion or Iraq and Syria. He even found time to laud Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, who finds himself in a contentious re-election battle, for his efforts battling the threat.
McCain and McConnell can’t stand each other. Mitch, obviously, will do anything to keep the majority.
Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.