Jacob wonders if moderate Dems could be the key to reciprocity. I think in the Senate, maybe. I think we would have enough to invoke cloture, but probably not enough to override a veto. We have 54 Republicans in the Senate. You can kiss Mark Kirk’s (R-IL) vote goodbye. That means we need 7 Democrats to invoke cloture. I think we have that. But that doesn’t get us to 67 to override a veto.
The bigger problem is going to be the House. How many pro-gun Dems are left? Not many. You need 290 votes to override a veto, and there are 246 GOP votes. Of course, you don’t get all 246. You can write off Peter King (R-NY) and Chris Smith (R-NJ). At least one of those GOP seats resigned already due to a guilty plea on federal charges. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Pat Meehan (R-PA) are two squishes I would be concerned about in that vote, especially Fitzpatrick because not intending to run for his seat again in 2016, and thus no longer has to face voters.
So that gets us down to 241 Republicans likely on board, but probably there’s some I’m missing, so we’ll say 238. That leaves us having to find 52 Democratic votes to override Obama’s veto. I think we can count on maybe 10 in the House. I’m not even sure that many, I’m not sure what all pro-gun Dems we lost in the last election. But it’s definitely not 52. So Obama’s veto will hold in the House.
Now, I think we ought to pass National Reciprocity, and make him veto it. So I’m not saying it shouldn’t be pushed and voted on in the 114th Congress. But I wouldn’t be unrealistic about what we can expect. I don’t think we have enough to get an override, but we’ll see. The blue dog pro-gun Democratic is a critically engendered species in Congress by this point.
So the blue dog democrats are pretty much gone at this point. Any chance they’ll ever be back?
The Democrats adopted the blue dog strategy to take back the House and Senate. If they ever want to get back in power, they have to drop gun control as a plank in their platform.
“If they ever want to get back in power, they have to drop gun control as a plank in their platform.”
At least until they tack it back on again after 2 years.
” We have 54 Republicans in the House. ”
you mean the Senate, right?
Yes. Fixed.
Can’t they attach it to something that will get signed?
Yes. That’s always a possibility. But I’d like him to veto a clean bill outright before they try passing it that way.
Bad idea. Momentum is an issue with bills in Congress. If you are serious, you use the most likely-to-pass-into-law method right out of the gate. Anything else is just playing around.
I’d have been more eager to see him veto a clean bill if it were still his first term. As it is, he’s a lame duck with nothing to lose and therefore his veto won’t stick much to whoever runs on the D ticket next year.
For years the left has been agitating for national recognition of state licenses on a different front. How about, instead of pursuing an almost certainly futile attempt at finding enough Democratic votes to pass a veto-proof concealed carry reciprocity bill, pass a broader bill covering licenses issued by states in general. Either we’ll get national reciprocity, or in 2016 every Democrat in Congress will have to explain to their base why they didn’t help override the President’s veto of a law that would have effectively legalized same sex marriage nationwide.
And pot! Don’t forget about pot!
That being said, your suggestion would require some real Republican leadership in Congress, and we’re about as likely to see that in this session of Congress as we are to see flying pigs evolve naturally in the same time period.
It doesn’t matter one bit what the dems / repubs. support until or unless the NRA-ILA takes a conscious decision to actually support national reciprocity without any equivocation, with harsh penalties for any law enforcement officers who violate the law. So long as the ILA puts funds over principle, we will continue to see fundraising letters 2 – 3 times per week but not significant effort to pass legislation. If you’re reading or writing here, chances are you are a member of at least one major gun group. We need to prod these gun groups to back national reciprocity now.
With enough support from constituents and our respective lobbyists, the squishes & moderate socialists will vote correctly. We just have to turn up the heat on our lobby. ILA has the means and neither Chris nor Wayne would be caught in the same parking lot as a beat up Toyota Tercel, so it’s not like there isn’t the means to make it happen.
NRA has been trying to pass this for at least a decade. There have been several recorded votes. We came only a few votes shy of it during the height of the Sandy Hook battle.
What pressure are you going to put on Democratic legislators in Urban seats? There aren’t many swing districts left that aren’t occupied by the GOP already. Most of those urban Dems could hold a press conference where they publicly pissed on the Second Amendment, and then set it on fire, and still be re-elected.
Unless we can create gun cultures in more coastal urban cities, we’re right now at about the limit of our political power in Congress. All that remains is to have a friendly President in the White House.
no, they haven’t. They’ve been posturing, and letting votes slide until the membership gets fed up and they finally come around to holding confirmation votes as pro or anti, but they haven’t “tried†to get national reciprocity, or it would have found its way attached to a bill like the national parks ban was.
IIRC, reciprocity got more votes than Manchin’s background check gambit did. There ARE enough votes for national reciprocity right now. There has been for a few years now, but the Senate has bottled it up. There’s no excuse why reciprocity shouldn’t get passed in the next 3-4 months, unless ILA and the other pro gun groups don’t want it to pass. All that’s needed is the proper motivation from the lobby groups on our side.
It got 57 votes in the Senate last time it was up. What other Senators in the 113th Congress were NRA going to influence? Those three votes would have had to come from somewhere.
Just because it doesn’t have filibuster proof majority doesn’t mean you don’t try to pass it either explicitly or attached to something critical. Let them filibuster and let them keep filibustering until they’re out of breath, then you call for cloture. The threat of a filibuster doesn’t mean you just give up. And now we have a majority in the house and senate that allege they are pro-gun. we need to demand action on pro gun bills. if a filibuster is threatened or acted upon, we need leadership of the houses to remember who voted for them in November.
Exactly!! NRA rarely “tries” to do anything with Congress. It is all smoke just to whip up the membership.
For decades they had the power to chip away at DC’s gun laws, but it took a lawsuit (that they initially were against) and a reporter to finally make shit happen.
I really think they want to keep the anti gun laws on the books to help with their membership drives.
If we see the “Guns Are Awesome Act” – which includes any/all of our goals in one neat little package – come up before Congress, we are being taken for fools. It won’t make it past Obama and it won’t get an override. A “Clean Bill” will do nothing for us. Zero. Nada. Zilch.
However…what will a “Clean Bill” do for the GOP?
It will let them scream “we tried” and to draw yet another line against Obama. It will allow squishy GOP members to “Vote pro-gun” knowing full well nothing will come of it. It will be nothing but a ruse against us. Because it will all be Obama’s fault, “so you better donate GOP and vote the right way next time you can.” Etc. Ad Nauseum.
If they are serious, they need to attach it to an appropriations bill. But that is harder now that Boehner gave them all away in the CRomnibus.
Seriously, if you see a stand-alone bill hit the floor, you need to get on the phone and start complaining loudly. You are being treated like a Rube and need to tell them you expect something to make a difference on the street, not in their little propaganda wars.
Paul Ryan forecast how we would be treated back before the mid-terms. He said that Obama “better get his veto pen ready” because the GOP was going to push law with the intent to “draw lines” that demonstrate differences between the two sides…all to posture for 2016. This is not reading between the lines – he (and others) openly talk about it. They do not care about changing anything but the political scorecard that decides who is in charge of us (sad, because I once liked Ryan).
I don’t want to be a pawn in their little games. I want changes while we can make them happen.
The fact is the Senate in 2016 is highly likely to flip back to the Dems. We need to do what we can now, or never.
NO CLEAN GUN BILLS – WE NEED AMENDMENTS TO MUST-PASS LEGISLATION THAT OBAMA CANNOT VETO