The Washington Examiner at least knows who’s fault this is:
The NRA’s chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, on May 26 wrote every House member, attacking the DISCLOSE Act for creating “a series of Byzantine disclosure requirements that have the obvious effect of intimidating speech.”
Cox wrote, “there is no legitimate reason to include the NRA” in the bill’s reporting and disclosure rules. Democrats say the bill is about curbing the political influence of corporations, which sometimes form nonprofit front groups to run issue ads. This bill aims to expose the real money behind such ads. The NRA, however, doesn’t hide behind front groups.
The NRA’s objection derailed the bill just before it was expected to pass.
Rep. Heath Shuler, a pro-gun Democrat from a conservative North Carolina district, responded with a proposal to exempt membership-based nonprofits from the bill. This would protect the NRA, Human Rights Campaign, Americans for Tax Reform, and many other groups.
Apparently, for Democratic leadership, that defeated the purpose. Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, wrote his own amendment, exempting only the largest membership groups. It was a carve-out for the NRA.
Health Schuler, who’s A-rated and endorsed by NRA, floated an amendment that would have pulled everyone’s ass from the fire. Chris Van Hollen, an F rated Democrat representing highly liberal Montgomery County, Maryland, counter proposed the infamous NRA carveout. Now, which one of these guys do you think was acting on NRA’s behalf?
As the item points out, the NRA agreed “drop its opposition to the bill because of the carveout.”
That agreement was cravenly and un-American. Bottom line. The NRA doesn’t get slack just because some F-rated congressman gave them a pass to get his “cynical and probably unconstitutional” bill passed.
As Breda said, “So, perhaps all this has taught me less about the NRA and more about myself…seems my single-issue is freedom. I want it all.”
The NRA used to think that way, too, when they used the “oldest Civil Rights (plural) organization” line.
The NRA actively agreed to stop opposing the bill. They betrayed freedom.
Luckily, it seems the bill has a lot more opposition, so simple citizens might just get a break.
Thanks for nothing, NRA.
If you want it all, then join organizations that support various parts of the pie. It’s not that hard. You can’t moan and bitch when one group doesn’t do your bidding on x when their mission statement clearly reads they work on y. There are groups that work on x, so go join them, too. But I know that bitching is easier and cheaper, so I’m sure that the groups dedicated to x will really appreciate you just complaining about the y group instead of getting up to do something about the specific x issue.
Any serious conservative who is only a member of NRA is – to be completely blunt – just freakin’ dumb if they think that suffices for “fighting the fight.” And that’s not a condemnation of NRA by any means, it’s a realization that there’s only so much any one group can do at any given point. You want lower taxes? Well then sign up for ATR. You want general conservative issues? ACU is for you. How about reduced spending? Well then AFP is the way to go. Opposition to campaign finance? ACLU has traditionally been an ally on that front.
$35 a year doesn’t buy you freedom. Anyone who believed that was all it took is just a fool – or they are a little too pie-in-the-sky for the real world.
I want it all too, but I pay NRA to defend my gun rights. I have other groups for other concerns I have as a citizen.
So the money I give to the NRA is supposed to be used to fight Health Care, Bailouts, infringements on Amendments 1, 3,4,5 etc.? I’m not paying them for that.
The NRA can’t be a proxy for “everything I believe in.” Were it to do so, it’d very quickly hemorrhage members as people began realizing that your “everything I believe in” probably isn’t congruent with my “everything I believe in.”
I’m strongly opposed to abortion. I’d be perfectly happy if the NRA, powerful as it is, stood against abortion. Would everyone reading this blog continue to be NRA members if it did so? I very much doubt it.
“Now, which one of these guys do you think was acting on NRA’s behalf?”
Neither. Although, I suspect that Schuler was advocating for freedom of speech by interest groups, and that net includes groups like the NRA. Van Hollen wanted the bill passed and recognized that the NRA was an impediment to the bill in original form. In doing the carve-out for the NRA, he was promoting the bill (and, I suspect, would come back around later and close that loophole).
To answer the greater question: No. I don’t want them squandering resources fighting non-gun-related issues generally. However, when they are targeted, I want them to stay in the fight until the total threat is removed, not just the threat to them.
As I have stated before, I understand that they had to draw a line somewhere and I understand their motivations. I just don’t like it.
Does anyone remember the D.C. Voting Rights bill? The NRA got an amendment attached to it that would have overturned most of Washington D.C.’s gun laws.
Most people who actually read the constitution know that that you can’t give D.C. voting rights in Congress without amending the constitution. However, the NRA (A single issue, non-partisan, Second Amendment organization) got an amendment attached to a bill that was otherwise a terrible bill, but it would have furthered the Second Amendment.
Where were all you people who are now so righteously indignant back when the NRA was proposing an advancement to a bill that was generally unconstitutional?
You weren’t anywhere, because you only get whipped into a frenzy when others tell you to get into a frenzy and that the NRA “Sold Us Out”.
Turn your anger at the Democrats for even proposing DISCLOSE, not the NRA for trying to advance its single issue agenda.
Newbius:
No one was paying attention to DISCLOSE until this deal. Who else was opposing the bill that Shuler was concerned with?