Year: 2010

There are an awful lot of folks out there questioning NRA’s position on the Kagan nomination, believing that they need to be up front and aggressive in going after her. I agree with them that Kagan is going to be a disaster for gun rights, and for the Constitution in general. I also don’t find the position to be implausible or irrational. I won’t tell you there haven’t been moves by NRA that haven’t puzzled me, and I disagreed with, but I have very seldom second guessed their strategy in public. Why? Because I am not about to second guess professional lobbyists, any more than I would call up my insurance company, and offer them actuarial advise, or call up an orthopedic surgeon and suggest he’s been doing knee replacements wrong all these years.

I would not go so far as to say Chris Cox is a Vulcan chess master, but I understand what the author is trying to convey here, and agree with it. All of us, with the exception of my readers who are professional lobbyists (you know who you are), are operating at a very significant information deficit relative to the people who spend a large amount of time on the Hill communicating with lawmakers and congressional staff. Even though many more of us know the basic rules of this game, and have a pretty good idea how it is played, without that full time engagement we simply do not have enough information.

So how do we know the professionals can be trusted? Well, you can’t. All you can really go by is track record. But if there’s an interest group who has a better track record on their issue than NRA, especially in this Congress, I’d really like to know who they are. Do they make mistakes? Sure. This is a game such that no one has perfect information, so outcomes can never be completely deterministic. But the people who are playing the game are in a far better position to be able to call the right moves than those outside of it observing. That’s largely why you’ll hardly ever hear me say NRA should zig when it looks like they are getting ready to zag. What I typically do is try to explain plausible rational for a zag based on what I know about the game, or what information I might have on the move. And there has been a few times I’ve thought they should zig, thought they would zag, explained that rationale, and they ended up zigging. None of us are working with perfect information, especially commentators like me.

That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with armchair lobbying. Many of us watch this because, like some people love football, we enjoy the game. Even if, like football, we don’t always enjoy the results. But it is difficult for me to understand how folks can believe, often with what seems like a burning passion, that NRA is certainly wrong, and is making a move that is sure to destroy our gun rights. I don’t think there’s one single reason that explains it. But I do notice that some have a tendency to believe that NRA’s role is to affirm their core beliefs. They would be up shouting before Congress if they had the opportunity, so they expect NRA to do the same on their behalf, since NRA does have the opportunity. They are not people who enjoy the game, and may even resent the game. They probably don’t even want to accept that it is a game. But that’s what politics is — because it’s the art of people getting along with each other and running a society without resorting to another, more serious variant of the game, which I think we all can agree is least desirable (though we certainly have an element who fantasize about it, in my opinion without a serious consideration of its horrors or consequences). I can understand completely why people hate politics, and don’t like having their lives screwed with. But that’s, for better or worse, the system we have, and it’s better than the alternatives. If you get frustrated, throw your hands up, and stop playing, you lose — the other team won’t give up.

I can see the point of those who say NRA needs to be more aggressive. But I’m going to trust the people who are regularly on the Hill and have a lot more information than we do about the best way to proceed. If they advise patience, I’m going to be patient. Truth is, I don’t think there’s any way we’re derailing Kagan, regardless of how NRA moves. Nominees are very seldom rejected, and nominees getting derailed by the President’s own party when that party had an overwhelming majority in Congress is absolutely unheard of. Elections have consequences folks, and for the people who said John McCain wasn’t good enough, and sat out 2008, I really don’t want to hear any complaints.

Just in from NRA:

The NRA has received a number of questions about blog posts that claim I issued a “gag order” to NRA board members on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is absurd and wrong.

This claim shows complete ignorance of how the NRA operates. NRA staff, including everyone (myself included) at the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, work for the NRA Executive Vice President, who in turn works for the NRA board, which in turn is elected by NRA’s voting members.

Under the NRA by-laws, NRA-ILA has “sole responsibility to administer the legislative, legal, informational and fund raising activities of the Association relating to the defense or furtherance of the right to keep and bear arms, in accordance with the objectives and policies established by the Board of Directors.” To carry out that mission, NRA-ILA strives to ensure that the NRA’s positions are clear and based on the most accurate information possible.

The confirmation of a Supreme Court justice is not to be taken lightly. That’s why, when Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement in April, I sent an e-mail to NRA board members and staff stating that with the critical case of McDonald v. Chicago still pending before the Court, “it is very important that NRA not comment on Justice Stevens nor engage in speculation on potential successors.”

Similarly, when the President nominated Solicitor General Kagan to the Court in May, I sent a message to the NRA Board pointing out her lack of a judicial record; noting that NRA-ILA was reviewing all available information; and stating that “it is important that we all refrain from commenting until we know more about Kagan’s views regarding the Second Amendment.” Again, I referenced the fact that NRA has a case pending before the Court.

When Ms. Kagan was nominated, little information on her record was available. More recently, the William J. Clinton Presidential Library has released an enormous volume of documents from her time in the White House. NRA-ILA staff has reviewed these carefully and they raise serious concerns. As we said last week: What we’ve seen to date shows a hostility towards our Right to Keep and Bear Arms, such as her role in developing the Clinton Administration’s 1998 ban on importation of many models of semi-automatic rifles; her note mentioning the NRA and the Ku Klux Klan as “bad guy” organizations; and her comment to Justice Marshall that she was “not sympathetic” to a challenge to Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban.

Respect for the Senate confirmation process requires that a nominee be given the opportunity to explain his or her position on critical issues affecting gun owners. That’s why the NRA has been working with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to make sure she is thoroughly questioned on these issues. Once the hearings are complete, the NRA will announce its position on her confirmation.

This is exactly the approach the NRA took last year when we opposed the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. Early in the process, we expressed our serious concerns about her record. We announced our opposition after her confirmation hearings ended without evidence that she would properly respect our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms and apply it to the states. Her dissenting vote in McDonald v. Chicago confirmed that our position was correct.

Unfortunately, false Internet rumors are far too often repeated as fact. Rest assured, however, that the NRA is fully committed to representing the interests of our members and all gun owners in this process and defending the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, as we do in all legislative, legal and political arenas.

I would also note the Hill is reporting NRA is likely to score the vote. This comes from an anonymous source, supposedly within NRA, so who knows… but time will tell whether it’s true, or another Internet rumor.

For folks who don’t know much about how NRA works internally, I can probably explain this Politics Daily article, and also what’s appearing over at Bucks Right. NRA’s internal board rules (which are set by the Board itself, as an elected body) prevent Board members from speaking on behalf of the organization. This is longstanding practice by the Board, and not something new. This rule exists because everyone recognizes that NRA must be able to speak with a single voice on issues. NRA would not be able to function if each individual Board member could speak out on positions on behalf of the organization as a whole. One can imagine what that would be like, if, say, Joaquin Jackson thought it was OK to speak on NRA’s behalf.

During the Sotomayor hearings, there was confusion among Senators about NRA’s position, despite efforts by Board members speaking out against Sotomayor that they spoke for themselves and not in any official capacity with NRA. I am not privy to what goes on in executive session during committee meetings, so I really don’t know what happened. I am sure, just like with any family dispute, there were issues and sore feelings over how the Sotomayor thing went down. But I am also sure there were no gag orders. The Board does not take orders from staff. Things just don’t work that way.