In New Hampshire’s hotly contested U.S. Senate race, Democrats showed admirable restraint in the first 48 hours after the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre, but don’t expect that to last much longer. They have been making gun control a campaign issue since long before they even had a candidate, and they’re not about to stop now.
Especially when Senate Democrats are leading the way.
On Monday afternoon, Democrats took to the Senate floor to announce their intention to force a vote on a measure that would prevent people on terror watch lists from purchasing guns. New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte, along with several other Republicans facing tough re-election challenges, voted against the measure in December.
The gunman in the Orlando attack is not known to have been on any of those watch lists, but had been under FBI suspicion and was able to purchase his weapons legally.
Capitol Hill Democrats I spoke with say that they’re calling for the vote—as an amendment to an appropriations bill—in genuine hopes of gaining passage this time. Republicans see it as a purely political exercise being staged with the November elections in mind.
While Ayotte voted against the Democrats’ version of the measure, she supported a version offered by Republicans that provided more opportunity for people to challenge a denial of their gun purchase. The various federal watch lists have been criticized for errors over the years.
“Kelly clearly supports ensuring that individuals on the terror watch list cannot purchase a firearm,” Ayotte campaign spokesperson Liz Johnson told me in a statement. “She voted for legislation that would have addressed this problem while also providing sufficient due process protections for Americans erroneously placed on the list. She believes both sides should work together on a solution that achieves these two goals.”
The debate shows how much the issue of gun control has put Republicans on the defensive, even in the traditionally pro-gun rights state of New Hampshire.
Interest groups ran ads as far back as 2013 criticizing Republican Kelly Ayotte’s positions; Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan, who announced her challenge to Ayotte late last year, has continued to press the issue.
Just a couple of weeks ago, a pro-gun control group launched another ad criticizing Ayotte on the issue; Ayotte responded with an ad of her own, featuring New Hampshire law enforcement officials defending Ayotte’s positions.
Her ad didn’t position herself against gun control, though; as with the terror list issue, the ad insisted that Ayotte has supported expanded background checks, even though she opposed a version offered by Democrats.
Senate Democrats said Monday that they intend to bring that background check legislation back for a new vote too, after the terror watch amendment.
Johnson, in her statement from the Ayotte campaign, accused “third party special interest allies” of Hassan’s of being “more interested in scoring political points than in finding solutions to these issues.”
That may be so. But, in a dead-heat race like the one in New Hampshire, political points count.
Prioritize for the 115th?
Of course, the reality is that no significant gun control measures are likely to become law this year, while Republicans control both the House and Senate.
The question is whether anything would happen if Democrats get control of Congress back, along with the Presidency, after this year’s elections.
After all, Democrats whiffed on the chance to pass gun control, back in the 111th Congress. That was the session immediately following Barack Obama’s election; Democrats held a solid majority in both the House and Senate.
But gun control—along with immigration reform and other liberal wish-list items—didn’t get top priority consideration.
“You’re right,” says Ed Markey, who was in the House then and the Senate now. “We prioritized health care, Dodd-Frank [financial industry regulation], and the economic stimulus. The fourth was Waxman-Markey [energy and environment reform], and there was not enough political capital left to pass that in the Senate.”
Markey, a long-time gun control advocate, believes that it could be different in the upcoming 115th Congress—if Hillary Clinton and a Democratic Senate majority come into power after emphasizing the issue on the campaign trail, in sharp contrast to Donald Trump’s NRA-friendly positions.
“This time, I think that gun control has to be among the first group of issues that we take on, so we can deal with this epidemic,” Markey says.
Protesting silence
At least two Massachusetts representatives are joining a movement led by Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes: refusing to participate in Congressional “moments of silence” for gun victims until the House acts on gun control.
On Monday, Himes denounced these moments of silence as “obnoxious expressions of smug incompetence.”
Later that day, Himes walked out when Speaker Paul Ryan called for a moment of silence in honor of the Orlando victims. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts was among those who joined Himes.
House Republican leadership “routinely holds Moments of Silence after each mass shooting—underscoring their cowardly silence on even VOTING on gun control,” Moulton tweeted. “So I’m joining [Himes] in not attending any more House Moments of Silence for mass shooting victims. Walked out of my first one tonight.”
Katherine Clark of Massachusetts pledged to do the same, posting on Facebook: “I refuse to take part in a moment of silence by a Congress that takes part in empty gestures rather than do something—anything—that could actually prevent these horrific acts from happening. We can’t reduce gun violence with silence.”
