A path forward on gun legislation in the House?
by digby
With all the euphoria over the Manchin-Roomey agreement in the Senate over background checks, I've been wondering whether I'd missed some new softening on guns over in the House. Not that breaking a filibuster and getting through the Senate isn't a big deal. But it certainly isn't the end of the story.
Greg Sargent reports how it might unfold from here:
But there is a narrow path to victory even in the House, according to GOP Rep. Peter King of New York, who plans to introduce a bill in the lower chamber that is very similar to the proposal rolled out yesterday by Senators Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin.
“The combination of having Manchin and Toomey as the main sponsors, and assuming it can pass the Senate with a significant majority, greatly increases the chances that it will attract enough Republican support to pass the House,” Rep. King told me in an interview. “If Pat Toomey can support it, most conservatives should be able to support it and should want to support it.”
King said he has been in talks with a number of House Republicans about joining the effort, and that he would be “aggressive” in pursuing them in the wake of the Toomey-Manchin announcement, which could help change the debate for some conservatives. Yesterday Toomey said there are a “substantial number” of House Republicans who support his proposal’s “general approach.”
All of this sounds like a real long shot, and in truth, it is. But it’s not impossible. Dave Wasserman, who closely tracks House races and districts for the Cook Political Report, points out that there are a number of districts with certain characteristics that make as many as a few dozen House Republicans potentially gettable on the proposal.
“These are the types of Republicans who come not just from suburban districts, but districts where the business community is the prevalent faction of the Republican base, as opposed to gun owning social conservatives,” Wasserman tells me. He cited 17 districts that went for Obama in 2012, as well as other ones in suburban Minneapolis, New Jersey, parts of California, and the Philadelphia suburbs (a key motivator for Toomey), as examples.
Now one might wonder whether Boehner will violate the Hastert rule in the case of something that is so fraught with emotion among the GOP base, but he has been willing to do it as long as the Senate gives him cover by passing a bipartisan bill first. If the GOP has enough votes to get it over the line with a majority of Democrats (and Boehner doesn't face a rebellion by his Tea Party if he lets it go to the floor) then it might just get done. Which would be really great. Breaking the NRA reign of terror that's gripped the Democratic Party since 2000 is long overdue.
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