The dust had barely settled on the Senate's vote to shortstop the
GOP filibuster against the compromise deal that some GOP and conservative
Democratic senators brokered on the gun control bill before other GOP and
conservative Democratic senators began pecking away at it. The deal was to support background checks for private gun sales, and other
lessor gun curb measures. The list of ways that these
senators can dither, delay, and dodge always with the goal of killing the bill
is dizzying. They will spend the more than two dozen hours they're allowed
before debate actually begins on the bill to make the same endless arguments
that the NRA has made for years that the bill does nothing to stop the carnage
on the nation's city streets or the next lone nut shooter from massacering kids
at a school. Next, they'll toss every amendment they can think of to gut the
bill while at the same time stretching out the time it takes to debate them. To
become law, it will take 60 votes, and the longer the clock ticks and the
longer the debate goes will play directly into the bill's opponent's hands.
There are two other things that will make passage of the bill
intact a close call. The first is how the NRA rates senators and
congresspersons that buck it. It grades senators and congresspersons from A to
F on their vote on gun legislation. Few, if any, GOP senators in years past
have dared to risk bucking the NRA and back tougher gun control curbs. Since
the expiration of the assault weapon ban in 2004, the nearly two dozen bills
that have been introduced in the House and Senate to stiffen gun laws have all
been defeated. In nearly every case, they did not even make it to the House or
Senate floor for a vote.
The second problem is the 2014 mid-term elections. Though the
NRA was hazy at first on whether it would give the senators that agreed to the
background check compromise, a failing grade, or any grade, Heritage Action,
the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, that opposes the compromise, said
that it would grade senators on the legislation. The NRA now says that it will
grade senators on their final vote on the bill. And with a number of GOP
congresspersons and senators up for reelection in 2014, many in conservative
strongholds, almost certainly their vote would be a campaign issue against them
by a Tea Party backed challenger, and there will be challenges. Even to survive
the challenge, they would have to spend tons of money, time, and energy,
assuring one and all that they are not an avid foe of gun owners.
The compromise background check was taken by some as a sign the
NRA's grip on Congress may be loosening, that may be wishful thinking. The NRA
has been wildly successful in browbeating Congress for the past decade through
its well-oiled, well-versed, labyrinth of PACs, lobbyists, legal counsels,
divisions, funds, and a foundation. The NRA has these divisions: Federal
Affairs, Public Affairs, Finance, Research & Information, Conservation,
Wildlife & Natural Resources and most importantly the NRA Political Victory
Fund.
It has ranked in the top tier of contributions received,
lobbying dollars spent, and money garnered and spent by its PACs. But it's not
just the NRA's money and willingness to spend it to pack Congress with pro-gun
backers. The NRA has gotten a stupendous return on the $17 million it spent on
federal elections in 2012 and the tens of millions it spent on past elections.
It will spend millions more on the 2014 elections.
But even before the pack of GOP and conservative Democratic
senators started their war hoops against the background checks measure in the
current bill, the NRA's lobbying had already paid big dividends. In March,
Senate Democrats threw in the towel on the one curb that the overwhelming
majority of Americans want to see and that's the full reinstatement, this time
permanently, of the assault weapons ban. This will not be in any bill that the
Senate or House eventually debates. The best trump card for the NRA, though, is
time. This is time that it will use ferociously publicly and behind the scenes
to try and kill the bill.
The agreement to back near universal background checks on gun
sales was a hopeful signal that at least some previous hard core congressional
gun lobby shills finally got the message that an aroused public wants action,
any action, to pass long thwarted meaningful gun control curbs. But that's
hardly enough to stop the NRA's terror campaign against Congress. If anything
it has kicked it into high gear.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is
a frequent political commentator on MSNBC and a weekly co-host of the Al
Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama
Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of
New America Media. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK-Radio
and the Pacifica Network.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
1
