Democratic Senate candidates: End filibuster to pass gun laws
WASHINGTON — Democratic candidates in high-profile Senate races are renewing a push to squash the filibuster, this time to pass stricter gun laws. They say that if elected, they would not letRepublicans, or even some Democrats, stand in the way of acting on an issue with widepublic support.
The massacres at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and then a shooting Wednesday at a medical building in Tulsa, Okla., that killed four people have again shined a light on Congress’ inaction on the nation’s gun violence epidemic. With Democrats in control of the White House and both chambers in Congress, many activists say the only thing preventing gun-related measures is the filibuster.
But party leaders and some Senate incumbents are wary of a fight they’ve already lost over voting rights and abortion, and they aren’t interested in revisiting the filibuster debate, much preferring to keep their energy focused on the Republican opposition to gun-control laws. Democratic candidates, lookingto rev up voters in the fall midterms, plan to keep the pressure on Senate incumbents and President Joe Biden, who addressed gun violence Thursday in a primetimespeech.
The president said it was “unconscionable” that the majority of Senate Republicans have opposed most guncontrol proposals, but he did not call on Senate Democrats to end the filibuster. He said he supported the bipartisan group of senators working on a compromise proposal that could win Republican support. “We can’t fail the Americanpeople again,” he said.
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is running in a crowded primary to face Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in November, said Democrats should end the filibuster to pass their most pressing policies.
“I will never let archaic Senate procedure stand in the way of our basic human rights,whether it’s the right to live free from gun violence, abortion access or the right to vote,” Mr. Barnes said Wednesday. “People are motivated, they want leaders that will do everything possible, and that means getting rid of thefilibuster ... it has to go.”
Other Democratic Senate candidates in the Wisconsin primary, including Milwaukee Bucks senior vice president Alex Lasry and state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, also have called for ending the filibuster.
John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, who won last month’s Senate Democratic primary, has continually raised the issue inhis campaign speeches.
Someincumbents, like Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who won a special election last year and is running for a full term this fall, have called for making rule changes that would make it harder to filibusterlegislation.
Under the filibuster rule, one senator can block a bill that doesn’t have at least 60 votes. Democrats hold 50 seats, and two of them, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have refused to go along with eliminating or amending the filibuster.
If Democrats can pick up at least two seats in November, the party could have the votes needed to end the filibuster and pass legislative priorities, such as universal background checks for gun purchasers.
Before the recent mass shootings, several Democratic candidates, including Rep. Val Demings, who is tryingto unseat Republican Sen. Marco Rubio in Florida, and Rep. Tim Ryan, who is running for the seat in Ohio left open by GOP Sen. Rob Portman’s retirement, were calling for an end to the filibuster to get major legislation on votingrights and other issues throughCongress.
Shortly after the Uvalde tragedy, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed, Mr.Ryan did so again.
Mr. Warnock defeated Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler ina January 2021 special election runoff that helped Democrats gain control of the Senate. Mr. Warnock worked behind the scenes last year to persuade his colleagues to change the filibuster and pass voting rights legislation with a simple majority. But in January, Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema were the only members of the Democratic caucus to vote against the rule change. The failure of the yearlong push for action frustrated and divided Democrats. Mr. Warnock did not respond to a request for commentfor this article.
Despite increased calls for action in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema have signaled they remain unwilling to undo the filibuster. Mr. Manchin told reporters a day after the Uvalde shooting that the rule was “the only thing that prevents us from total insanity.” Ms. Sinema, when asked about eliminating the filibuster for gun-control laws, said she was not interested in “D.C. solutions” to the problem of massshootings.
Promising to end the filibuster was a major applause line in Mr. Fetterman’s stump speech the week before he overwhelmingly won last month’s Senate primary in Pennsylvania.
“Do we have any Joe Manchin Democrats in the room?” Mr. Fetterman asked supporters crowded into an airport hangar in Lemont Furnace, Fayette County. The air filled with laughter and shouts of “No!”
“Keeping the filibuster in place means as a Democrat you believe there are 10 to 12 Republican senators of conscience who are going to say, ‘Oh my God, we got it wrong our entire career ... gun-control legislation? Yes, yes, where have I been all these years?’” Mr. Fetterman said.
Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema are now working with a bipartisan group of senators that is exploring a possible deal to change gun laws after the recent mass shootings.
Weeks before the mass shooting in Buffalo, which killed 10 people, pollsters for the gun regulation groups Giffords and Everytown for Gun Safety briefed Democratic midterm strategists in April on new research that indicated gun politics could help the party respond to Republicanattacks on crime.
The polling found large concern in Senate battleground states about increasing gun crime. Democratic candidates who pushed for measures like stricter background checks, crackdowns on irresponsible gun dealers, and combating the spread of illegal guns gained an advantage in the research over Republicans who opposed more regulation. The effect was more pronounced in suburban areas.
Angela Kuefler, a longtime pollster for Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords, said there also has been some shifting over time in the way the public responds to mass shootings.
“There used to be a profound sadness,” she said. “Now that has been taken over by rage and anger, and anger is a motivating emotion.”
But Democrats remain cautious about predicting a clearpolitical effect in November from continued Republican reluctance to change gun laws, despite polls that show overwhelming voter support for expanded background checks and “red flag” laws, which enable court orders to seize guns from people considereda danger to themselves or others. Although several members of Congress, like Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., and Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., were successful in the 2018 elections by campaigning on the issue of gun violence, they remain the exception and not therule.
Kris Brown, president of Brady: United Against Gun Violence, said Democrats should call a vote now on gun legislation, and when it fails, Mr. Biden “needs to say right then and there that we need to end the filibuster.”
“I do think it’s a now-ornever moment. This is very much on people’s minds, they are devastated, and it’s not the America they want,” Ms. Brown said. “It’s on the lawmakers, but it’s also on the president. I would like him to say that this is a ‘top priority for this Senate,’ and I’d like him to say that ‘the filibuster is killing us.’”