Democrats tee up gun control fight; shutdown looms

WASHINGTON — Congress returns to Washington this week amid mounting pressure from Democrats and the public to take action on gun policy in the wake of several mass shootings, but lawmakers from both parties say meaningful action hangs solely on President Trump.

Since lawmakers were last in session Aug. 2, there have been three mass shootings in the United States, killing 38 people and injuring many more.

The White House is expected to release as soon as this week gun policy proposals that Trump supports, according to people on Capitol Hill familiar with the administration’s plans. But few gun safety advocates or Democrats are optimistic that the proposals will be as expansive as they want.

Gun policy is expected to dominate the conversation as Congress reconvenes, but lawmakers will also face a quick deadline to get the government funded again or risk another shutdown.

And the White House will have to pick up the pace of negotiations with Congress over a revised NAFTA trade agreement if Trump’s top legislative priority, now called the United StatesMexico-Canada Agreement, is to become law this year. All the while, some House Democrats will be clamoring to get impeachment proceedings against Trump underway.

The White House gun proposal comes at the urging of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is trying to balance growing public support for increased background checks with a slate of Republican senators who are skeptical of angering the powerful gun lobby. He said no legislation will get a vote on the Senate floor without the support of Trump, whose popularity in Republicanleaning states would be powerful enough to give political cover to Republican senators who support it.

Even the most ardent gun control supporters acknowledge only Trump can move the needle.

“The administration recognizes this is a moment where people are looking for leadership and looking for action,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who said he has raised the issue with Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and a White House advisor.

Coons is advocating for legislation that would require federal officials to notify states when someone fails a background check when trying to buy a firearm, a potential warning sign of a mass shooting.

“If after all this and what he has said, if President Trump fails to take a clear position and lead, I think there will be very widespread disappointment and anger,” he said.

Trump has spoken with several lawmakers sponsoring gun policy bills, including a 30-minute meeting with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia on Thursday evening at the White House.

A few Republicans and Democrats, including Coons and Manchin, have held conversations over the August recess on a potential compromise. So far, those negotiations have not yielded any agreement.

For years Congress has tried and failed to pass even moderate gun safety legislation, but Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) promised a concerted effort.

“I can’t guarantee an outcome. I’m not sure where this all ends,” he said on ABC News this month. “But the president is very interested, I remain very interested in measures that would make it harder for people who shouldn’t have guns to get guns. And, you know, we’re going to ... take a very serious run at it.”

Democrats, armed with public support, are hoping to make it difficult for McConnell to resist allowing a floor debate on gun legislation.

“It is all the more staggering … that despite the severity of the gun violence epidemic in the United States, bipartisan, House-passed background check legislation still languishes in Leader McConnell’s legislative graveyard,” Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote in a letter to colleagues Thursday.

Trump has been unclear on where he stands.

After back-to-back mass shootings at the beginning of August, the president said he was open to enhanced background checks, but then later seemed to backtrack and echo the position of the powerful National Rifle Assn.

McConnell has reason to be reluctant to put legislation on the floor without Trump’s explicit support. In December, the Senate approved a government spending bill without funding for Trump’s border wall after being assured the president supported it. Trump later reversed course and refused to sign it, leaving many Republican senators to defend a vote he didn’t back and triggering the longest partial government shutdown in history.

One possible outcome is that the White House releases a proposal that Democrats view as a milquetoast attempt to address the problem, a move that could put Democrats in the predicament of having to choose between supporting a bill viewed by some as inadequate or rejecting a compromise that could at least make modest improvements.

John Feinblatt, president of the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, predicted that minor measures would face a backlash from the general public. “If the strategy of McConnell and Trump is to put a half-measure on the Senate floor, they do so at grave risk,” he said.

Democrats argue the most meaningful solution is expanded background checks.

“The truth of the matter is that everybody knows that the one measure that will do the most to protect people is the expansion of background checks,” said Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena), calling it the “first line of defense to make sure that people who shouldn’t get guns” do not.

While the gun debate could linger, Congress faces a more pressing deadline this month in approving spending bills to avoid another government shutdown on Oct. 1.

Lawmakers of both parties have little appetite for another shutdown. House Democrats, frustrated by inaction on appropriation bills in the Senate, are already eyeing a stopgap measure to fund the government through Nov. 22, just before lawmakers leave town for Thanksgiving.

House Democrats have enacted 10 of the 12 required spending bills, but the Senate has done none. Although Senate Republicans plan to get to work on those bills as soon as they return to Washington, that leaves little time to sort out the differences between the House and Senate bills. Senate Republicans are likely to rebuff the House stopgap plan, but it is unclear whether they would block its passage.

The House is scheduled to be in Washington for only 10 more weeks this year, meaning that any legislation Democrats hope to pass — such as prescription drug policy or a new trade agreement — will need to be acted upon soon.

Negotiations between the Trump administration and Congress on the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement are expected to pick up. House Democrats have several outstanding concerns about the agreement’s language on prescription drugs, climate change and enforcing labor standards in Mexico.

In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) will have to contend with brewing support for impeachment among her rankand-file caucus members. More than half of the 235 Democrats now support starting an impeachment inquiry, a symbolic milestone hit over the August recess.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said recently that the House is already in effect conducting “formal impeachment proceedings.”