GOP’s Cornyn at center of gun talks in Senate
After visiting Uvalde, the Texan agrees to work again on a viable compromise bill.
WASHINGTON — Less than 48 hours after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in his home state of Texas, Sen. John Cornyn walked straight from the floor of the U.S. Senate into Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s office.
Cornyn had just returned to Washington from the scene of the shooting in Uvalde when McConnell summoned him to lead the GOP in negotiations over a potential legislative response to the attack. Eager, if wary, Cornyn took the job.
“I’m not interested in making a political statement,” he said at the time. “I’m actually interested in what we can do to make the terrible events that occurred in Uvalde less likely in the future.”
Cornyn is at the center of a bipartisan group of senators working to strike a compromise on gun safety legislation, a long shot despite the pleas from the Uvalde community to “do something” after the massacre.
A four-term senator, Cornyn has been here plenty of times before, at the forefront of on-and-off talks with Democrats over gun policy changes that almost never make it into law. As gun owners and the gun lobby wield influence, Congress has failed to substantively respond even as mass shootings rip through communities all across America.
With his previous negotiating partner, Sen. Christopher S. Murphy (D-Conn.), Cornyn convened a group of four senators to meet privately this week, some from a broader Murphy-led group searching for possible compromise gun safety measures.
President Biden has implored Congress to act — particularly GOP senators who for years have blocked almost every gun control measure.
“This time, it’s time for the Senate to do something,” Biden said in remarks from the White House on Thursday night.
Biden, too, is looking for Cornyn to lead.
“I think Sen. McConnell is a rational Republican; I think Cornyn is as well. I think there’s a recognition in their party that they — we — can’t continue like this,” Biden said earlier in the week after visiting Texas.
But expectations are low that even modest gun control measures will find enough support among Republicans in Congress, particularly in the evenly split Senate where at least 60 votes are needed to advance legislation past a filibuster.
Senators aren’t expected to even broach the idea of an assault weapon ban or other restrictions that are popular with the public as potential ways to curb the most lethal mass shootings.
Instead, the bipartisan group is intensifying talks on incremental changes to the nation’s gun laws after a decade of mostly failed efforts since a gunman killed 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut.
The senators may be able reach consensus in a few areas: bolstering school security, increasing mental health resources, and possibly sending money to states to encourage “red flag” laws to keep firearms out of the hands of those who would do harm.
“That may be all they can do,” said Matthew Bennett, a longtime gun policy advocate at the centrist think tank Third Way.
It’s been nearly 30 years since Congress approved sweeping gun safety legislation with the passage of the 1994 assault weapon ban, which has since expired. In 2013, Congress rejected expanded background checks and bans on some assault-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
One of the only gun-related bills to become law since Sandy Hook was a modest effort to encourage states to comply with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Cornyn pushed the bill after the 2017 church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The gunman’s Air Force record of court-martial for domestic violence had not been submitted to the federal database used to screen gun purchases.
The so-called Fix-NICS bill was stalled in the Senate when a gunman opened fire at a Parkland, Fla., high school in 2018, killing 17.
By then, Democrats and some Republicans were circulating broader proposals, and then-President Trump suggested raising the legal age for purchasing firearms to 21. But efforts fizzled after Trump met with the National Rifle Assn.
The Fix-NICS bill won approval in Congress after being included in a government funding measure later that spring. It had the NRA’s backing.
Cornyn, who has an Aplus rating from the NRA’s Political Victory Fund for his support of broad 2nd Amendment rights, said last week that the Uvalde killings may be an impetus for new reforms.
A former judge and member of the Texas Supreme Court, Cornyn, 70, is on McConnell’s leadership team and is widely believed to be a contender for Republican Senate leader when McConnell retires.
Although he owns multiple firearms and frequently hunts in Texas, Cornyn did not attend the NRA’s convention in Houston alongside Trump and fellow Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in the days after the Uvalde shooting. But he dismissed some of the red-flag laws or broader changes in federal gun policy being proposed.
“He is the central figure — or at least one of them — because he has respect among Republicans but is also a critical thinker,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (DConn.) said of Cornyn.
“If he really wants to get it done, he will potentially make a critical difference,” Blumenthal added.
Many Democrats are skeptical that Senate Republicans will come to the table. Already the Senate has blocked two Housepassed measures that would bolster background checks for firearm purchases online or at gun shows.
House Democrats are pushing ahead with their own package of gun safety measures, known as the “Protecting Our Kids” bill, that includes raising the minimum age for semiautomatic rifle purchases from 18 to 21 years old.
It has almost no hope of passing the Senate.