The battle over the D.C. Vote bill will soon turn to the fate of the amendment that gutted most of the District’s draconian gun laws:
Supporters of the D.C. vote bill expressed optimism yesterday that the legislation would be stripped of an amendment that would turn the nation’s capital into one of the easiest places in America to own a gun.
Senate Republicans added the gun amendment to the D.C. vote bill just before it was approved Thursday by the chamber. D.C. officials call the measure a public-safety threat.
The House is expected to pass its version of the bill next week without any gun language. The differences between the bills will have to be hashed out in a conference between the chambers.
“That’s why you have conferences. I’m sure there will be an effort to fix this,” said Tom Davis, the former Republican congressman from Virginia who was the original architect of the bill. He said the legislation appeared to have enough support to pass without the gun amendment attached.
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What could complicate negotiations on the gun amendment is the strong support it received in the Senate. It passed 62 to 36, winning one more vote than the D.C. vote bill. Democrats from pro-gun states such as Virginia supported the measure, as did most Republicans.
Senate staff will have to “feel out how hard people want to push on this” gun issue in the negotiations, said one aide on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which handled the bill in the Senate.
“There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes things that could happen,” said the aide, who was not authorized to comment on the record.
Senate officials, for example, could agree to bring up the gun issue at another point in exchange for dropping it from the D.C. vote bill. The amendment is similar to a gun bill that passed the House in the last session of Congress.
Norman J. Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, predicted that the amendment would be removed in conference because Democrats don’t want it.
That’s my guess as well.
The Amendment will be stripped and the bill will pass both Houses, unfortunately.
