As I predicted, the Senate easily overcame a filibuster on their motion to proceed to the universal background check gun bill. The roll call was 68-31, with only two Democrats (Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas) voting for the filibuster. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey didn’t vote, but he’d be the 69th vote in favor. This bill will pass and then enormous pressure will be put on the House to follow suit. They will pass it as well. This will set up the new dynamic and set the precedent needed to pass immigration reform. I believe we will succeed there as well. The final piece will be a sequester-replacement bill, but that will await the arrival of a new climate in Washington which will not come to fruition until the first two bills are muscled through the House.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
If you post your expectation of what the immigration reform and sequester-replacement bills will look like, I’ll pledge a donation to be redeemed if you nail it.
You should use this prediction for fundraising!
And then we all get ponies!
Seriously, this and (maybe) the full Senate vote on the gun bill are the only points on which this strikes me as plausible. And I wouldn’t bet the rent money on the gun bill clearing the Senate — not with all those red-state Dems up for reelection in ’14 (plus Heitkamp) Hell, I don’t even feel confident that Harry Reid will vote for it.
The House has already come to agreement on an immigration bill that satisfies Luis Gutierrez and can be reconciled with the Senate version. Game over.
Immigration will get done.
On guns, with 69 votes for cloture, it will pass easily, possibly with over 60 votes, but definitely with significant Republican buy-in.
There’s really no reason for most of these Republicans to oppose universal background checks. It has the support of over 8 in 10 Republican voters. The House might fail to pass it, but I doubt it.
This will set the stage for the sequester-replacement, but we have to navigate through the debt ceiling again before that happens.
WooooooHooooooo!
The reasons might be that the 2 in 10 oppose it more strongly than the 8 in 10 support it, and that Democrats support it.
This kind of real-world fact-based analysis, with a progressive twist, is what I love about this site. Keep up the good work, Boo, and don’t let the naysayers get to you.
Note this was a bill to ALLOW debate, not to END debate. A number of Republicans indicated that they were only voting for it on those purposes. Maybe that’s ass covering, but it might not be.
With the NRA declaring this is a scorable bill, I think it’s way way too early to say this bill is going to pass. It’s a step forward if it passes (though only a step) but we’re not there yet.
A very very small step, and that’s before the House gets hold of it.
I hope folks were able to catch the clip from Michelle’s very moving speech yesterday, re: gun reform.
That One just keeps nibbling away at his agenda. Something will get passed, which five months ago was inconceivable. It will suck compared to what we wanted, but will be better than nothing, which was what we had.
He’ll do even better on immigration.
I know you cover this in a later post, Boo, but Walden’s miscued attack on Obama struck me as a giant “tell” of a mistake, which is why he was jumped on so fast. It’s not that they’re going to hang Obama with selling out Social Security. It’s that they need Obama to save them from the electorally-insane logic of their demands: cut the programs that their voters rely on right now.
The Republicans ought to be throwing themselves on the tracks to protect Social Security and Medicare. Instead, Obama has quietly shifted the Democratic Party into being the defenders of Generations X, Y, and Z, which will damage the Republicans much more.