WASHINGTON — With U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath helping to lead the way, House Democrats launched an effort Tuesday to circumvent Republican opposition and force votes on gun control measures.
With Republicans in the majority and conservatives vowing to block any legislation perceived as limiting access to firearms, Democratic-led proposals have stalled even after a spate of high-profile mass shootings, including one at a medical office in Atlanta. But in recent weeks, Democrats put a plan together to go around Republican leaders by gathering signatures for discharge petitions that, if a majority of all House members sign, would force a vote on three different gun control bills.
McBath, whose proposal to ban AR-15-style firearms is among those Democrats hope to bring to a vote, said Democrats’ message will be that these measures are needed to keep constituents safe. The other two discharge petitions relate to bills that expand background checks and tighten rules that allow some people to obtain weapons without a background check.
The Marietta Democrat became a gun control activist after her son was killed in a high-profile shooting in 2012. She later ran for office, in part, in response to the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. She said House Democrats recently decided to simultaneously launch all three discharge petitions with hopes of sending a clear message about their seriousness on the issue.
“That is why we have filed today’s discharge petition, because we have been sent to the House of Representatives to use every tool that is made available to us to find solutions, solutions that will save American lives,” McBath said during an afternoon news conference to promote the initiative. “We refuse — and I say it again, we refuse — to let the power of the (National Rifle Association’s) gun lobby stand in our way.”
House Democrats were briefed behind closed doors on the plans Tuesday morning. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida, the House’s youngest member and the from from Generation Z to be elected to Congress, were among those who joined McBath at the news conference.
Their effort is not guaranteed to work. House Democrats also created a discharge petition in hopes of forcing a vote on a stand-alone debt-limit measure that didn’t include federal spending cuts House Republicans wanted.
While every House Democrat signed that petition, no Republicans did and therefore it never received the majority of signatures needed to force a vote on “clean” debt-ceiling legislation. Instead, the moderate House Republicans that Democrats had hoped to sway stood behind Speaker Kevin McCarthy and supported the legislation he negotiated with President Joe Biden that lifted the debt limit and also reduced federal spending.
