WASHINGTON — With U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath helping to lead the way, U.S. House Democrats are launching an effort today to circumvent Republican opposition and force votes on gun control measures.
With Republicans in the majority and conservatives vowing to block any measures 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 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. She then 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 launch all three discharge petitions simultaneously with hopes of sending a clear message about their seriousness on the issue.
“Working a larger scale with these pieces of policy that we know will do the most, comprehensively, to reduce this culture of gun violence, that is the reason why we’re going to take all three of these at one time,” she said.
House Democrats were briefed behind closed doors on the plans this morning, and McBath will participate in an afternoon news conference about the discharge petition effort, joining other bill sponsors and Democratic leaders.
This 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 insisted upon.
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.
