The Senate reconvened at 10:00 A.M. and is working on moving forward a number of nominations. The Senate will consider Alex Wagner to be an Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Chavonda Jacobs-Young to be Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics, Kenneth Wainstein to be Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, Department of Homeland Security and Shalanda Baker, of Texas, to be Director of the Office of Minority Economic Impact, Department of Energy. The Senate will also vote on the Motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R.3967, Honoring our PACT Act.
The House will reconvene at 2:00 P.M. and will consider the twelve bills under suspension of the Rules from a variety of committees, including H.R. 7667 – Food and Drug Amendments Act of 2022.
As Senate negotiations continue, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said this morning that he is encouraging a bipartisan group of negotiators to keep working on a compromise proposal to respond to recent mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) are spearheading gun reform negotiations on Capitol Hill, hoping to find a modest deal that would satisfy at least 60 senators. “I’m encouraging my Democratic colleagues to keep talking, to see if Republicans will work with us to come up with something that will make a meaningful change in the lives of the American people and stop gun violence,” Schumer said on the Senate floor this morning. Any bill will need ten Senate Republicans to clear procedural hurdles in the upper chamber, a very high bar that has proved tough to clear throughout the past decade on gun legislation. Senate negotiators say proposals to ban assault-style rifles, such as the AR-15–style weapons that were used in recent mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas, and to require background checks for all gun sales and transfers are off the table. Instead, they are focused on much more modest proposals to encourage states to set up red flag laws, promote safe storage of firearms and provide more money to address mental health issues. They are also looking at strengthening and reforming the background check process and raising the minimum age for purchasing an AR-15–style rifle from 18 years old to 21.
On the House side, the Rules Committee is scheduled to take up two pieces of gun legislation at 2:00 P.M. The first, Protecting Our Kids Act, is a package of eight bills that if passed would raise the age for purchasing semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21 years old, ban civilian use of high-capacity magazines and bump stocks, and require that ghost gun purchases are made in accordance with background check requirements. The package also calls for prohibiting straw purchase of firearms — when someone who is unable to clear a background check buys a gun through a proxy — and bolstering safe storage of firearms, among other measures. The House Judiciary Committee advanced the package in a 25-19 party-line vote last Wednesday following an hours-long markup. The package is set to pass the Democratic-led House but will likely face strong headwinds in the upper chamber, where at least 10 Republicans are needed to overcome a legislative filibuster. The other piece of legislation, the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act, seeks to nationalize red flag laws, which would allow courts to order the removal of firearms from individuals deemed a threat to themselves or others. Nineteen states and Washington, D.C., currently have red flag laws in place. It is unclear how much Republican support the red flag law legislation will garner in the Senate where Senators are currently engaged in negotiations on much more limited legislation to curb gun violence.
Speaker Pelosi Dear Colleague on Honoring Victims of Gun Violence.
