by Joseph P. Tartaro | Executive Editor
Joe Tartaro, Executive Editor
Christmas came early to Washington, DC, as Congress ended months of political maneuvering and posturing to pass the massive $1.1 trillion budget deal designed to avert shutting down the government again. When the House approved the measure on Dec. 11 and the Senate concurred on Dec. 13, the Congress was also filling the widespread needs of lobbyists and special interests, from the health care and farm industries to the firearms trade.
The bill was also called a Christmas Tree by some because all kinds of things had been added to it which were once separate legislative initiatives that were going nowhere otherwise. Compromise came to Capitol Hill and both sides won something.
There have been a lot of news reports about the budget bill, which is more than 1,000 pages long, and probably few know everything that it covers. Probably members of the House and Senate will learn more just as the average citizen discovers what may be good or bad for them.
Why is this massive funding bill referred to on Capitol Hill and in many news reported as the “CRomnibus” (sometimes “cromnibus) bill. Vox.com provides the answer: “that’s because it’s a mash-up of an omnibus bill, which is how Congress funds the government when things are working normally, and a continuing resolution (CR), which is how Congress funds the government when it can’t come to a deal. In this case, the CR only affects the Department of Homeland Security, which will see its funding expire in February.”
Curiously, this compromise legislation was opposed by the more extreme elements of both the Republican and Democrat parties. And nearly every senator mentioned as a future presidential candidate voted against it: GOP Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) as well as liberal Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (D) and Bernie Sanders of Vermont (I).
Senate conservatives had tried to make a point about Obama’s immigration policy, but the result was Senate Democrats getting everything they wanted out of their last days of power.
In the end the Senate passed the $1.1 trillion spending bill, 56-40, but not before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was able to begin moving forward on 24 of the president’s nominations, including controversial figures like Vivek Murthy to be the new surgeon general, White House adviser Tony Blinken to be the deputy secretary of State and Sarah Saldana to head Immigration and Customs enforcement and a dozen federal judges to lifetime appointments. Murthy has been aggressively opposed by the National Rifle Association and many other pro-gun groups because of his previous and repeated activism on behalf of gun control.
Republicans fought Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for months to block the president’s nominees from moving forward and many believed as late as Friday that they’d won as the holidays approached. But when Sens. Cruz and Mike Lee (R-UT) took to the floor just before the vote on the president’s executive action on immigration they allowed Reid to exploit a procedural quirk and get the nominations rolling.
Cruz and Lee eventually got a vote that raised concerns over the constitutionality over Obama’s executive action, though it was defeated badly by bipartisan opposition, 22-74. Twenty Republicans, including Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), voted against Cruz and Lee.
However, gunowners and the firearms and ammunition industry were among those who benefited from the budget compromise. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms, ammunition and outdoor industries, was delighted by passage of what was previously a separate measure that protects traditional ammunition and fishing tackle. NSSF and a couple dozen pro-sportsmen organizations had lobbied for this important provision that protects the rights of Americans to choose the type of ammunition they prefer to use for hunting and target shooting by preventing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from banning traditional ammunition and fishing gear made with lead components. For ammunition, that is 95% of the supply available.
The CRomnibus bill also provides the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) with an additional $22 million which will allow ATF additional resources to provide industry members with more timely and efficient customer service, NSSF reported.
And more funding was also included to help improve the NICS background check system by helping the states to put more mental health and other disqualifying records in to the system retailers rely upon to transfer firearms to customers.
Finally, the bill provides $3 million in grant funding for a firearm safety education and gun lock program like Project ChildSafe.
Gun Owners of America had opposed the omnibus bill, warning that passing it would result in giving Congressional Democrats control of Congress for the next 10 months, as the “so-called long-term continuing resolution would set policy and spending until the end of the fiscal year (Sept. 30, 2015).” GOA’s solution was to call instead for a “short-term CR” into January, February, or March that would allow the newly elected Republican Congress to set spending and policy for the federal government for most of next year.
Now the chamber’s attention shifts to nominations, which may take days of procedural votes and a lot of energy, but are likely to be a boon to the Obama’s hopes of winning approval of as many nominees as possible before his party loses the Senate. The Senate was expected to begin processing the 24 nominations before Christmas, even as this issue of TGM goes to press.
When Congress agrees, we win some, lose some.
