by Joseph P. Tartaro | Executive Editor
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) thinks he’ll be Senate Majority Leader in January 2017.
After two weeks of wall-to-wall media-frenzied coverage of the Republican and Democratic Party presidential nominating conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia, the average American should now be focusing on the broader aspects of election 2016. There’s a lot more to it than the presidential aspirations of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald J. Trump.
Yes, who will be elected president and vice president this Nov. 8 is important. Very important! But so too are all the other House and Senate races, and other elections taking place in practically every state.
Much has been made of whether Clinton or Trump will be the one able to hand-pick and nominate justices for the US Supreme Court, but not much has been said yet about the makeup of the Senate, which must “advise and consent” on those presidential picks.
About a third of the Senate seats—currently divided 54 Republicans to 44 Democrats plus two Independents who caucus with the Democrats—will be decided in this year’s election, with the odds favoring the Democrats regaining control of the upper house of Congress. That’s because only 10 Democrat Senate incumbent seats are at stake while 24 Senate seats held by the GOP will be facing the voters. Only four seats, two from each party, are currently up for grabs because of retirements, creating rare “open seat” races.
That suggests that the Democrats can regain control of the Senate with a net gain of five seats no matter who wins the presidency—only a net gain of four if the Clinton-Kaine ticket wins, since the vice president can resolve ties.
For gunowners, regardless of party or independence, who may feel embattled right now, especially since the Democrats spent almost a whole convention night pushing their gun control agenda, all Senate races are critical. And when you go to the polls in November, bear in mind that if the Democrats become the majority party in the Senate, one of the most anti-gun lawmakers in Congress will become majority leader: that is Sen. Charles Schumer of New York.
And, according to a Politico.com convention interview, Schumer is feeling good enough about the battle for Senate control, enough so to essentially predict he’ll be majority leader next year.
“Not only that, the veteran New York Democrat believes his party is on the cusp of something much bigger: An era of electoral dominance,” Politico reported.
“We’re going to have a Democratic generation. [President Barack Obama] helped create it. But it’s just where America’s moving demographically, ideologically and in every way,” Schumer told Politico in the lengthy interview. “We’ll have a mandate to get something done.”
That something may be the final evisceration of the right of current and future generations of Americans to keep and bear arms.
Frightening as a Clinton victory may be, just imagine how much worse it would be if Schumer becomes majority leader.
The situation in the House is somewhat different. Currently split 247 to 188, with the GOP in the majority, the Democrats would have to gain 30 seats or more to wrest control this year, and most political observers don’t predict that happening.
And let’s not forget the anti-gun ballot initiatives in three states: California, Maine and Nevada. The ballot initiative has become the most promising current and future strategy for “legislating” by statewide vote the agenda of Michael Bloomberg, the Daddy Warbucks of the gun control crowd. Bloomberg, his fellow billionaire elitists and political opportunists like California Lt. Gov. Newsom can succeed in destroying our rights in a way that they have not been able to achieve in state legislatures.
The billionaires have the money to get on the ballot and to bombard the voters with their propaganda. They did it two years ago in Washington State, and everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that after almost two years that the law has been in effect it hasn’t prevented a single crime, but it has created impediments to hunter safety training, blocked temporary loans of firearms to friends and relatives for training, competitions and recreational shooting, as well as a host of other problems.
Building on their success in the Evergreen State, the same anti-gun leaders have succeeded in putting similar universal background check questions before the voters in Nevada and Maine this year, often against the will of the professional law enforcement community in each state. The problem seems to be that the instant criminal background check is viewed as a reasonable approach to mass murderers and terrorists, even though background checks did not work against any of the recent spate of killers.
And in California, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has qualified an initiative to accomplish a broader anti-gun agenda.
The official California ballot summary says it: “Prohibits possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines, and requires their disposal by sale to dealer, destruction, or removal from state. Requires most individuals to pass background check and obtain Department of Justice authorization to purchase ammunition. Requires most ammunition sales be made through licensed ammunition vendors and reported to Department of Justice. Requires lost or stolen firearms and ammunition be reported to law enforcement. Prohibits persons convicted of stealing a firearm from possessing firearms. Establishes new procedures for enforcing laws prohibiting firearm possession by felons and violent criminals. Requires Department of Justice to provide information about prohibited persons to federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System.”
Bottom line: keep well informed, work for, help fund, and vote to preserve your rights, in Washington and every state capital. Most of all be sure to vote on Nov. 8.
