Norton Win in Committee on Anti-Home Rule Gun Bill Shortens Odds & Prepares for Floor Fight 9/10/08

Norton Win in Committee on Anti-Home Rule Gun Bill Shortens Odds and Prepares Her for Big Floor Fight Ahead

September 10, 2008

Following yesterday's exposure of risks to the federal presence posed by the NRA bill to rewrite D.C. gun laws, the Norton-Waxman, National Capital Security and Safety Act that many predicted would be defeated in committee and on the House floor had a surprising 21-1 victory today.

Speaking directly with several Republicans and working to neutralize pro-gun Democrats, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Henry Waxman (D-CA), chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, today got what many considered an unlikely first-round win. Yesterday, Congresswoman Norton spoke again with ranking members Tom Davis (R-VA) whom she has been reminding of his good home rule record, and with Darrell Issa (R-CA) because neither had signed onto the second NRA bill. Issa had signed the discharge petition to compel a vote on a very similar NRA bill. Norton said Issa suggested that he could vote for the Norton-Waxman bill if it had only the core section of the bill, which simply requires that the District of Columbia comply with the Supreme Court decision in the District of Columbia v. Heller case. Issa's idea was generated, in part, by traditional Republican notions concerning federal intrusion into state issues, and he said he was prepared to support the core provision as a matter of home rule, but Norton immediately accepted the idea because it tailored the bill in an even more home rule direction. The additional clauses, which eliminated requirements concerning protection of the federal presence, were not included in her original draft, but did serve to spell out the federal security interest in local gun legislation.

Norton said the revised formulation was preferred because, "it more strictly conforms with our home rule view that the revisions are a job for the D.C. City Council and that the city, whose gun laws always have protected the federal interest, does not need instructions on developing gun laws here."

"We have already caught the NRA in the huge error of trapping legislators, through the NRA label, into signing onto a bill that allowed carrying military style, long guns, like AK-47s, and concealable Uzis around the District," Norton said, "and there is lots more that no respectable member of Congress would want to be associated with in this bill. The longer we have to expose a bill that would leave guns unregistered and unregulated in the Nation's Capital post 9/11, the shorter our odds of prevailing on the House floor."

Norton acknowledged the long odds against her, but she said that would be no excuse for giving up without a fight to the end not only to protect the federal government but to protect the right of our children and residents to live in peace.