The presidential campaign season is now officially in full swing, with both parties having concluded their respective conventions. The conventions were superficially similar – there’s only so much variety you can build into four days of speeches from celebrities and politicians – but in tone and content, they could not have been more different.
Official Washington struggled to bring matters to a close just before the Republican convention. With a seven-week summer recess pending, House and Senate leadership wanted to mark off some legislative accomplishments before lawmakers deserted the nation’s capital en masse.
But the gun control agitators had no intention of cooperating. They continued to obstruct the business of the House floor, just as they did before the July 4th recess with their “sit-in,” in total violation of the rules of the House. Speaker Ryan attempted to maneuver around their obstructionist tactics as best he could, but his proposal to mollify their demands with a vote on a “counter-terrorism package” of legislation was not met warmly within his own party. Members of the House Freedom Caucus, in particular, resented the seeming accession to agitators’ demands, and also raised concerns on the merits of the hastily assembled bill. In the end, it was clear to Ryan that the proposal would satisfy neither the right nor the left and so he tabled it indefinitely before recessing the chamber for the summer.
So in a turnabout from the usual political order, progress on the hunter’s agenda was instead seen in the U.S. Senate. Just before the recess, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) led the Senate to approve a motion to proceed to a formal conference committee with the U.S. House on S. 2012, her broadly supported energy legislation. Loyal readers will recall the Senator’s bold stroke in April, when she moved to include several key sections of the Sportsmen’s Act in her energy bill. The Senate then approved her initiative by a bipartisan vote of 85-12.
Now, by sending that bill to conference, Senator Murkowski has cleared the way for the House and Senate to complete negotiations over the provisions of a final Sportsmen’s Act. The House passed a more comprehensive standalone version of the Sportsmen’s Act earlier in the year, and it passed its own version of the energy bill after the Senate combined the two. Now, by moving forward with a conference committee, Senator Murkowski has cleared the way for both chambers to agree to a final version of the Sportsmen’s Act provisions in the context of the larger energy bill, which markedly improves the chances for it to be signed into law by the president.
The conference committee is the final step of the process, marking the first time that this legislation has made it this close to final enactment. But the process will not be a short one, since Congress will not officially meet again until September, and the final content of the bill remains an open question. Rest assured your Washington SCI team will be working every possible angle to ensure that the final bill is as comprehensive as possible.
Back on the campaign trail, hunters and gun owners saw their choices more clearly defined by the conventions. Republican officially tapped Donald Trump as their nominee, and he in turn selected Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate. Pence is a longtime and staunch supporter of the rights of hunters and gun owners, with an unblemished record of support in the U.S. House, and more recently during his stint as Governor of Indiana. Pence actually considered entering the presidential race himself in 2012, but decided he needed to gain more executive experience before dipping his toe into a national race. His patience has now been rewarded, and gun owners and hunters can rest secure in the knowledge that Pence would be a steady hand as Vice President, with a deep knowledge of policy issues that are important to hunters, and a strong record of support.
The convention itself was a veritable tribute to the rights of hunters and gun owners, with a rhetorical focus on Second Amendment issues high on the agenda. A prominent speaking slot was occupied by SCI’s longtime friend Chris Cox, in his capacity as Chief Lobbyist for the NRA. Your correspondent can’t recall a precedent for such a prominent convention role being given to anyone in the pro-gun, pro-hunting community going back thirty years. The speeches given by Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and party chair Reince Priebus included a robust discussion of support for gun owners and hunters, as did the speech given by VP nominee Mike Pence. And of course Donald Trump himself also painted the contrast for voters, nothing that he would strongly support our Second Amendment rights while his opponent would work tirelessly to abolish them. The media chose to focus instead on the controversial moments in the proceedings, but gun owner and hunters paying careful attention saw a more pronounced focus on issues of concern to our community than in any recent convention in memory.
The Democratic convention, by contrast, portrayed our political adversaries as saintly figures. Top henchmen of the anti-gun and anti-hunting cabal were given prominent roles and speaking slots. Their lobbying groups convened a series of events throughout the week to focus media attention on their relentless agitation, and were rewarded with fawning coverage. And of course, Clinton’s pick of Tim Kaine for Vice President solidly confirmed her zeal to extinguish our rights. In Congress, Kaine has a consistent voting record of supporting every anti-gun, anti-hunting restriction that he has ever had the opportunity to pursue. When he was mayor of Richmond, he was an early supporter of Bloomberg’s gun control group. And most recently, he joined House members in their absurd “sit-in” protest to pass more gun control.
So now it’s official. Voters have a clear choice between the presidential tickets. The Republican slate has made an unapologetic stand in defense of our rights. And after years of attempting to shift attention away from their anti-gun, anti-hunting agenda, Democrats are even more zealous this cycle in giving their hostility toward our traditions a prominent, featured role in their campaign. It’s a high stakes bet, and our adversaries are counting on at least some part of our traditional electoral coalition to sit out this election for whatever reason. Then, if they are victorious, they can claim a mandate to push forward with an extremist agenda to restrict our rights in ways that aren’t remotely possible today.
It’s up to us to prove them wrong on Election Day. Because if we fail on November 8th, it will be much harder – and perhaps impossible – to defeat them later.
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