Wednesday, April 17, 2013

A Shameful Day In Washington

The majority of US senators voted for a bill that would help to limit access to guns.  However, a majority is not sufficient to get a bill passed in the Senate.  Opponents of the bill used a filibuster to keep the bill from moving through the legislative process.  It takes a super-majority of 60 votes to defeat a filibuster.  Four democrats voted with 90% of the republican senators to sustain the filibuster.

80% of the public supported the proposed bill,  and the vote in the Senate was 54 to 46 to end the filibuster.  We have a political system that is designed to prevent legislation, supported by the public, from receiving a vote on the Senate floor.  It is very difficult to get a super-majority on any legislation that is opposed by an influential lobby.  The NRA opposed the bill and it lied about the content of the bill. Many of the senators who opposed the bill probably thought that it would help to limit the criminal use of guns in America. Unfortunately,  many of them have to run for reelection in Red states that oppose gun control.  They give a higher priority to surviving an election than they do to serving the public interest. 

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