WASHINGTON (AP) – As the nation grapples with yet another mass shooting and faces a settlement over the deaths of black men at the hands of the police, President Joe Biden is calling for action. But going further turns out to be a lot more difficult.
Three months after his presidency, Biden’s robust agenda comes up against the reality of his tight Democratic majority on Capitol Hill and the Senate’s limited ability to tackle multiple pieces of large-scale legislation at once. With the White House first targeting a sweeping coronavirus aid package and now a sprawling infrastructure plan likely to dominate the congressional calendar for months, issues such as gun control and police reform seem likely to fade into the background.
Biden insisted on Friday that this was not the case, saying that especially on the issue of gun control, “I have never given no priority to this.” He spoke a day after a gunman killed eight people at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, the latest in a burst of mass shootings in the United States in recent weeks.
One problem for Biden is many of the central promises he made to Democratic voters – especially black voters who got him to the White House – both about his priorities and his ability to maneuver in Washington, where issues like gun control have languished for years. The mass shootings, as well as the renewed attention to police killings of Americans of color following incidents in Chicago and suburban Minneapolis, have increased the demand for action.
DeAnna Hoskins, president and CEO of Just LeadershipUSA, a police reform advocacy group, suggested activists are willing to be patient, but not for long. She welcomed Biden’s recent executive orders on gun control, which took modest steps to tighten background checks, but said “those actions don’t go far enough.”
“They don’t have the tentacles down to really hit where rubber hits the road,” Hoskins said.
The White House says it can multitask by publicly pushing its infrastructure plan as it works to build support among moderate Democrats and Republicans on gun control and police reform behind the scenes.
“In this building, the legislative team, senior members of the White House, we are working on multiple fronts simultaneously,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
Officials say Biden’s less publicly prominent role in legislative discussions about weapons and police is inherent in the design, out of the risk of further politicizing the already complicated negotiations. They also argue that issuing executive orders on police could undermine any momentum on the issue on Capitol Hill, and they are buoyed by burgeoning discussions in Congress, such as talks between Republican Senator Tim Scott and Democratic Senator Cory Booker.
Yet Biden himself has described his legislative strategy as a “one by one” approach. He said last month that successful presidents make progress because “they know how to time what to do, order it, decide and prioritize what needs to be done.”
Implicit in that statement was that some priorities had to wait their turn.
Biden has taken a number of executive actions on weapons, targeting homemade “ghost weapons” and the stabilizing sidearms shackles that allow them to be fired from a shoulder, such as a rifle. He has not proposed new legislation to withdraw liability protections from arms manufacturers or to tighten federal background checks, despite a commitment to send such legislation to Congress on his first day of work. Instead, he backs the legislation proposed by House Democrats.
On police reform, Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday revoked Trump-era limits on assent decisions, the court-ordered agreements used to enforce reforms within police departments. But Biden hasn’t taken any major executive action yet, focusing largely on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act on Capitol Hill.
That focus has been embraced by some major police reform groups, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, whose interim president and CEO, Wade Henderson, said legislation was the best approach to such a persistent problem.
“This issue is far too urgent to be delayed, and Congress is by far the more appropriate place to consider legislative changes related to police accountability,” he said in a statement.
But that bill, approved by the House, is in the Senate – and that’s where vote counting gets tricky for the Biden White House.
Legislation on weapons and police cannot be considered in Congress through the budget reconciliation process, the route Democrats took to get through the fight against viruses with only their party’s 50 votes in the Senate. That’s the same way they appear on track to tackle infrastructure. That means Democrats need 10 Republicans to join them to pass the firearms or police laws under current Senate procedures.
“I urge my Republican friends in Congress, who refuse to advance the bill passed by the House, to bring it forward now,” Biden said Friday, referring to the gun control measure. “Who the hell needs a gun that can hold 100 rounds, or 40 rounds or 20 rounds. It’s just wrong and I’m not going to give up until it’s done.
Major lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Have been trying to find a way to get around the deadlock by involving colleagues in bipartisan talks. The House bill to expand background checks is similar to the bill that came closest in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings, but senators are now embroiled in disagreements over amenities, including transfers of firearms between family members. No breakthrough seems in sight.
“Ultimately, Congress has to do its job,” said Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., Recalling the president’s message to lawmakers during a two-hour private session with members of the Congressional Black Caucus this week.
The Senate logjam on such high-priority issues has increased pressure on Biden to embrace a growing movement within the Democratic Party to remove the 60-vote threshold needed to pass most legislation. But here he also faces opposition within his own party – Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona are both against eliminating the filibuster. Manchin, too, opposes House gun control bills, making their passage into the Senate all the more difficult.
The White House is in regular contact with gun control advocates. Most say they are satisfied with the first set of executive actions Biden has taken and are cautiously optimistic about his promise to work towards passing legislation on Capitol Hill.
Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said that while “I always want the Biden administration to do more,” he sees no “lack of effort” from Democrats in Congress or the White House.
“I think the key question is how much pressure we can put on Senate Republicans. How many more daily episodes of gun violence, how many more mass shootings do we have to watch? ” he said.
Horwitz said, “The state ship takes some time to turn – but we don’t have time because people are dying every day.”
Melina Abdullah, a co-director of Black Lives Matter-Grassroots, who coordinates work on the ground, chapter-based work for BLM, said Biden’s focus on infrastructure is a distraction from police crises that occur in communities of color.
“It’s been 160 days since Biden said to black people, ‘You’ve always had my back, and I’ll have yours,” Abdullah said in a statement sent to the AP.
AP writers Lisa Mascaro and Aaron Morrison contributed.