How the legacy of Republican John Cornyn could be tied to gun safety reform

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WASHINGTON — In late May, U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema had simply completed talking to a bunch of reporters about the gut-wrenching taking pictures at a Uvalde elementary college. She beelined into the Senate chamber, the place she bumped into Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“I said to him, ‘Who should I talk to?’” the Arizona Democrat advised The Texas Tribune in an interview.

McConnell directed her to his de facto deputy: John Cornyn, a Republican who touts an A+ score with the National Rifle Association and represents the state with extra weapons than every other in the nation.

Still on the Senate ground, Sinema texted Cornyn, who was on a aircraft getting back from Uvalde, the place he and different state officers have been coping with the devastating aftermath of the May 24 bloodbath that left 19 elementary college kids and two academics useless. It was the nation’s deadliest taking pictures at a Ok-12 college since the one at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012.

“Mitch says to talk to you,” she mentioned in her textual content. “Let’s get going.”

The two senators met for breakfast the subsequent morning and received to work.

Three weeks later, Cornyn was the lead Republican of a bunch of 20 senators unveiling the framework for the landmark bipartisan gun legislation that, amongst different issues, would try to hold weapons out of the arms of harmful individuals by incentivizing crimson flag legal guidelines and shutting the “boyfriend loophole,” whereas rising scrutiny for gun patrons below the age of 21.

If it passes as proposed, President Joe Biden mentioned it “would be the most significant gun safety legislation to pass Congress in decades.” It would additionally imply that Cornyn’s legacy could quickly be tied to such an effort.

Whether the laws ever turns into legislation stays to be seen. It continues to be being sorted out behind closed doorways and as of Thursday, Cornyn advised reporters that there was nonetheless no settlement. He signaled that negotiations have been strained however mentioned he was not abandoning the work.

He and his allies are pushing to put the invoice on the ground subsequent week, forward of the Senate’s July 4 recess — a break that could sluggish momentum as the public’s consideration to the tragedy drifts. He advised the Tribune on Friday that the negotiators are “getting very close” to an agreed-upon legislative textual content.

“I think we’re going to be on a glide path to have a bill on the floor next week,” he mentioned.

But he acknowledged that point is of the essence.

“I’m just a little frustrated that people couldn’t make a decision,” he mentioned of his colleagues. “I was worried that our timeline would slip because if we didn’t have the text [of the bill], you know, in a reasonable time before next week that would be very hard to pass anything.”

Cornyn stays the prime Republican negotiator concerned — and he’s made no apologies to these to his proper who criticize him for his efforts.

“Good public policy and support for the Second Amendment are not mutually exclusive,” he mentioned in a separate interview earlier this month.

It’s a political danger for Cornyn to tackle a management position for laws that’s already being forged by some in his social gathering as a menace to Second Amendment rights.

But he’s uniquely fitted to the position to get one thing, something by. A broadly revered former Senate majority whip, Cornyn has expertise getting members of the social gathering on board. He has McConnell’s confidence. And he’s embraced gun safety laws in the previous after a gunman shot up a church in Sutherland Springs in 2017, when he labored with Democrats to go laws to strengthen the nationwide background examine system for gun purchases.

Cornyn has operated with a surgical degree of precision on gun legal guidelines that enables him to be each issues without delay: a dependable defender of gun rights with a voting file that almost mirrors his hard-charging Republican colleague Sen. Ted Cruz — and the go-to negotiator and probably conservative to be receptive to a compromise on gun laws on the heels of a tragedy.

He’s pushing for under precisely as a lot as he thinks he can get handed in the deeply partisan higher chamber, which is a problem as a result of he’ll want at the very least 9 Senate Republicans to stick with him to break by a filibuster. But he desires extra Republican senators than that, as a result of consensus means there’ll be fewer political targets.

“This can be a very polarizing issue … so it kind of goes with the territory,” he mentioned. “But if you get 77 senators on a bipartisan basis to do something, then it makes you a pretty small target for politics.”

Some gun safety advocates panned his work, saying they need extra significant change. Democrats, together with Biden, have pushed for a revival of the assault weapons ban and common background checks — neither of which have Cornyn’s assist.

But after failing to go just about any gun safety laws, 12 months after 12 months, even after the horrific Sandy Hook taking pictures in Connecticut, the place 20 6- and 7-year-olds and 6 adults have been killed a decade in the past, Democrats are poised to settle for no matter incremental adjustments they will get.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar is a Democrat who represents El Paso, the place a shooter in 2019 killed 23 individuals and left dozens injured in a Walmart parking zone. She known as the framework “extremely disappointing.”

“Red state senators know the red flag law accomplishes nothing in states like ours,” she mentioned. “We have a state legislature and governor tired of truly passing a crimson flag legislation. So incentives that hold Texans secure will go nowhere.

“However, I will support it for those states and governors who are interested in that,” she added.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for touch upon his place about incentivizing crimson flag legal guidelines.

“A punch in the gut”

The bipartisan group of lawmakers mentioned their purpose is to incentivize states to go crimson flag legal guidelines, that are designed to hold weapons out of the arms of people who pose a menace to themselves or others; improve funding for psychological well being companies, telehealth assets and extra college safety; allow juvenile data to be included into background checks for purchasers below the age of 21; and crack down on the straw buy and trafficking of weapons.

But as the Senate went house for the weekend, a significant holdup to a deal concerned the “boyfriend loophole,” one other provision of the package deal. Current federal legislation bans firearm purchases for these convicted of committing home violence towards spouses or companions who dwell collectively or share a baby. Closing the loophole would increase that definition to embrace relationship companions, which conservatives argue could be too expansive of a classification.

In addition to Sinema, Cornyn’s main negotiating companion throughout the aisle is U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, a person Cornyn described as wanting “to reach a result.”

Murphy gained the seat in November 2012, regardless of efforts by Cornyn to hold him out. At the time, Cornyn was the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a bunch tasked with serving to defeat Democrats. Just weeks earlier than he joined the Senate, tragedy struck Murphy’s congressional district in Newtown. A disturbed younger man entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and unleashed carnage, killing 26 college students and academics.

That spring, Murphy and different Democrats spent all of their political capital pushing for expanded background checks. They failed so spectacularly to marshal the 60 votes wanted to overcome a filibuster menace that the defeat melted into a way of legislative hopelessness that any gun management measure could ever be handed. Cornyn was amongst the Republicans to vote towards that measure.

For most of his 20 years in the Senate, Republicans like Cornyn have shaped an implicit blockade of practically all massive Democratic gun initiatives, to the level that Democrats largely gave up on addressing the situation.

Then in the fall of 2017, a gunman entered a Sutherland Springs church and killed 26 individuals, together with a pregnant mom and her unborn child.

“Sutherland Springs was a punch in the gut,” Cornyn mentioned.

It was sufficient to transfer Cornyn to take motion.

A former Texas legal professional common and state supreme courtroom justice, Cornyn assessed the proof that confirmed the shooter by no means ought to have been ready to buy the firearms he utilized in the killing spree as a result of he had a file for home abuse.

The shooter lied on his utility to buy weapons about his legal historical past, being dishonorably discharged from the army and about his psychological well being historical past. The vendor didn’t study his historical past, regardless of working a background examine, as a result of the Air Force had failed to add information on the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

Several months later, one more pupil gunman entered a Parkland, Florida, highschool and killed 17 college students. Driven by the activism of surviving Parkland college students, Cornyn’s invoice picked up steam.

Cornyn labored with Murphy to go laws, which held authorities companies accountable for failing to correctly doc people’ legal histories in NICS.

Known as the “Fix NICS” Act, it had the assist of 77 senators, and Cornyn inserted it into a large spending invoice that passed in 2018. Cornyn known as this accomplishment “near the top, if not the top” of his Senate achievements.

“Fixing the background check system will help save lives and reduce the likelihood of what occurred in Parkland and Sutherland Springs from happening again,” he mentioned at the time.

The Department of Justice reported that between April 2018 and March 2020, there was a rise in additional than 8 million background checks throughout three nationwide databases searched inside NICS — an 8.1% improve.

Conservative criticism

This previous week, Cornyn has taken on an rising degree of warmth from his personal social gathering amid more and more fragile negotiations.

A degree of competition amongst Republicans is the crimson flag provision in the framework. Cornyn mentioned the gunmen in Uvalde and at Sandy Hook each “have a pretty recognizable profile” and mustn’t have had entry to firearms.

At this weekend’s Republican Party of Texas conference in Houston, the place the viewers loudly booed Cornyn when he took the stage for his speech, The state social gathering can be contemplating language in its platform rebuking Cornyn and the different senators taking part in the negotiations — referred to as the “gang of 20.” A decision mentioned crimson flag legal guidelines “violate one’s right to due process and are a pre-crime punishment of people not adjudicated guilty.”

Cruz said Tuesday that he additionally has issues about crimson flag legal guidelines, signaling he’s unlikely to assist the coming invoice. But he mentioned he was ready to see the full textual content of the laws to determine.

“We’ve seen consistently whenever there is a horrific criminal event that Democrats’ top priority is not stopping the bad guys, not stopping the criminals, but rather disarming law-abiding citizens,” he mentioned. “If that’s what they try to push with this proposal, I think that would be a serious mistake.”

U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, a retiring Alabaman who’s the prime Republican on spending selections, advised the Tribune he’s dismayed by Cornyn’s effort.

“He’s trying to sell something that might be hard to sell, right now, among a lot of us … a lot of people aren’t going to support that bill,” he mentioned. “We haven’t seen the particulars but. We haven’t seen the price, what it will do.

“I think the Democrats … would be elated by this bill, and if they are, then Republicans have got to be skeptical,” he added.

Gun safety advocates are actually framing the laws as a possible win.“You celebrate every success and you celebrate incremental change, and this is that for sure,” mentioned Nicole Golden, the govt director of Texas Gun Sense, a gun regulation advocacy group. “Some people say it’s moderate. Yes, I think it’s something to build on, and for those like me, who got involved in this work after Sandy Hook, it’s the biggest movement seen in almost a decade.”

Cornyn on Friday shrugged off the damaging suggestions.

“This sort of negotiation, you know, has its ups and downs,” he mentioned. “Yeah. And, but I think we’re in a pretty good place right now. So I’m optimistic.”

Cornyn is one of the prime congressional recipients of NRA donations. The NRA declined to remark till the textual content of the invoice is launched.“We will make our position known when the full text of the bill is available for review,” an NRA spokesperson mentioned.

Asked about potential opposition from the NRA and different gun rights organizations, Cornyn mentioned, “No group has a veto over what we do here.”

But he added, “we’re listening to what they have to say.”

If the laws passes in the Senate, it’s poised to sail by the House and be signed into legislation by Biden, who not too long ago known as him a “rational Republican.”

But failure is an possibility right here. It all the time is when it comes to the U.S. Senate.

Someday, Cornyn will return to Uvalde with or with out a invoice handed. When requested about the prospect of touring again to the devastated neighborhood empty-handed, Cornyn acknowledged the potential for defeat.

“Obviously, it would be disappointing, and it would be a missed opportunity to do a lot of good,” he mentioned.

Eric Neugeboren and Patrick Svitek contributed to this report.

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