Senate Democrats bring chamber to a halt over resolution on gun control

By Chris Black/CNN

May 16, 2000
Web posted at: 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Democrats made good Tuesday on their threat to bring the Senate to a halt unless they are granted an opportunity to vote on legislation containing gun control measures.

Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (South Dakota) proposed a "sense of the Senate" resolution praising the participants in Sunday's Million Mom March on the National Mall in Washington and calling for swift consideration of a long-stalled juvenile justice bill.

That bill contains five gun control provisions, including closure of a legal loophole that allows gun purchasers to buy firearms at gun shows without a background check. The legislation has been stuck in a joint House-Senate conference since last summer over disagreements on the length of time allotted for the gun show background check.

Daschle's resolution is non-binding, and would not change any law, but would put each senator on record on the gun issue if it were actually brought up for a floor vote.

Senate Republican leaders have taken an unusually restrictive approach to action on the floor this year in an attempt to protect vulnerable senators from voting on controversial issues in an election year.

Because Democrats are in the minority, the offering of amendments to bills under consideration on the floor is one of the only ways they can highlight issues on their agenda.

On Tuesday afternoon, Republicans objected to Daschle's proposal and the Senate went into a quorum call, effectively stopping regular Senate business.

In response, Daschle said Democrats would not permit the quorum call to end until Senate Republican leaders allow a vote on the resolution.

The minority leader made it clear that chamber Democrats are prepared to engage in daily parliamentary warfare until Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) relents and allows Democrats to offer their amendments on gun control and other hot-button issues.

Daschle said Democrats will go to the floor every day and read the names of Americans who died in acts of gun violence one year ago that very day.

This tactic now delays continuation of consideration of the fiscal 2001 military construction appropriations bill, which contains a provision requiring U.S. combat troops be pulled out of the Kosovo peacekeeping force by July 1, 2001.

Gen. Wesley Clark, the former commander of NATO, was on Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon, lobbying senators to vote in favor of a proposal to strike that language from the bill.

The military construction bill is regularly among the first of the 13 seasonal appropriations bills to reach the House and Senate floors. It is generally considered to be the least controversial of the 13 and the easiest to pass.