Rep. Tim Murphy is still waiting to hear from President Obama, but he’s not counting on it.
The Pennsylvania Republican has spent the last three years leading a bipartisan congressional effort to reform the nation’s mental healthcare system as a way to reduce the number of mass shootings in the country.
He also has repeatedly tried to engage Obama and the White House on the issue, to no avail.
After Speaker Paul Ryan deemed Obama’s new executive actions on gun control a “distraction” and vowed to ignore them, Murphy’s bill could be a rare area of agreement between Obama, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill when it comes to Washington’s response to mass shootings and gun violence.
A key component of Obama’s new executive actions on guns includes a call for $500 million to increase access to mental healthcare by expanding the service capacity of the behavioral health workforce.
This week, Murphy said Obama’s proposal to increase funding for mental health services could result in more lives lost if it doesn’t include serious reforms to the existing system. But Murphy says the president chose to act unilaterally and never tried to work with him on the issue, even though his legislation has garnered strong bipartisan support and more than 170 co-sponsors, including 43 Democrats.
“Um, never,” he said, when asked if the White House has reached out to him, considering his well-known bipartisan work on the issue.
“A few weeks ago I was at the White House and [told the president] I am the guy who is leading the issue on mental health — I want to talk to you about this,” he told the Washington Examiner. “He knows it’s me and we’ve been spending years on this. We’d love to have his help. Even in our press release, we said, ‘Mr. President, we really want to work on this. Talk to us on this.'”
He notes, however, that he finally met with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell about the bill just a few weeks ago.
Murphy’s legislation includes proposals to help hospitalize and stabilize people in mental health crises, increase the number of mental health providers and available psychiatric hospital beds, and take steps to involve parents and families in the front-line care decisions. It would also attempt to reorganize the federal mental health bureaucracy, including creating an assistance secretary for mental health.
The measure has wended its way through the committee slowly, but Murphy says it will pass out of committee in a matter of weeks.
But Republicans like Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, say Obama’s decision to move on his own is making it harder.
“I understand the argument that Congress hasn’t taken it up so I’m going to do this,” Simpson said. “But frankly when [Obama] takes executive action on his own, it makes it harder to do,” he said, just as Obama’s immigration action made it harder to pass immigration legislation.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., generally supports expanding background checks for firearm sales, and was a key proponent of the effort in 2013 after the Newtown, Conn., massacre. But McCain blasted Obama’s latest executive actions to increase background checks, accusing the president of “once again ignoring the separation of powers and disregarding the rule of law.”
“Regardless of merit, this is a classic abuse of executive power,” McCain said.
Murphy, however, is still holding out hope that his bill can be rare forum for bipartisanship and something that president may consider supporting.
“I’m always ready to work together,” he said.
