Citing a “sobering and sad week,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer announced that the Republican and Democratic leaders would forgo their weekly partisan exchange about the House schedule and instead promised to “sit down together,” to help unify the nation.
Hoyer, D-Md., said he met with Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Friday after the nation was shaken by the shooting of a dozen Dallas police officers, five of them fatally. The shooting came after two black men were killed by police officers in separate incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota.
“The majority leader and I had a brief conversation on the floor where he said to me, and I agree, that we need to sit down together and try to see how we can bring this country, this House, together on a way forward … to decrease the tension that exists between citizens and law enforcement officers.”
Hoyer’s pledge comes after House Democrats have been demanding Republicans allow votes on two gun control measures and following a June sit-in demonstration by Democrats that blocked legislative business.
Democrats want votes on legislation to expand background checks for gun purchases and to prevent those on the federal terror watch list from purchasing firearms. Party leaders have been using delaying tactics on the House floor to advocate for their legislation and have threatened more disruptive floor demonstrations.
Most Republicans oppose those measures and are instead struggling to find support to pass a bill that implements a three-day waiting period for gun purchases by those on the watch list, which Democrats oppose.
Leadership aides have not set any specific meeting, aides said, and neither side is likely to embrace the gun control legislation offered by the other party. But McCarthy struck a conciliatory tone with Hoyer and the exchange suggested the two parties may try to end the acrimony over their differences on gun control.
“It is a time for this nation to heal, it is time for this nation to unite and it is a time for justice to be done,” McCarthy said. “For that to start, this House needs to be an example.”
