After spending months and, in the case of gun control legislation, years calling for change, President Obama is leaving it up to congressional Democrats to duke it out with the GOP on some major issues while he relies on the bully pulpit instead of engaging lawmakers personally.
Obama pushed hard in 2013 to tighten gun laws after 20 school children were shot in December 2012 in Newton, Conn., issuing 23 executive orders and three presidential memos. But most actions, such as renewing the lapsed federal ban on assault rifles, required congressional approval, which Republicans refused to grant.
He signaled his current approach to the gun safety debate last June after nine people were shot dead in a black church in Charleston, S.C.
“At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries,” Obama said then. “I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now … and at some point it’s going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it.”
Four months ago, he asked Congress for $1.9 billion to combat the Zika virus, but quickly hit the conservative wall. He put top administration figures before congressional panels and had them respond to numerous GOP requests for additional information and details. Failing that, the White House used props and briefings to keep the issue front and center.
But as both issues reached a boiling point on the Hill last week, the White House merely cheered on cheeky House Democrats who staged a floor protest and chastised Republicans for their intransigence from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Obama left Washington on Thursday to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in San Jose, Calif., before popping up to Seattle for fundraisers and probably some weekend golf as the fate of gun control proposals remained in flux and after House Republicans thumbed their nose at his Zika funding request.
“This plan from congressional Republicans is four months late and nearly a billion dollars short of what our public-health experts have said is necessary to do everything possible to fight the Zika virus and steals funding from other health priorities,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated after a House-Senate conference committee issued a report that gives the administration only $1.1 billion to fight the mosquito-borne virus.
“The fact that the Republican plan limits needed birth control services for women in the United States and Puerto Rico as we seek to stop the spread of a sexually transmitted disease is a clear indication they don’t take seriously the threat from the Zika virus or their responsibility to protect Americans.”
On Wednesday, Earnest essentially said Obama considers button-holing recalcitrant lawmakers futile.
“I don’t really understand why the president should be in a position where he has to twist arms in Congress to get Republicans to do the common-sense things that would protect the country from the Zika virus,” he responded when asked why Obama didn’t schlep up the street or pick up the phone to work members.
“[W]e’ve made a substantive case about why this is important,” Earnest continued when pressed. “But at some point, Republicans in Congress actually have to do the job that they’ve worked so hard to get.”
On the gun issue, Obama issued 10 more executive orders in January after instructing his team to look under every administrative stone for any additional unilateral actions he could take. Days later, he convened a cable TV “town hall” to explain his rationale. He railed against Republicans and the National Rifle Association for blocking the legislative route, but concedes he has exhausted all paths that do not run across the Capitol.
Even gun-control advocates acknowledge that Obama can do nothing more than attempt to shame the GOP and prod voters.
After a radical Islamist turned a gay Orlando, Fla., nightclub into a shooting gallery, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence made no requests of Obama. Instead, spokesman Brendan Kelly told the Washington Examiner: “There is plenty Congress can and should do.”
