Senate Democrats are pushing for a stronger effort against the Islamic State amid polls showing a rising fear of terrorism among Americans.
The legislation unveiled Wednesday doesn’t go as far as Republican efforts to prod President Obama would like in taking a tougher approach against the extremist group, but it’s a sign congressional Democrats are concerned that the president’s unwillingness to significantly change his strategy is putting the party out of touch with the mood of voters as an election year approaches.
The package includes tough new sanctions on financial institutions caught handling money for the Islamic State, a more aggressive bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria, increased support for local forces fighting the group on the ground and improved screening for refugees coming into Europe.
The package also calls for the appointment of a “czar” to coordinate the fight against the group, even though the president has already appointed an aide, Rob Malley, to fill that position.
On the homefront, the senators called for requiring countries participating in the visa waiver program to have machine-readable electronic passports, improved technology and training for airport screeners and a new office in the Department of Homeland Security dedicated to stopping homegrown extremism.
“There’s no quick fix to the scourge of terrorism, but Congress can take important, common sense steps today to make our country safer and stronger,” Minority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said in a statement.
Much of what Democrats have proposed mirrors Republican efforts to enhance homeland security, though GOP lawmakers want a much more aggressive military campaign against the Islamic State.
House Republicans had already assembled a task force of committee chairmen to push a wide range of new legislation in response to Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris that killed 130, and had ramped up the rhetoric against Obama for his refusal to change his strategy.
The House on Tuesday, by an overwhelming, bipartisan 407-19 vote, passed legislation to tighten the visa waiver program by requiring visas for citizens from waiver countries who have traveled to Iraq, Iran, Syria or Sudan in the previous five years, and requiring counterterrorism cooperation as a condition of remaining in the program.
The Foreign Affairs Committee meanwhile on Wednesday approved bipartisan legislation to bolster efforts to drive terrorist supporters off social media platforms, many of which are U.S.-based, by requiring the Obama administration to work with companies on a strategy against them. This also was one of the proposals in the legislation unveiled by Senate Democrats.
Ten Republican senators, in a letter sent Tuesday, called for U.S. military advisers in Iraq and Syria to be placed closer to the fight and demanded the administration loosen restrictions on aerial bombardment of potential extremist targets.
The senators also added their voices to the international call for the United States to create and enforce a “safe zone” for civilians in Syria to stem the flow of hundreds of thousands of refugees out of the country.
“This list of potential courses of action is not an exhaustive one, but we believe that pursuing even some of these would represent a needed boost in the fight against ISIS,” the letter said. It was signed by Republicans John Cornyn of Texas, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Orrin Hatch of Utah, David Perdue of Georgia, Jim Risch of Idaho, Pat Roberts of Kansas, Mike Rounds and John Thune of South Dakota, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and David Vitter of Louisiana.
Polls taken since the Dec. 2 attacks in San Bernardino, in which a husband-and-wife team of ISIS supporters killed 14 at a holiday party, show that Americans already dissatisfied by Obama’s response to Paris had grown even more so. In a Dec. 6-7 Rasmussen poll of 1,000 likely voters, 43 percent rated Obama’s response to the California killings as poor. Gallup cited the fear of terrorism as a major reason why Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going dropped 7 percentage points to 20 percent after the San Bernardino attack.
The Democratic plan also includes a non-starter for the GOP: another bid to deny gun purchases to “known or suspected terrorists,” which in past proposals have been defined as those either on a no-fly list or a terrorism watch list.
Republicans say it’s unconstitutional to deny people the right to buy a gun on the basis of mere suspicion. Also, the American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the no-fly list in court as an unconstitutional infringement of due process rights.
