Last AWB update for today
The White House issued a “Statement of Administration Policy” calling for an unamended industry liability protection bill — on which VOTES ARE SCHEDULED BEGINNING AT 10:30 A.M. WEDNESDAY.
About 7 p.m. this evening Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist scheduled a vote at 10:30 a.m. on S. 1805, the renumbered S. 659/H.R.1036. First item up will be a filibuster-ending cloture vote on a motion to proceed.
ONE MORE TIME: Please call your Senators’ D.C. and state offices!
The White House “SAP” is important because it tells Republican Senators “President Bush doesn’t want to see the ‘assault weapon’ reenactment on his desk.”
George Bush may well have just said No! to the AWB. Given the fact he hasn’t met a bill he won’t sign, I am optimistic but not sold.
With that, I can get some sleep.
February 25th, 2004 at 12:19 pm
This confirms what I’ve suspected all along – GWB doesn’t want the AW ban to pass; he just doesn’t want to waste political capital opposing a semi-popular law that might just as well die on its own. Right now, President Gore would be twisting every arm he could to get the AW ban through. President Bush isn’t doing that. At the end of the day, that’s all that’s really going to matter.
I think I’ve pointed this out before, but while it is technically true that Bush has never vetoed anything, it is also misleading, as he has used the veto threat to keep quite a few bad bills from reaching his desk in the first place. I like to think of that as a preemptive veto.