Senate leader takes no chance on NRA billby LAURIE KELLMAN
Until lawmakers vote on a top-priority gun rights bill, nothing else happens in the Senate. And that includes Congress' prized monthlong vacation.
That's the way Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has toughened up his style in the final days before the August break was to begin, learning from last year to leave no room for gun control advocates to derail legislation limiting lawsuits against the gun industry.
Frist, R-Tenn., used Senate parliamentary procedures Wednesday to keep Democrats from dooming the measure with an amendment that would offend the National Rifle Association.
Last year, the NRA abruptly withdrew its support from a similar bill after Democrats succeeded in adding a measure that would renew the expiring assault weapons ban. Frist took the bill down.
But emboldened by a four-seat GOP gain in last November's elections, Frist this week cleared the floor of the $491 billion defense bill and replaced it with the gun liability bill sponsored by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.
The bill would prohibit lawsuits against firearms manufacturers, dealers and importers for damages resulting from the unlawful use of a firearm or ammunition. It provides for some exceptions.
Frist opened the formal debate Wednesday by presenting his own amendments. The parliamentary impact was to bar any other amendment. One after another, Democratic amendments were submitted and blocked by Craig, who also sits on the NRA's board of directors.
Craig said the maneuver provided time for Republicans to examine the amendments.
"There is no intent to block all amendments," Craig said.
Frist's maneuver put Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in the unusual position of supporting both Craig's bill and his fellow Democrats' right to change it with amendments. Not even during the Senate's debate on judicial filibusters did Frist play such hardball, Reid said.
"It's not in keeping with how he's done business here," Reid said. "I'm surprised."
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