Tag: Muscle

On Tuesday, three Philadelphia legislators were elected to leadership spots in the House's Democratic caucus. Rep. Jordan Harris will be the caucus' new whip — the No. 2 leader, whose job is to persuade members to vote on bills important to the party. The new leadership slate elected Tuesday reflects the shift ushered in by midterm election voters: more women and more progressive candidates from the populous Southeast. Though Democrats still are outnumbered, 110-93, in the House, they netted 11 seats — all from Philadelphia and Montgomery, Chester, Bucks and Delaware Counties. They also gained nine women, the majority from the Southeast. On the flip side, Republicans in the House lost a number of critical suburban Philadelphia seats, and their caucus will now be more conservative. Only one of the eight GOP leadership positions is held by a legislator in the Southeast: Rep. Marcy Toepel (R., Montgomery), who was reelected caucus chair on Tuesday. GOP House members also chose Rep. Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster) to be the new majority leader. Rep. Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny), a fiscal conservative, was nominated as their choice for speaker — although the speaker position isn't finalized until the new legislative session begins in January, and the full chamber votes on it.

When Missouri Senate Bill 656 was introduced in 2016, it was relatively modest legislation that proposed capping the amount county sheriffs could charge for a concealed handgun permit. By the time it passed, with both houses of the Legislature overturning the governor’s veto, it had become one of the most expansive gun-rights laws in the country. The gun lobby fought hard to pass the bill. The group some lawmakers credited with providing crucial momentum was not so much the National Rifle Association, the powerful national lobbying organization, but rather the Missouri Firearms Coalition, an aggressive grassroots operation founded in 2015. With major gun-rights legislation stalled in Washington, much of the action has shifted to the states, where self-described “no compromise” groups such as the Missouri Firearms Coalition have mobilized activists in favor of pro-gun laws, according to Reuters interviews with gun-rights groups in more than a dozen states, lawmakers and NRA supporters. These groups have become increasingly active in promoting a pro-gun agenda in many states, unafraid of alienating lawmakers who waver on gun rights. In many cases, they say they would rather lose a legislative fight on principle than compromise and support a watered-down bill. “It’s always kind of interesting when you see a lot of people in the gun control community talk about how radical the NRA is,” said Pruett, whose group organized an email and telephone campaign to pass a 2016 Idaho law allowing people to carry concealed handguns without a permit, also known as “constitutional carry.” Missouri Firearms Coalition political adviser Aaron Dorr says the NRA fought against constitutional carry for years, considering it too much of a longshot, and only came on board once passage was certain. It has protected firearms manufacturers from liability for gun violence and pushed a ban on U.S. health officials from promoting gun control. In 2005, it shepherded through Florida’s landmark stand-your-ground law, then repeated the feat in nearly half the states.