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January 18, 2013[image: politics]
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/politics/>
Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

Posted: 01/18/2013 11:56 am EST

WASHINGTON -- It was the early fall of 1994 when Rep. Dan Glickman (D-Kan.)
got his first piece of ominous news. An administrative aide in his district
office reported an abnormal number of angry letters from constituents upset
with his support for a ban on the manufacturing of assault weapons.
Glickman sought counsel from his colleagues.

“We are trying to work it out,” Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) told him. “But
it could be a problem for you, Dan.”

It was a sobering, chilling statement. But Glickman largely dismissed it.
After all, he had just helped pass aviation jobs legislation that would be
a boon for his constituents.

“I just figured my services and work on this aviation jobs bill, good looks
and funny mannerisms would get me through,” he recalled in an interview
with The Huffington Post. “I thought I was an F-ing hero, to be honest with
you."

Instead, he became a cautionary tale for future lawmakers. Despite 18 years
of service, Glickman was ousted from his House seat that November. His
support for the 1994 assault weapons ban made him a political casualty of
the gun policy wars.

“I didn’t know I was in the epicenter of this controversy until I started
going door to door in my district,” he said. "The NRA had made this issue
Armageddon."

More than 18 years since that watershed election, lawmakers are once again
entertaining the passage of an assault weapons ban. The provision is just
one of many<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/obama-assault-weapons-ban_n_2480819.html>
that
President Barack Obama proposed on
Wednesday<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/obama-gun-control-proposals_n_2486919.html>
as
part of a comprehensive approach to stem the recent increase in mass gun
violence. But political observers have already deemed it the most
controversial<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/obama-gun-control-proposals_n_2490355.html>,
warning that it could derail the entire package and even risk Democratic
seats in Congress.

Their warnings are borne of the fact that the political wounds sustained by
Glickman and others in 1994 have yet to fully heal.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about that vote recently,” said former Rep. Earl
Pomeroy (D-N.D.). “The political pressure to vote against was intense. But
I felt like the issue had a moral dimension because military-style weapons
had been used in the killing of innocent people.”

“It was the most emotional vote I cast in 18 years,” he concluded.

The 1994 assault weapons ban wasn’t a stand-alone bill. It was tucked into
the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, a far more sweeping
anti-crime measure. By public opinion standards, it wasn’t terribly
controversial. Voters largely accepted the rationale for a ban on the
production of assault weapons, according to news reports at the time.

But the legislative process was a grind. Glickman may have been unaware of
the political trouble brewing back home, but others could see it emerging.
Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Calif.), along with other congressional leaders, lobbied
President Bill Clinton's administration "very hard to separate the assault
weapons ban, knowing it would lose if unattached to the overall bill,"
recalled Stan Greenberg, Clinton’s pollster at the time. But the White
House didn’t budge.

“We were very focused on his crime agenda and not seeming to wobble on what
was a core principle,” said Greenberg.

Some lawmakers tried to shield themselves from the potential damage. Rep.
Jack Brooks (D-Texas), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, had
sponsored the crime bill, but the assault weapons provision concerned him.
His East Texas district housed more gun dealers than the entire state of
New York.

As the legislation progressed through Congress, Brooks tried to strip out
the ban and other controversial provisions. He brought them up for a vote
in conference committee, expecting them to be voted down. It blew up in his
face. His Republican counterpart on the committee, Rep. Henry Hyde
(R-Ill.), ended up supporting the provisions Brooks wanted removed, an aide
recalled.

The National Rifle Association, aware of Brooks' efforts, initially urged
its members to reelect the congressman. But other gun rights groups were
apoplectic. Gun Owners of America, then (and now) led by Larry Pratt,
attacked Brooks for not stopping the bill in its entirety. The NRA
eventually joined the chorus.
[image: incumbent in trouble]*An Oct. 19, 1994 AP article on the political
troubles Brooks faced.*

"Once we got back into the campaign, the bill passed and Jack had nothing
to argue about,” said Dan McClung, a longtime Houston-based consultant who
worked on Brooks' 1994 campaign. “The sweep got him. That day in Texas,
God, we lost everything. We lost [former Gov.] Ann Richards ... it was kind
of the start of the beginning of the end of the Democratic Party in Texas."

Brooks, who died this past December, still holds the distinction of being
the longest-serving incumbent ever to be voted out of office. He served for
42 years and, according to McClung, had been an NRA member for much of that
time.

Others suffered similar fates. In Pennsylvania, Democratic Sen. Harris
Wofford found himself, literally, in the crosshairs. Supporters of a young
congressman named Rick Santorum sold target practice sheets with Wofford’s
name on the bullseye -– a not-so-subtle reminder to voters of his support
for the assault weapons ban. Santorum narrowly defeated Wofford in the 1994
election.

In the House, Speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.) had become the public face of the
assault weapons ban, having spent the summer of 1994 arguing its merits.
Privately, he lobbied Clinton heavily to axe the provision, arguing that it
would endanger many members. He was one of them. On Election Day, Foley
would be the first speaker in more than a century to suffer defeat.

"The NRA was an unforgiving master: one strike and you're out," Clinton
would write in his 2004 autobiography, "My Life."

It was from the stunning defeats of Brooks, Foley, Wofford and others that
the legend of the NRA’s political muscle grew. When the assault weapons ban
lapsed in 2004, Congress didn’t renew it, because there wasn’t enough
desire to revisit the issue. The same basic calculus held true through the
first term of the Obama administration, during which not a single piece of
gun control legislation was considered.

It is only now, in the wake of the shooting deaths of 20 first-graders and
six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that the gun
lobby is again being politically challenged on this front. And as lawmakers
look to draw lessons from the previous fight, several of those who lived
through it argue that the political risk, much like the NRA’s power, has
been overstated.

“I think the all-powerful role of the NRA in '94 has probably been
exaggerated, or that they've cultivated that for their own benefit,” said
Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), who voted for the 1994 bill. “That this was the
key to taking over the House, I just don't remember it that way. There were
a lot of things in the mix.”

Price would lose his election that year but return to Congress in the next
cycle. The gun lobby’s influence wasn’t decisive, he said, but it did make
life difficult. As he recalled, the NRA would "spread the word about every
move we were making" so that their members were out in full force whenever
a public gathering occurred.

“I went to some of the NRA meetings in Arkansas and people would say, 'I
can't believe you are here,'" echoed former Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.)
who, at the time, was a one-term congresswoman forced to defend her assault
weapons ban vote to a district filled with devout gun owners. “I would talk
until I was blue in the face. There was just a lot of misinformation. There
were those who were never going to see what you were trying to tell them.”

The perseverance helped. Lincoln won reelection. So too did Pomeroy. And
while Price and Glickman lost, both say they are encouraged by the prospect
of trying to pass an assault weapons ban once more.

"I think the [Obama] administration is right to push a big policy and not a
little policy,” said Glickman, who became Agriculture Secretary weeks after
his 1994 defeat. “But Obama has to build public support and he needs
respected validators out there: people in the faith-based community,
business people, military, police, law enforcement. That even may not be
enough … This is a hard-ass political issue."

The White House is aware of this. An administration aide told The
Huffington Post that both the president and vice president would travel
outside of Washington to sell the comprehensive package of reforms. The
president’s campaign arm, recently converted to a non-profit 501(c)(4)
organization<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/18/%3Cbr%20/%3Ehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/18/organizing-for-action-obama_n_2503668.html?1358527721>,
would be utilized to drum up public support. In addition, the White House
would work hand-in-hand with mayors, governors, law enforcement, military
leaders, faith and parent groups to ensure that individual lawmakers
receive the cover they lacked 18 years ago.

In the end, however, gun control's fate will likely rest on a vote of
conscience, as much as one of political survival. None of the former
lawmakers interviewed said they regretted supporting the first assault
weapons ban. But all said it was one of the hardest votes they cast in
office.

"As a legislator on this and any other controversial votes, it raises the
question: Are you prepared to lose on this matter, and not be available on
every other issue on which you want to advance the nation,” said Pomeroy.
“That’s the question I faced.=9