Senate Torpedoes Background Check Deal
By Meredith Shiner
Roll Call Staff
April 17, 2013, 4:28 p.m.
Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call
Manchin, who was a key supporter of the background check legislation, delivered a floor speech earlier Wednesday in which he begged his colleagues to read the bill, emphasizing that it specifically prohibited a federal gun registry.
The Senate on Wednesday failed to advance a bipartisan background check proposal that Democrats had hoped would be the core of any bill.
The background check legislation, championed by Democrat Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Republican Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, received only 54 votes, six short of the 60 needed to clear a threatened filibuster. In the 24 hours leading up to the vote, President Barack Obama and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., along with her husband, Mark Kelly, had personally lobbied on-the-fence senators or those who had declared themselves as “no” votes. But those efforts failed.
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