Friday, May 27, 2022

The 2013 Senate vote on expanding background checks was 54-46, but Senator Joe Manchin's legislation was filibustered

As Heather Cox Richardson wrote in her "Letter from an American" for 26 May 2022, the United States Senate responded to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on 14 December 2012 with a bipartisan bill to expand background checks. The vote was on 17 April 2013, with 54 Senators supporting it. Yet it did not pass because the filibuster requires 60 votes for contested legislation. It was opposed by 40 Republicans and 6 Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The failed bill is known as the Manchin-Toomey amendment, yet now, in 2022, the Senator primarily responsible for it, Democrat Joe Manchin, continues to resist calls to eliminate the filibuster. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 27 May 2022)

 




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