Month: June 2010

Joe Huffman, in the context of this whole DISCLOSE fiasco, an interesting philosophical question:

This may end up being a Philosophy 101 question. Should someone (or an organization) be criticized for their intentions or on the results of their actions? If they were being very clever and defeated the bill we should praise them. If they were just looking out for the short term and got lucky with the same result should we be critical of them?

Let me start off by saying I don’t think any of this was some devious plot by NRA. There’s too many unknowns at work they couldn’t have predicted ahead of time. But in conflict, any kind of conflict, engaging with your opponent yields important information. It forces him to react. In most conflict, the victor is often not the smartest player in the game, but the player who makes the fewest mistakes. Philosophically, I think you have to look at intent. But what was NRA’s intent?

Boiled down to one sentence it was “If we’re subject to this bill, we’re going to oppose it.” That forced the enemy, in this case, Pelosi and Van Hollen, to react. They reacted poorly, first by rejecting Shuler’s proposal to exempt all 501(c)(4) advocacy groups, which would include NRA and nearly everyone else. Second in floating a blatantly transparent deal that exempted pretty much only NRA, that had the effect of pissing everyone else off enough to actually do something in opposition to the bill. NRA engaged the enemy, and they made mistakes. The entire chain of events was set in motion by NRA’s initial opposition to DISCLOSE. If the bill goes down to defeat, which is looking increasingly likely, I think it would be unfair not to give NRA credit for its defeat. It was the NRA’s opposition to the bill that forced the Democrats to make mistakes.

Perhaps it could be argued that NRA making public pronouncements about not opposing DISCLOSE with Van Hollen’s amendment was a mistake. There’s an argument to be made. I don’t think many historians would argue that our carrier tactics in the Battle of the Coral Sea were all that up to stuff, but it’s still widely considered an American win because we were the side that made fewer mistakes. Strategically, the implications of that conflict played out in our favor. So I don’t think it’s any less correct to credit NRA with defeating DISCLOSE than it would be to say the U.S. Navy won the Battle of the Coral Sea.

The Washington Examiner at least knows who’s fault this is:

The NRA’s chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, on May 26 wrote every House member, attacking the DISCLOSE Act for creating “a series of Byzantine disclosure requirements that have the obvious effect of intimidating speech.”

Cox wrote, “there is no legitimate reason to include the NRA” in the bill’s reporting and disclosure rules. Democrats say the bill is about curbing the political influence of corporations, which sometimes form nonprofit front groups to run issue ads. This bill aims to expose the real money behind such ads. The NRA, however, doesn’t hide behind front groups.

The NRA’s objection derailed the bill just before it was expected to pass.

Rep. Heath Shuler, a pro-gun Democrat from a conservative North Carolina district, responded with a proposal to exempt membership-based nonprofits from the bill. This would protect the NRA, Human Rights Campaign, Americans for Tax Reform, and many other groups.

Apparently, for Democratic leadership, that defeated the purpose. Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, wrote his own amendment, exempting only the largest membership groups. It was a carve-out for the NRA.

Health Schuler, who’s A-rated and endorsed by NRA, floated an amendment that would have pulled everyone’s ass from the fire. Chris Van Hollen, an F rated Democrat representing highly liberal Montgomery County, Maryland, counter proposed the infamous NRA carveout. Now, which one of these guys do you think was acting on NRA’s behalf?

This would seem to be the letter they are sending to members:

We appreciate some NRA members’ concerns about our position on H.R. 5175, the “DISCLOSE Act.”  Unfortunately, critics of our position have misstated or misunderstood the facts.

We have never said we would support any version of this bill.  To the contrary, we clearly stated NRA’s strong opposition to the DISCLOSE Act (as introduced) in a letter sent to Members of Congress on May 26 (click here to read the letter).

Through the courts and in Congress, the NRA has consistently and strongly opposed any effort to restrict the rights of our four million members to speak and have their voices heard on behalf of gun owners nationwide.  The initial version of H.R. 5175 would effectively have put a gag order on the NRA during elections and threatened our members’ freedom of association, by forcing us to turn our donor lists over to the federal government.  We would also have been forced to list our top donors on all election-related television, radio and Internet ads and mailings—even mailings to our own members.  We refuse to let this Congress impose those unconstitutional restrictions on our Association.

The NRA provides critical firearms training for our Armed Forces and law enforcement throughout the country.  This bill would force us to choose between training our men and women in uniform and exercising our right to free political speech. We refuse to let this Congress force us to make that choice.

We didn’t “sell out” to Nancy Pelosi or anyone else.  We told Congress we opposed the bill.  As a result, congressional leaders made a commitment to exempt us from its draconian restrictions on free speech.  If that commitment is honored, we will not be involved in the final House debate.  If that commitment is not fully honored, we will strongly oppose the bill.

Our position is based on principle and experience.  During consideration of the previous campaign finance legislation passed in 2002, congressional leadership repeatedly refused to exempt the NRA from its provisions, promising that our concerns would be fixed somewhere down the line.  That didn’t happen; instead, the NRA had to live under those restrictions for seven years and spend millions of dollars on compliance costs and on legal fees to challenge the law.  We will not go down that road again when we have an opportunity to protect our ability to speak.

There are those who say the NRA has a greater duty to principle than to gun rights. It’s easy to say we should put the Second Amendment at risk over some so-called First Amendment principle – unless you have a sworn duty to protect the Second Amendment above all else, as we do.

The NRA is a bipartisan, single-issue organization made up of millions of individual members dedicated to the protection of the Second Amendment.  We do not represent the interests of other organizations.  That’s their responsibility.  Our responsibility is to protect and defend the interests of our members.  And that we do without apology.

Certainly better, and more powerful than the last statement, and would refute the notion that they are going to reverse their position.