Monday, during President Obama's stirring speech in Connecticut in support of a vote for the Newtown victims, Mitch McConnell
announced he would join the filibuster of gun legislation. But it turns out, he gave himself a
bit of an out.
“While nobody knows yet what Senator Reid’s plan is for the gun bill, if he chooses to file cloture on the motion to proceed to the Reid Bill (S. 649), Senator McConnell will oppose cloture on proceeding to that bill,” a McConnell spokesman said. [...]
McConnell aides wouldn’t say whether he would support a modified version of the bill that includes new language negotiated by moderate senators working on a potential compromise.
In other words, McConnell might not filibuster a watered down compromise version that doesn't have the Schumer language on expanded background checks that's included in S. 649. The compromise language
reportedly has language that would expand background checks to online and private gun show sales, but exempt person-to-person sales. That's a lure not just to Pat Toomey, who's negotiating this compromise, but to a
handful of Republicans who say they think the legislation should not be filibustered. That includes John McCain and Johnny Isakson, and,
Greg Sargent suggests, Susan Collins and Dean Heller.
So McConnell might not join in in blocking any gun legislation from even moving to the floor for debate. That leaves open the possibility of Reid and McConnell agreeing to move the bill to the floor on the compromise bill using the new rule agreed to in January to overcome filibusters on motions to proceed. Allowing the bill to go to the floor appeases McCain and Isakson, and makes Republicans not look quite so bad.
That doesn't mean they'll vote for any actual gun safety legislation, nor does it preclude a regular filibuster on final passage by any one of the 15 who've signed on to the filibuster promise. But it would let Republicans argue that they at least gave the families of Newtown a vote. One measly vote.