All about guns, legislation and politics in New York
Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown has come out against H.R. 822 in a letter to Mayor “Mumbles” Menino.
This isn’t a surprise. I wasn’t expecting him to vote in favor of the bill. His declared No vote isn’t likely to be enough to derail the bill in the Senate either. Both the antis and their media supporters continue to ignore the ’10 elections where a bunch of their allies lost. There should still be 60+ votes which is enough to prevent a filibuster when it comes to the floor.
Chuck Schumer finally address H.R. 822 in this NY1/YNN story:
“… There are 242 co-sponsors to the bill,” [Congressman Jerrold Nadler] said. “I hope we can stop it in the Senate.” That will likely happen, according to New York’s senior senator, Charles Schumer. “It’s come up in the past and the Senate’s defeated it,” he said. Schumer also said the bill would allow gun owners into the state without permission from law enforcement officials, which he said was not wanted …”
That isn’t what happened. When is came up last year it had 58 Yea votes, just short of the 60 needed to prevent Schumer’s promised filibuster. The ’10 elections should have added 6 pro-gun votes meaning there should be enough support now to end debate on the bill and bring it to the floor for a vote. Schumer isn’t saying this.
I’m hearing that Senator Mark Grisanti, a registered Democrat who ran as a Republican last year, is going to now caucus with the Democrats making for a 31-31 tie in the Senate. What exactly this means for committee chairmanships and legislation is unclear as the Democrats would still be split with 27 members under John Sampson and 4 under Jeff Klien’s Independent Democrat Caucus.
Tom Kirwan has finally won AD-100 after the appeals court ruled 4-0 on invalid ballots. Shelly has lost his supermajority in the Assembly and that will have widespread positive political ramifications. We go from D-rated Frank Skartados back to A-rated Kirwan.
Gov. Cuomo has nominated Darrel Aubertine to be Agriculture Commissioner.
Aubertine had a solid pro-gun record while in both the Assembly and Senate, although that probably had nothing to do with this nomination. Aubertine lost his re-election bid last November and was out of a job.
Andrew Cuomo has been sworn in as Governor. Marvelous.
He has a proven track record as an antigunner going back to his time at HUD. He didn’t make a big deal about guns during his campaign and I still believe Eric Schneiderman is going to be pointman on the issue. We should know soon enough what the Governor is going to do. Three things to look out for this month are:
With Schniederman, I know what he’s going to do: be a royal pain the in the ass and not just to New York gun owners. I expect he’ll waste no time announcing all sorts of antigun initiatives at the state and national level.
David Koon was one of the biggest antis in the legislature, sponsoring or co-sponsoring the worst of the gun control bills in the Assembly. Fortunately, he imploded and lost his bid for re-election last month. Now comes word that he’s been charged with harassment:
“Assemblyman David Koon has been charged with second-degree harassment, a violation, in connection with a pre-Election Day incident … Koon’s charge is related to an Oct. 29 confrontation over the placement of campaign signs. Ken Gullo of Perinton was putting up signs for Republican Carl Paladino, and Koon said he objected to their placement, saying they were in the right-of-way … Gullo’s attorney, Anjan Ganguly, said Gullo felt threatened during the incident. “Mr. Koon seemed to have a real problem with Mr. Gullo placing those signs where they were being placed,” Ganguly said …”
First Adam Bradley, now David Koon. Why are the antis so violent?
With the race in AD-89 over, the Republicans now have 50 seats in the Assembly. In the last undecided race in AD-100, Tom Kirwan is leading Frank Skartados by 60-something votes.
Shelly Silver’s supermajority in the Assembly is gone and that will affect lots of things including gun control legislation.
NRA/NYSRPA member Robert Castelli wins re-election in AD-89 by 112 votes.