Today on the Hill: Background Check Bill Hits Senate Hiccup; House to Cast Final Votes of the Week

With a quiet official schedule, lawmakers are using the public momentum for gun control to craft legislation that would make some limited changes to the nation’s background check system and gun purchasing policies. The starting place for those negotiations is a bill dubbed Fix NICS (National Instant Check System) that would push state and local governments to submit more information to the national background check system. House lawmakers have already approved the measure — albeit in a package (H.R. 38) that included a controversial policy to provide state reciprocity for concealed carry permits — but opposition emerged yesterday from both sides of the political spectrum in the Senate after Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) held up quick passage of Fix NICS and Senate Democrats lambasted it as too modest to combat the problem of mass shootings. It’s unclear what the next step is in the Senate, and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has suggested the lower chamber will refrain from any additional gun measures until the Senate makes its next move.

Scheduled floor action today includes House consideration of a bill (H.R. 1865) that aims to give state governments more flexibility in combatting sexual trafficking through online platforms and a measure (H.R. 4296) that would limit the operational risk capital requirements that can be promulgated by federal banking regulators. The former bill was passed on voice vote out of the House Judiciary Committee, while the latter advanced 43-17 in a Financial Services Committee markup last November. Votes on the two bills will likely be the last that House lawmakers cast this week as Speaker Ryan has cleared the House schedule to allow for Billy Graham to lay in honor in the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday and Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Senate has a final up-or-down vote scheduled on the nomination of Elizabeth Branch to join the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals after the nomination cleared cloture yesterday on a 72-22 vote. The Senate will also hold its weekly caucus meetings, with discussion of the gun control legislation likely to play prominently.