The House of Representatives is taking the first legislative step towards addressing school security issues, following the school shooting incident in Florida last month that killed 17 people.
According Majority Leader Kevin McCarty (R-California), “We will have that bill up on the floor next week. That will add to … the Fix NICS (National Instant Background Check System) bill that we have sitting over in the Senate, we’ll also have the FBI up here talking to Oversight and Judiciary on where the failures happened and why, to make sure we can have those corrections, so that it could never repeat itself again,” told reporters during a press conference.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is also expected to produce it’s own solutions to the problem of school security soon. There is a Senate hearing that is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday entitled, “See Something, Say Something: Oversight of the Parkland Shooting and Legislative Proposals to Improve School Safety.”
When Grassley announced the hearing, he said that “This committee has an important oversight role to play. The great tragedy of the Parkland shooting is that it was preventable. The FBI and local law enforcement failed to act on credible tips that should have neutralized the killer and gotten him help.”
“There will be huge rallies and demonstrations on the 24th. They expect millions of people to come to Washington … and we will try to force floor action after that rally, when our Republican friends see they are just against the nation,” Schumer told reporters on Tuesday.
Whether House Republicans will refute the Senate bill or accept it, still remains unclear. Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), told in an interview with the reporters that, “We have had conversations with members of the House. … [But] we’ll simply have to wait until we move further forward in the process to know the answers to what we can get done there.”
After an initial vote late last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said, “Senate Republicans voted unanimously for the #BankLobbyistAct. But this bill wouldn’t be on the path to becoming law without the support of these Democrats.” In an official statement by a senior administration member, “The administration has been very clear that we don’t think this is an efficient use of taxpayer dollars.” Further adding that “Any official position on the legislation would be issued through a Statement of Administration Policy.”
