As the holidays approach, here’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Seventeen years ago Rep. Jay Dickey of Arkansas drafted a budget rider that stated that “[n]one of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” This rider, supported by the NRA and a wave of Republicans empowered by the 1994 elections, was ostensibly intended to eliminate “advocacy” in the CDC’s work, which the NRA’s attack dogs claimed was unscientific and inappropriate for the CDC’s work. That rider has passed in every single budget rider since, effectively banning government research into gun violence even as gun violence and mass shootings have become national concerns.
And as of last night, it looks like we can call it an 18-year ban. Paul Ryan and congressional leaders including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have reached a compromise bill that will continue to fund the government. However, Pelosi’s fight to have the Dickey Amendment eliminated in this budget will probably fail as a compromise to outmaneuver the Freedom Caucus. The Hill reports:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has come up empty in her efforts to eliminate a budget rider that has halted nearly all government research into gun violence for 17 years.
The trillion-dollar spending bill unveiled early Wednesday morning keeps in place the controversial amendment, which Pelosi had told gun control groups was a “priority” in the budget talks. It is on page 936 of the 2,009-page bill.
The top House Democrat added the gun research ban to her list of demands for GOP leaders during budget negotiations — the only gun-related provision that she has put her weight behind publicly in the wake of massacres in Colorado Springs, Colo., and San Bernardino, Calif., in recent weeks.
Still, Pelosi had carefully refrained from a threat to reject the overall bill if her demand isn’t met, following a series of failed attempts at strengthening gun control since 2012.
The continued existence of the Dickey Amendment is a disappointment. Rep. Dickey himself regrets the rider and acknowledges that it is over-interpreted. It is absolutely absurd that the CDC, which has done incredible work in researching safety and prevention around transportation and other non-biological common causes of death (and which is the most well-equipped agency to be tasked with figuring out how to stop gun violence) is barred from doing such work.
The failure to remove the rider signifies that the NRA and Republican leadership do not actually want to figure out how to stop gun violence, and also that House Democrats, despite the leverage they now possess thanks to Freedom Caucus obstructionism, are still toothless in any attempt to even begin to address the rash of mass shootings.