Senate leaders: Too close to say if gun control bill has the votes to pass

The bipartisan deal on expanded background checks for gun buyers appeared Sunday to garner more Republican support, but Capitol Hill leaders could not say whether the overall gun-control bill will have enough votes as the full debate begins this week.

The legislation will need 60 votes to pass in the chamber, which means it will need Republican support for Senate Democrats facing re-election in gun-friendly districts.

"It's an open question as to whether or not we have the votes,” Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I think it's going to be close."

Toomey joined West Virginia Democratic Joe Manchin in crafting the background proposal, which would cover Internet and gun show purchases but would still exempt sales between family members.

Background checks currently apply only to transactions handled by the country's 55,000 licensed gun dealers.

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer -- who has worked since January on a larger plan to curb gun violence that could win bipartisan support -- told ABC’s “This Week” he has strong support from fellow Democrats.

“But … we're working really hard to maximize both the number of Democrats who will be the overwhelming majority of those who vote for it and a number of Republicans,” he said.

Senate Democrats and others have been trying to fulfill President Obama’s second-term priority of curbing gun violence since the December 2012 shootings at a Connecticut elementary school in which 20 first-graders and six adults were killed.

However, the effort has faced strong opposition on Capitol Hill and from such major gun lobby groups as the National Rifle Association.

Plan to ban high-capacity gun magazine clips and re-institute a ban on semi-automatic weapons have already been removed from the legislation, for lack of support. However, they could re-emerge as Senate amendments.

The full Senate debate is expected to begin Monday, after enough senators voted last week to stop a Republican-led effort to block the legislation from going forward.    

Among the Republicans to express support Sunday was Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine.

 The plan would "strengthen the background check system without in any way infringing on Second Amendment rights," she said in a statement.

However, "it is impossible to predict at this point" what will be in a final bill, she added.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has a B+ rating from the NRA, told CNN that he said was "very favorably disposed" to the Manchin-Toomey proposal.

"I appreciate their work," he said. "And the American people want to do what we can to prevent these tragedies. And there's a lot more that needs to be done, particularly in the area of mental health."

It was in McCain's home state that a gunman with schizophrenia shot then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head during a 2011 rampage in Tucson that left six people dead.

Collins and Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois are the only two Republicans who are expected to vote for the compromise as of now.

On Sunday, Manchin urged lawmakers to read the 49-page proposal. He said it should dispel any misconceptions about infringing on the constitutional right to bear arms.

The proposal, in fact, expands firearms rights by easing some restrictions on transporting guns across state lines, protecting sellers from lawsuits if buyers passed a check but later used a gun in a crime and letting gun dealers conduct business in states where they don't live.

However, he also acknowledged the vote would be tight.

“We're close,” Manchin told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We need more."

The compromise, if successful, would be added to overall legislation to strengthen laws against illegal gun trafficking and to increase slightly school-security aid.  

Other additions to the legislation also are expected to be debated this week, including a measure that would allow concealed hand gun permits issued by one state to be accepted nationwide as a de facto background check.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Senate leaders: Too close to say if gun control bill has the votes to pass

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  FILE: April 10, 2013: Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, left, and Republican Sen. Patrick Toomey, of Pennsylvania, announce a deal on gun-control legislation, on Capitol Hill, in Washington.AP

The bipartisan deal on expanded background checks for gun buyers appeared Sunday to garner more Republican support, but Capitol Hill leaders could not say whether the overall gun-control bill will have enough votes as the full debate begins this week.

The legislation will need 60 votes to pass in the chamber, which means it will need Republican support as well as support from Senate Democrats facing re-election in districts with a strong tradition of gun rights.

"It's an open question as to whether or not we have the votes,” Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I think it's going to be close."

Toomey joined West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in crafting the background proposal, which would cover Internet and gun show purchases but would still exempt sales between family members.

Background checks currently apply only to transactions handled by the country's 55,000 licensed gun dealers.

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer -- who has worked since January on a larger plan to curb gun violence that could win bipartisan support -- told ABC’s “This Week” he has strong support from fellow Democrats.

“But … we're working really hard to maximize both the number of Democrats who will be the overwhelming majority of those who vote for it and a number of Republicans,” he said.

Senate Democrats and others have been trying to fulfill President Obama’s second-term priority of curbing gun violence since the December 2012 shootings at a Connecticut elementary school in which 20 first-graders and six adults were killed.

However, the effort has faced strong opposition on Capitol Hill and from such major gun lobby groups as the National Rifle Association.

Plan to ban high-capacity gun magazine clips and re-institute a ban on semi-automatic weapons have already been removed from the legislation, for lack of support. However, they could re-emerge as Senate amendments.

The full Senate debate is expected to begin Monday, after enough senators voted last week to stop a Republican-led effort to block the legislation from going forward.    

Among the Republicans to express support Sunday was Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine.

The plan would "strengthen the background check system without in any way infringing on Second Amendment rights," she said in a statement.

However, "it is impossible to predict at this point" what will be in a final bill, she added.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has a B+ rating from the NRA, told CNN that he was "very favorably disposed" to the Manchin-Toomey proposal.

"I appreciate their work," he said. "And the American people want to do what we can to prevent these tragedies. And there's a lot more that needs to be done, particularly in the area of mental health."

It was in McCain's home state that a gunman with schizophrenia shot then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head during a 2011 rampage in Tucson that left six people dead.

Collins and Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois are the only two Republicans who are expected to vote for the compromise as of now.

On Sunday, Manchin urged lawmakers to read the 49-page proposal. He said it should dispel any misconceptions about infringing on the constitutional right to bear arms.

The proposal, in fact, expands firearms rights by easing some restrictions on transporting guns across state lines, protects sellers from lawsuits if buyers passed a check but later used a gun in a crime and lets gun dealers conduct business in states where they don't live.

However, Manchin also acknowledged the vote would be tight.

“We're close,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We need more."

The compromise, if successful, would be added to overall legislation to strengthen laws against illegal gun trafficking and to increase slightly school-security aid.  

Other additions to the legislation also are expected to be debated this week, including a measure that would allow concealed hand gun permits issued by one state to be accepted nationwide as a de facto background check.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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FAA to close 149 air traffic towers, senator calls for using untapped research money to save them

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  March 9, 2010: In this photo, an American Eagle flight waits for release from the air traffic control tower at Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington, Ill.AP/The Pantagraph

The Federal Aviation Administration announced Friday that it will close 149 air traffic control towers, in a move one lawmaker said was akin to "removing stop lights and stop signs from our roads." 

That  lawmaker, Republican Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, also claims the FAA could save the towers by tapping into millions of dollars in unspent FAA research money. 

Yet the FAA moved forward Friday with plans to shut down the air traffic control facilities, describing them as a necessary cutback due to the sequester.

"These were very tough decisions," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a written statement. 

The cuts will affect small airports starting April 7. The closures will not force the shutdown of any of those airports, but pilots will be left to coordinate takeoffs and landings among themselves over a shared radio frequency with no help from ground controllers under procedures that all pilots are trained to carry out. The FAA decided to keep open 24 towers that were on the original list of possible closures. 

"We will work with the airports and the operators to ensure the procedures are in place to maintain the high level of non-towered airports," FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a statement. 

But the plan has raised concerns about the impact on safety and the potential financial effect on communities that rely on airports as key economic engines for attracting businesses and tourists. 

"The administration's decision to shutter these air traffic control towers is short-sighted and dangerous," Moran said in a statement "Closing control towers is equivalent to removing stop lights and stop signs from our roads. It is clear that this administration is putting its top-line message, that spending cannot be cut without severe consequences, before the safety and well-being of Americans." 

Moran is pushing an amendment to take $50 million from "unobligated FAA research and capital funds" from past spending bills and use that to save the air traffic control towers. The amendment did not receive a vote when proposed as part of the recently passed 2013 stopgap spending bill -- it's unclear whether it could get a vote Friday as an amendment to the 2014 budget resolution. However, any amendment to the 2014 budget package would have no effect this year, and the senator is considering introducing the proposal as a stand-alone bill. 

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association also blasted the decision announced Friday, while spreading the blame between Congress and the administration. 

"The closure of these air traffic control towers will reduce the overall margin of safety of our entire aviation system," association president President Paul Rinaldi said. "Ultimately, the partisan posturing in Washington that led to sequestration is the reason for today's decision and its destructive effects on aviation. The FAA made a bad situation worse by not utilizing a well-thought-out process for evaluating the value of air traffic control towers before ordering their closure." 

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., also voiced concern that "75 percent of the towers the Obama administration is closing are located in Republican congressional districts." 

Under the sequester, the FAA has to trim $637 million for the rest of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. The agency said it had no choice but to subject most of its 47,000 employees, including tower controllers, to periodic furloughs and to close air traffic facilities at small airports with lighter traffic. The changes are part of the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration, which went into effect March 1. 

All of the airports targeted for tower shutdowns have fewer than 150,000 total flight operations per year. Of those, fewer than 10,000 are commercial flights by passenger airlines. 

Airport directors, pilots and others in the aviation sector have argued that stripping away an extra layer of safety during the most critical stages of flight will elevate risks and at the very least slow years of progress in making the U.S. aviation network the safest in the world. 

Airlines have yet to say whether they will continue offering service to airports that lose tower staff. Any scaling back of passenger service could have major economic impact for communities. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Plan to close 54 public schools rocks Chicago community

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  March 21, 2013: Parents protest outside the home of Chicago's Board of Education President David Vitales house in Chicago.AP

CHICAGO –  Tens of thousands of Chicago students, parents and teachers learned Thursday their schools were on a long-feared list of 54 the city plans to close in an effort to stabilize an educational system facing a huge budget shortfall.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the closures are necessary because too many Chicago Public School buildings are half-empty, with 403,000 students in a system that has seats for more than 500,000. But opponents say the closures will further erode troubled neighborhoods and endanger students who may have to cross gang boundaries to attend school. The schools slated for closure are all elementary schools and are overwhelmingly black and in low-income neighborhoods.

CPS officials say money being spent to keep underutilized schools open could be better used to educate students elsewhere as the district deals with a $1 billion budget deficit. About 30,000 students will be affected by the plan, with about half that number moving into new schools.

"Every child in every neighborhood in Chicago deserves access to a high quality education that prepares them to succeed in life, but for too long children in certain parts of Chicago have been cheated out of the resources they need to succeed because they are in underutilized, under-resourced schools," said district CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett. "As a former teacher and a principal, I've lived through school closings and I know that this will not be easy, but I also know that in the end this will benefit our children."

As word of the closures trickled out, parents and teachers reacted with anger and shock, some even crying. Sandra Leon said she got a tearful call from her grandchildren's kindergarten teacher saying the school was on the list to be closed. Her two grown children also attended the school, and Leon wiped her eyes as she waited outside for her grandchildren.

"It's been so good for our kids," Leon said. "This school is everything."

Chicago officials have moved to close schools in the past, but never anywhere near the number designated at one time by the Emanuel administration. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration spread school closings over a number of years. CPS, the nation's third-largest school district, now has 681 schools.

Chicago is among several major U.S. cities, including Philadelphia, Washington and Detroit to use mass school closures to reduce costs and offset declining enrollment. Detroit has closed more than 130 schools since 2005, including more than 40 in 2010 alone.

The issue has again pitted Emanuel against the Chicago Teachers Union, whose 26,000 members went on strike early in the school year, idling students for seven days. It has also put Emanuel and Byrd-Bennett at odds with parents, civic leaders and lawmakers, who have blasted the pair during highly charged community meetings throughout the city and at a legislative hearing earlier this week.

Union President Karen Lewis criticized Emanuel, who is out of town with his family, for being on vacation on the day of the announcement. She called the closings "an abomination."

"This is cowardly and it is the ultimate bullying job," Lewis said. "Our mayor should be ashamed of himself."

The vast majority of the 54 schools are in overwhelmingly black neighborhoods that have lost residents in recent years. Chicago's black population dropped 17 percent in the last census as African-Americans moved out to the suburbs and elsewhere. The other few schools are majority Hispanic or mixed black and Hispanic. Overall, 91 percent of Chicago public school students are minorities.

Many of the schools identified for closure are in high-crime areas where gang violence contributed to a marked increase in Chicago's homicide rate last year. The district plans to have community groups help students get to their new locations safely.

Among the critics is Eular Hatchett, who lives in the violence-plagued neighborhood of North Lawndale and walks her 13-year-old nephew DaVontay Horace to school.

"Our parents know about this area," she said. "They don't know about those other areas. If they send him way north or way south, I'm not going to do that. It's too dangerous."

Because some schools have more than one building, a total of 61 structures will be closed. In addition to the closures, students at 11 other schools will be "co-located" with existing schools. Six schools have been targeted for academic interventions known as "turnaround."

CPS says the plan will save the district $560 million over 10 years in capital costs and an additional $43 million per year in operating costs.

The district plans to invest $233 million into what it calls the "welcoming" schools, or the buildings that students in closed schools will be moving to. Those funds will be used for air conditioning, upgraded technology and security and to ensure every school has a library.

District officials said they couldn't calculate how many teachers will be laid off as a result of the cuts because school leaders will make decisions about their own budgets.

Many teachers and parents expressed anger and frustration at how the news of the closures trickled out, leaving some to agonize over rumor and conjecture.

"In a word, the approach was brutal. It's certainly not deserved by these parents and these kids," said Mary Visconti, the director of the Better Boys Foundation, a youth organization in the Lawndale neighborhood.

At Lafayette Elementary, where 95 percent of its 483 students come from low-income families, teacher Rosemary Maurello said the principal read teachers a letter from the district Thursday morning saying the school is among those it plans to close. The letter said a final decision would be made in May after more community meetings are held and budget plans are reviewed.

But Maurello said letters and information packets were already being sent to parents and the district's message to teachers included a mention of specific plans to move the Lafayette students to another school about 10 blocks away.

"It sounds like a done deal to me," Maurello said.

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