Congress Members were away from the nation’s capital for six long weeks. Now, they are returning to the capital on Monday. They have a lot on their collective plate to share.
In the month of August, a lot has happened. Due to these happenings in August, the legislative priorities in Washington has changed. When senators and representatives were in away from the capital, various mass shootings heightened the stakes to deal with gun violence.
As soon as Congress members come back to D.C., following are some of the issues you can expect to hear about.
Guns:
Since the House left for the break , there have been four high-profile mass gunfires; and, three since the Senate left.
The most current one took place on August 31, when a shooting spree in the area of Midland-Odessa area of Texas, left at least seven dead. That shooting followed one after the other slaughter in Gilroy, California, El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. A total of 43 people dead and many more got injured in these four shootings.
At this point in time, the Democratic-led House is expected to focus on this issue. They should hold news conferences, a forum and floor speeches to put a pressure on the Senate to take up control measures to stop such shooting incidences. A bill on background checks passed the Democratic-controlled House early this year as the members of the House were very vocal about it.
In the later part of the month, the House Judiciary Committee has a hearing on assault weapons. There would be a meeting on a trio of measures this week. One of the measures would prevent the criminals from being eligible to purchase assault weapons, another will let the states to create “red flag” programs; and, a third prohibits high-capacity magazines. The bills are expected to be presented for a vote in the coming weeks.
