Associated Industries of Florida, one of the state’s most influential lobbying groups, submitted 16,024 public comments from Florida residents to the U.S. Department of State yesterday, all of which are in support of the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline expansion, a hotly contested network of pipes that would route crude oil from Canada all the way to Texas.

The comments were gathered in collaboration with a group called the Consumer Energy Alliance, a so-called “grassroots” organization with ties to top lobbyists. The Department of State must issue the final necessary permit to allow the Keystone XL project to proceed.

The influence of lobbyists on the Keystone project has been controversial lately, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who heads the state department, has proved a key figure in the controversy. The tar sands industry has used at least seven former Clinton associates to lobby on behalf of the Keystone XL pipeline system — a 1,700-mile network of pipes that would transport synthetic crude oil from northeastern Canada to refineries along the Gulf Coast in Texas.

Environmentalists and several members of Congress have urged the state department to block the project, arguing that the environmental effects could prove detrimental and that the pipeline would only increase the reliance on oil. Last month, more than 1,200 people were arrested outside of the White House while protesting the pipeline. Members of the state department have defended its review of the pipeline, saying it has opened the door to discussions with both industry and conservation groups.

In June, the Consumer Energy Alliance (which has a Florida affiliate) delivered more than 62,000 public comments supporting the project to the state department, all of which came from people living in the six states through which the proposed pipeline will travel: Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Michael Whatley, the organization’s executive vice president, said that the pipeline will be “the safest pipeline ever built in the United States,” and will generate more than $20 billion in new economic growth for the U.S. economy. How exactly the group’s comments were collected remains to be seen, but some have alleged that the Consumer Energy Alliance gathered them through telephone surveys with leading questions used to sway public opinion.

Though it bills itself as a “nonpartisan, grassroots organization,” the Energy Alliance is linked to the lobbying firm Community Strategies, run by lobbyist Michael Gibson, who purportedly lives in a million-dollar home in Washington, D.C., and has worked on behalf of the NRA, the Republican National Committee and San Diego Gas & Electric.

In a press release sent out yesterday, Associated Industries of Florida Vice President of Governmental Affairs Jose Gonzalez called the Keystone pipeline “a critical component of a national energy strategy that will ensure the U.S. has access to a stable, long-term energy supply through North American sources and will help our nation gain energy independence from uncertain foreign markets.” Associated Industries, which opposes regulations, operates its own political action committee (AIFPAC) in an effort to “to assist in the election of business friendly candidates to the Florida Legislature.”

Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida claimed that the law violated the First Amendment rights of doctors. Cooke agreed.

Howard Simon, the executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement that the ruling was not surprising.

“It is hard to imagine that even legislators who voted for this bill thought that the state could legislate the doctor-patient relationship,” Simon said, “in this case by imposing a gag order on doctors prohibiting them from asking about firearms and ammunition.”

“The right of doctors to ask routine questions about dangers in the home is essential and can provide medical professionals with information they need to help their patients protect the safety and lives of children,” Simon said in his statement.

The “Privacy of Firearm Owners” was backed and partially written by lobbyists for the National Rifle Association. Supporters claim that the bill was aimed at protecting Second Amendment rights.

A spokesman for Gov. Rick Scott told Talking Points Memo that “the Privacy of Firearm Owners legislation was carefully crafted to respect the first amendment. We plan to appeal the judge’s block, and we’re confident we’ll win the appeal.”

State Rep. Rick Kriseman, D-St. Petersburg, who recently filed legislation that would repeal the law, said he is very pleased with the ruling. In a recent statement, Kriseman said he applauds “Judge Cooke for recognizing the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship.”

“This is a victory not just for the medical community and for those who seek their care, but for common sense,” Kriseman said.

“The United States needs to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy and more dependent upon American resourcefulness. Whether that is in the Everglades, or whether that is in the eastern Gulf region, or whether that’s in North Dakota, we need to go where the energy is,” she said during a stop in Sarasota, according to the Associated Press. “Of course it needs to be done responsibly. If we can’t responsibly access energy in the Everglades then we shouldn’t do it.” #

Jerry Karnas, communications director for the Everglades Foundation, says that drilling in the Everglades wouldn’t even be economically viable, as there really isn’t oil within Everglades proper and the little oil available in surrounding areas is of a very low quality. #

“As time has worn on, the Everglades has begun to encompass other areas, including Big Cypress Preserve,” says Karnas. “In 1972, there were some historic mineral rights retained by the Barron Collier family, and today, it is nothing more than a very, very small operation where the company drills for meager amounts of oil that are of a very low quality.” #

Overall, says Karnas, the minute amount of drilling near the Everglades is a “historic anomaly” and a “remnant of the past.” #

“There’s no way that it would work, under current law,” he says. “There’s no path to drilling more in any of these areas, and no way you’ll drill in the Everglades. It’s not a serious policy proposition.” Karnas says that Bachmann was likely trying to pander to a crowd that has come to associate the Environmental Protection Agency with killing jobs, a claim often made by many in the GOP. During a recent stop in Jacksonville, Bachmann promised to “turn out the lights and lock the doors” at the EPA, should she be elected. #

Unfortunately for Bachman, there is no real push to drill in the Everglades. #

“It’s the same thing as saying, ‘Let’s drill under Space Mountain, in Disney World,’” Karnas says. “She’s conflating things.” #

Everglades Foundation CEO Kirk Fordham says that thousands of hunters and fishermen, as well as 7 million Floridians that rely on the Everglades as a source of  drinking water, likely wouldn’t be too excited at the prospect of drilling in the area. #

#

“Like the majority of Americans, I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms,” Obama wrote in a guest editorial that appeared in the Arizona Daily Star.

“And, in fact, my administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners — it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.”

Those who advocate for gun safety, he said, need to recognize that “almost all gun owners in America are highly responsible,” and go to great lengths to obtain and use their weapons legally.

“Likewise, advocates for gun owners should accept the awful reality that gun violence affects Americans everywhere, whether on the streets of Chicago or at a supermarket in Tuscon,” Obama said.

The column offered by Obama comes on the heels of an open microphone at the Iowa Statehouse that revealed an embarrassing exchange between Republican lawmakers.

Iowa Rep. Jeff Kaufmann (R-Wilton) characterized proposed legislation that would allow Iowans to carry weapons without a background check or permits as a “crazy, give-a-handgun-to-a-schizophrenic-bill.” Kaufmann has since described his comment as an ill-timed joke, and has said he hopes the unintended public exchange will spark further discussion on the intersection of mental health issues and public safety.

Despite his now open assessment of the proposed bill, however, Kaufmann has not signaled that his support has waned for the measure. And, Iowa gun advocates believe he will continue to back the bill he summarized as “crazy.”

“We don’t believe he is in anyway backing down from his support for any of the gun bills currently being heard,” Sean McClanahan, president of the Iowa Firearms Coaltion told KCRG. “Our lobbyist as well as the NRA lobbyist works with Kaufmann on a daily basis at the capitol. He is one of our biggest supporters.”

The compromise envisioned by Obama contains three key steps, all related to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System:

1. Enforcement of existing laws, which would include timely and complete transfer of data by states to the national system
2. Rewards for states that provide the best data
3. Enhancements to the existing system to make it “faster and nimbler”

If Iowa lawmakers decide to pass the proposed legislation referenced by Kaufmann, Obama’s changes wouldn’t matter to the state. Under the bill, any Iowan of legal age would be able to carry a weapon, and no background check would be required.

“Most gun-control advocates know that most gun owners are responsible citizens. Most gun owners know that the word “commonsense” isn’t a code word for “confiscation.” And none of us should be willing to remain passive in the face of violence or resigned to watching helplessly as another rampage unfolds on television,” Obama said.

David McFarling, president of the NC Rifle and Pistol Association, said his group is optimistic that the new Republican-led General Assembly will look favorably on expanding the areas where concealed guns can be carried.

McFarling said putting fewer public places off limits for guns would enhance public safety by enabling citizens to defend themselves. He said his members want to carry concealed weapons in “restaurants, theaters and malls — where you really might need it.”

The Tucson shooting occurred Jan. 8 in a shopping center where accused shooter Jared Loughner approached U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) during an outdoor meeting with constituents. Six people were killed and more than a dozen were injured, including Giffords, who was shot in the head.

“It’s very sad anytime you have something like that happen,” said McFarling, 53, an electrical contractor and sport shooting enthusiast from Chapel Hill. “But gun laws one way or another wouldn’t have made any difference. That boy was crazy. He would have done what he was going to do anyway.”

North Carolina gun laws ban concealed weapons in most public places and all gun owners are required to pass a federal background check and a review by their local sheriff.

Roxane Kolar, executive director of  North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, said the laws should not be changed.

“Our guns laws are fine. They’re very strong,” Kolar said. “I don’t think we need to see a weakening. I don’t think we need more guns in public places.”

McFarling thinks more concealed guns carried by law abiding citizens would prevent mass shootings.

“It’s just a shame in Arizona there wasn’t someone there with a permit to carry,” McFarling said. “He would saved a lot of pain and anguish.”

Kolar said previous attempts to expand the areas where concealed firearms can be carried have met broad resistance from restaurant owners and the general public.

“People don’t support it,” she said, adding, “If legislators listen to their constituents, it won’t pass and that’s what’s important.”

But McFarling sees an opportunity with Republicans in control of the General Assembly for the first time in more than a century.

“Now that the Republican/conservatives have the power in the Legislature, hopefully we’ll be able to get some of these things cleaned up,” he said.

McFarling said the NCRPA, which he said  has a membership of about 1,800, also will push for passage of the so-called “Castle Doctrine” bill. The proposed law would allow occupants of a home to use deadly force against an intruder regardless of whether the intruder is carrying a weapon. The law would provide the shooter immunity from criminal prosecution as well as civil action.

Allowing home occupants more leeway in using firearms is opposed by social workers who visit homes and private employees such as pest exterminators and delivery people who feel they would be at greater risk of a mistaken shooting, Kolar said.

“We have a self-defense law on the books. It works fine,” Kolar said. “[The Castle Doctrine] law is reckless. It’s vigilantism.”

On another front, McFarling said he would oppose outlawing the high volume ammunition clips used in the Tucson shooting. The gun used in Tucson had a magazine with at least 30 rounds, a clip that can be emptied in 10 seconds of firing. The shooting prompted calls for renewal of a federal ban on large capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds. The ban expired in 2004.

McFarling said the shooter, not the shooting capacity, was the problem.

“The clip just a inanimate object. It’s the way it’s used. Unfortunately [the Tucson shooter] chose to use one in a very unlawful and malicious manner,” said McFarling, who uses a 19-round clip in target shooting competitions.

“We have a lot of fears that in the next two years there will be attempts to weaken these gun laws,” Roxane Kolar, executive director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, said Tuesday.

In North Carolina, anyone seeking to purchase a handgun must pass a national background check and apply for a purchase permit from their local sheriff. Sheriffs can deny permits based on their investigation of a person’s background or information brought to their attention. Arizona, which has some of the country’s least restrictive gun laws, does not require the local review.

Republican legislative leaders could not be reached for comment Tuesday. The North Carolina Republican Party’s 2010 platform states, “We oppose further restriction on the ownership, sale, purchase and ‘lawful carry’ of firearms by law-abiding  citizens. North Carolina should eliminate statewide ‘no carry’ zones.”

The North Carolina affiliate  of the NRA, The North Carolina Rifle and Pistol Association, says on its website that its has been pushing for ten years “to get the Pistol Purchase Permit system completely eliminated.

Kolar said a legislative push to roll back N.C. guns laws “would be pretty shocking since most people have shown overwhelming support.”

Kolar cited a December poll by Public Policy Polling (PDF) which found that 67 percent of the 520 respondents agreed with current state law requiring county permits for handguns, and 90 percent supported background checks on all guns sold by authorized dealers.

Requiring a sheriff to review an application for a gun permit, Kolar said, may have prevented the Tucson shooting. That incident left six people dead and injured 13 others, including the critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) of Arizona. The suspect in the case, Jared Loughner, had been thrown out of a community college because of concerns about his mental health, but his condition had not been legally certified and didn’t show up on a federal background check of public records. He had also been arrested, but not convicted, on drug charges.

“If Arizona had a similar law [to North Carolina’s], the local sheriff would likely have had that information at his disposal and would have been able to turn [Loughner] down,” Kolar said.

Rockingham County Sheriff Samuel S. Page, president of the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association, said his association hasn’t taken a position on changing the state’s gun laws, but he personally supports the state’s requirements.

“I’m a NRA member and pro-gun and I think we have some good laws on the books in North Carolina,” Page said

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) criticized the DISCLOSE Act in July, but Democrats hope for her vote on a modified version of the bill. (Louie Palu/ZUMA Press)

Despite widespread public opposition to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and multiple exhortations by the president for Congress to act, Senate Democrats were unable to overcome a Republican filibuster to pass the DISCLOSE Act, a bill requiring interest groups to name the donors behind their campaign ads, in the months leading up the midterm elections. Next year, when the GOP claims a majority in the House, the odds of passage are slim. “Um, no,” said presumptive House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman when asked if Republicans might introduce a version of the DISCLOSE Act next year.

[Economy1] The last chance, then, for Congress to put some form of disclosure legislation on the books before the shadowy spending process repeats itself, in grander fashion, in 2012 might be now, the lame-duck session in advance of the swearing-in of the much more Republican 112th Congress in January.

But if the numerical chances of the bill’s passage in the Senate — it will only need the votes of two Republican senators to overcome a filibuster when Congress returns from its campaigning break next week — will never look better, the level of trust and communication between key Democratic and Republican Senate offices typically engaged on the issue of campaign finance stands at a seeming all-time low.

Democrats in leadership are now weighing the idea of stripping the less essential provisions of the DISCLOSE Act — measures to prohibit spending from companies holding government contracts or those exceeding a certain threshold of foreign ownership — as an act of good faith in order the counter Republican qualms about the bill and make one last-ditch effort to pass it. They’ll only do so, however, if they anticipate success, and the current breakdown in negotiations between the key parties is making them wary about the bill’s chances of garnering any GOP support at all.

How has a year’s worth of legislative effort on a popular measure now found itself on the brink of failure, and what might make it still succeed? An understanding of the bill’s chances in the lame-duck session requires a look back at its struggles through Congress and the reasons for the current standstill.

*****

The DISCLOSE Act’s problems began with its personnel. The bill originated in the offices of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), legislators best known for their efforts, as chairmen of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, respectively, to get their fellow Democrats elected. Consequently, it was viewed with suspicion by House Republicans.

“When you immediately go to the two lawmakers who are responsible for getting Democrats elected and say, ‘Please write us the bill,’ a lot of Republicans looked at that and said, ‘Huh, that’s a curious choice,’” said Sean Parnell, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, which advocates against imposing limits on campaign spending. “It was the chair of the DCCC and former chair of DSCC leading the process. There was no way that was not going to be seen as partisan. From there it just kind of all went downhill.”

With the Senate calendar and key staffers still tied up with health care reform and financial regulation, it fell to the House to get the ball rolling — but House Democrats said the bill’s basic idea never gained traction among Republicans.

“We released a framework to the public four months in advance of introducing the bill and we reached out to specific Republicans who normally engage in campaign finance issues,” said a Democratic aide who worked on the bill. “We never were approached by Republicans to say they’d vote for stripped-down disclosure provisions.”

Only two Republicans — Reps. Ahn Cao (La.) and Mike Castle (Del.) — signaled support for the bill, so House Democrats proceeded to make it something of a wish list. They added provisions barring companies with federal contracts or those exceeding a certain threshold of foreign ownership from spending independently to influence elections. And they also made an exception for longstanding nonprofits — like the Sierra Club or the National Rifle Association — that met certain membership requirements.

The result was a bill that arrived fully formed in the Senate at the end of June, but one that also provided ample opportunity to its opponents (or would-be supporters) to hammer it as partisan or unfair. The provisions barring certain companies from spending looked to some like built-in advantages for unions, while the NRA carve-out, as it became known, provided an ironic special-interest twist on a bill meant to be about good government.

When the bill came up for its first Senate vote in July, however, Democrats hoped they could still pressure Republicans with a reputation for past leadership on campaign finance issues — like Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — or newly elected Sen. Scott Brown to cast a vote in favor of the overarching concept of disclosure. But these senators objected to the lack of a committee mark-up or other opportunities to make constructive changes to the bill.

“Unfortunately, the Senate Majority Leader chose to bring forward a bill that doesn’t live up to its title,” Collins wrote in a statement after her first procedural vote against the DISCLOSE Act. “It was drafted by Democrats behind closed doors. No committee hearings were ever held on this legislation; therefore, there never was an opportunity to make any changes to this bill or mark-up in the committee process before we were asked to consider it.”

Democratic aides in the Senate, however, insist they gave Republican senators like Snowe, Collins and Brown every opportunity for input into the bill.

“When I say we offered them a seat at the table it was, literally, ‘Come write the bill with us. Here’s a list of principles and tell us how you’d like to write it,’” said a Democratic staffer who worked on the bill in the Senate. “It could not have been a more welcoming process, but there was very little input offered.” After initial signs of engagement on the issue, Republican offices stopped responding to emails from Democratic staffers. (The offices of Sens. Snowe and Collins also did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.)

But by allowing a vote on the same bill that had passed the House and not anticipating the attacks that would be leveled against it, Senate Democrats failed to move the bill and, worse, lost the battle of public perception over whether the bill was a push for transparency or a thinly veiled attempt to sway the outcome of the pending midterm contests in their favor.

By the time the bill was slated to be brought up again in Congress for a vote in late September, it suffered from a breakdown in trust. Both sides realized that the current bill was a nonstarter, but there was no time in the packed legislative schedule to take the multiple days required to introduce a new, stripped-down version. Instead, Democrats urged Snowe and Collins to vote for cloture on the bill as it stood, on the assurance that the Democratic leadership would scrap whatever the senators didn’t like when it came time for debate and amendments. But such a deal would have required the confidence of all parties.

“My understanding — and I’ve talked to both Republican and Democratic offices — is that Democrats were saying, ‘Well, just tell us what you want,’ and Republicans were saying, ‘Tell us how you’ll change it and then we’ll talk,’” said Meredith McGehee, who lobbies for greater transparency in campaign finance for the Campaign Legal Center.

Other campaign finance reform advocates take a more cynical view. “A pared-down version was being discussed in the last round and that wasn’t what the issue was,” said Craig Holman, a campaign finance expert at Public Citizen, a citizen lobby group. “The Republicans, down to Collins and Snowe, even though their public denunciations were about unions, none of them ever meant that. All they wanted was anonymous corporate support in 2010 and 2012.”

In either case, the Maine senators, having already decried the bill once, cited their same complaints and voted ‘no’ once again. A vote for cloture was too close to a vote for the bill itself, and moreover, it opened the door to the possibility of Democrats pulling a fast one and passing the bill without amendments, denying them any input and earning them the wrath of the Republican caucus for enabling Democrats to enact their agenda. The bill failed to overcome a filibuster by a single vote.

*****

Now, facing a lame-duck session with a host of pressing items on the agenda — from the START Treaty to an unemployment extension to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts — Senate Democratic leaders are skeptical that a disclose-only bill can earn Republican support. On the one hand, it would address the bulk of Republicans’ complaints about the current bill, but on the other hand, trust is so frayed that neither side is able to receive assurances as to the other’s thinking on the issue.

The impending seating of a new Republican senator later this month, special election winner Mark Kirk of Illinois, has added a new element of suspense to the mix. While his arrival raises the bar of Republican support required to proceed with debate, some campaign finance experts see in Kirk the kind of moderate voice who spoke in favor of better disclosure laws on the campaign trail and could champion a stripped-down bill as a triumph of good, clean government over the larded Democratic bill. But others doubt that casting a vote against the wishes of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who has made a personal mission out of rolling back campaign finance laws — is high on the to-do list of the incoming freshman senator. (Requests for comment from Kirk’s office were not returned by the time of publication.)

Even if the bill is unlikely to pass, argue some advocates, at least Democrats could finally get Republicans to go on the record definitively on the issue of disclosure.

“Bring up a bill with just the disclosure provisions and take away a number of arguments that we feel are not correct but others have used to make excuses about not voting for it,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of the campaign finance reform group Democracy 21.

Whether the benefits of a symbolic vote on disclosure outweigh the importance of floor time that could be spent on other issues, however, remains an open question. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office said that Reid will defer to Schumer on the content of the bill and that the Democratic leadership has not yet reached any decisions on what it will push in the lame-duck session.

But Holman, speaking on the eve of the election, was less hopeful. “If the results are a fairly sweeping Republican victory,” he said, “then I would fully expect the lame-duck Congress to honor the tradition of doing lame-duck work.”

Last week, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal signed a bill allowing gun owners in his state to carry firearms into houses of worship. Just days earlier, the Supreme Court extended federal gun rights provisions to city and state governments. And last summer, Arizona legislators voted to allow handguns in bars and President Obama signed a bill permitting firearms in national parks.

[Congress1] Despite fears on the right that Obama would trample the Second Amendment and take people’s guns, his presidency has so far been marked by a string of pro-gun victories and a reinvigorated gun advocacy movement — the result of a Democratic leadership that has proven unwilling to take on powerful firearm interests.

“It’s been very clear that there’s a solid pro-gun, pro-NRA majority on the floor of Congress, and you can’t do anything against it,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a gun control advocate who has received an “F” grade from the National Rifle Association, told TWI. “And that’s the entire Republican Party and a fraction of the Democratic Party, which is a majority.”

The proliferation of pro-gun measures under President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress reflects the party’s learned reticence on the issue. Democrats remain haunted by memories of 1994, when gun control advocacy by President Bill Clinton led the pro-gun lobby to wage fierce campaigns that ousted several lawmakers aligned with the cause.

“Democrats learned a substantial lesson in 1994, and no anti-gun measures are ever going to come forth in this Congress,” said Don Kates, a lawyer and criminal law expert at the Pacific Research Institute.

The NRA, the leading gun rights group and one of Washington’s most formidable lobbies, has forcefully staked out its territory in Congress. Last month, Democrats, fearing an NRA backlash on a campaign finance measure, carved out what was widely considered a special exemption for the group. Subsequently, the NRA dropped its opposition, and the measure passed the House.

“Some people are so terrified of the NRA vote score that they’ll vote for anything the NRA says to vote for and against anything they say to vote against,” Nadler said. “It’s unfortunate in the extreme.”

In the last 20 years, the NRA and other pro-gun groups have outspent gun-control advocates by over 20-to-1 on lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Some gun control advocates expected more from this president. As a state senator in Illinois, Obama threw his weight behind various regulatory measures. He backed a ban on semiautomatic assault weapons and voted to limit handgun purchases to one a month per person.

But Obama notably distanced himself from the cause during the 2008 election, proclaiming his commitment to the gun rights. “I believe in the Second Amendment,” he said. “I believe in people’s lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won’t take your handgun away.”

One year into his presidency, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence gave Obama an “F” across the board on gun control issues. The Chicago Tribune joked the following month that “[o]n the list of issues for which Obama is willing to put himself on the line, gun control ranks somewhere below free trade with Uzbekistan.”

As a result, gun rights advocates remain about as unimpeded in their cause today as during the Bush administration.

“The political climate hasn’t changed a lot,” said Ladd Everitt, spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “If you look back at when Republicans had control of government before 2006, you pretty much saw the same picture.”

“We were hoping for Obama to take a more forceful position in terms of gun violence prevention,” Everitt added, positing that Democrats have backed away due to pressure from the NRA, conservatives in the party, the disproportionate number of single-issue gun voters and the force of industry behind the gun rights cause.

“Gun rights organizations like the NRA saw President Obama’s history as being one of anti-gun owners’ rights,” said Bob Cottrol, a constitutional lawyer and gun law expert at George Washington University, “though that hasn’t been the case so far in his presidency.” But that perception, he said, led to an early and ongoing backlash among passionate gun owners that has furthered the pro-gun cause under Obama.

Kates put it more succinctly: “Historically, Democrats being in power has been a godsend for the finances of pro-gun groups.”

But according to David Kopel, a Second Amendment expert at New York University and gun rights advocate, Obama is subtly doing more to stem the gun movement than Bush. Kopel points out that Bush’s Supreme Court appointees, Samuel Alito and John Roberts, have been more pro-gun than Obama’s appointee Sonia Sotomayor, who voted on the losing side of the recent 5-4 McDonnell v. Chicago case, which limited the types of gun control regulations cities and states can adopt.

“Sotomayor said she considered [the 2008] Heller [ruling] to be settled law, that she knew how important the individual right to arms was, and then less than a year later she turned around and joined an opinion that said Heller should be overturned,” Kopel said.

But the replacements of two left-leaning justices with two other left-leaning justices — Sotomayor and, if confirmed, Elena Kagan — represents more of a status-quo perpetuation than a victory for gun control advocates.

Obama’s reluctance to take up gun control as president, after aligning himself with it for most of his career, signals an increasingly toxic national political climate for the cause and reflects the Democratic Party’s shift.

“I’d say President Obama has been politically astute in not following the Bill Clinton policy of trying to make gun control a top-three national issue,” Kopel said.

Added Kates of the Pacific Research Institute: “Generally speaking, gun control advocates have other ambitions, other objectives, and for now they’re willing to drop their anti-gun concerns in exchange for not being defeated in other matters.”

It seems the NRA is satisfied — here’s a statement it just sent out:

STATEMENT FROM THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION ON H.R. 5175, THE DISCLOSE ACT

The National Rifle Association believes that any restrictions on the political speech of Americans are unconstitutional.

In the past, through the courts and in Congress, the NRA has opposed any effort to restrict the rights of its four million members to speak and have their voices heard on behalf of gun owners nationwide.

The NRA’s opposition to restrictions on political speech includes its May 26, 2010 letter to Members of Congress expressing strong concerns about H.R. 5175, the DISCLOSE Act. As it stood at the time of that letter, the measure would have undermined or obliterated virtually all of the NRA’s right to free political speech and, therefore, jeopardized the Second Amendment rights of every law-abiding American.

The most potent defense of the Second Amendment requires the most adamant exercise of the First Amendment. The NRA stands absolutely obligated to its members to ensure maximum access to the First Amendment, in order to protect and preserve the freedom of the Second Amendment.

The NRA must preserve its ability to speak. It cannot risk a strategy that would deny its rights, for the Second Amendment cannot be defended without them.

Thus, the NRA’s first obligation must be to its members and to its most ardent defense of firearms freedom for America’s lawful gun owners.

On June 14, 2010, Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives pledged that H.R. 5175 would be amended to exempt groups like the NRA, that meet certain criteria, from its onerous restrictions on political speech. As a result, and as long as that remains the case, the NRA will not be involved in final consideration of the House bill.

The NRA cannot defend the Second Amendment from the attacks we face in the local, state, federal, international and judicial arenas without the ability to speak.  We will not allow ourselves to be silenced while the national news media, politicians and others are allowed to attack us freely.

The NRA will continue to fight for its right to speak out in defense of the Second Amendment. Any efforts to silence the political speech of NRA members will, as has been the case in the past, be met with strong opposition.

“The NRA will not be involved in final consideration of the House bill,” it can be inferred, is the organization’s way of saying that it won’t unleash its war chest and lobbying force against the bill as long as it remains exempt from the disclosure provision.

Well, it seems the NRA has gotten its way:

House Democrats have reached an agreement with the National Rifle Association on campaign-finance legislation that would roll back the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, removing a major obstacle to the bill, according to House sources.

The deal would exempt the NRA and some other large organizations from strict campaign finance disclosures in the bill, which is being pushed by Democratic leaders in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case. The NRA had objected to some of the disclosure requirements for the new campaign finance proposals, and that had kept moderate, pro-gun Democrats from backing the legislation.