Senate GOP blocks domestic terror bill Dems pushed in response to Buffalo shooting

The bill, which the House passed last week in a near-party-line vote, would have set up new units at the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to track domestic terror threats. The measure also called for biennial reports on the threats posed by white supremacists and other potential terror groups.

The vote was 47-47, far short of the 60 votes needed under Senate rules to begin consideration of the measure. All of the Republican senators who voted opposed bringing the bill up for consideration, but only one – Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky – spoke out in opposition. He noted that the bill also called for creation of a task force to study white supremacy in the military and called that an insult to the troops.

In a speech that ran nearly 10 minutes, Paul never mentioned the racially motivated slaying of 10 people in Buffalo on May 14 or the slaughter of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday. Instead, Paul insisted that improving race relations in America made the bill unnecessary.

"Every decade has gotten better," he said. "People get along better. We have more intermarriage between races. We have more integration within churches. I see less and less of this (racism) that everybody's saying is now infecting us."

Democrats, in contrast, said the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act is essential to preventing future racism-inspired massacres.

"This bill is so important because the mass shooting in Buffalo was an act of domestic terrorism," said Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat. "This bill will give the government the tools to monitor, find and arrest these evil actors before they have a chance to inflict violence on their communities."

Schumer announced Wednesday that if Republicans allowed the domestic terror measure to come to the floor, he would have opened debate on amendments from both parties on gun control and school safety.

But now, with the Senate about to go on a weeklong recess, the best hope for such measures will come in separate negotiations between Democrats and Republicans. Schumer said he would give interested senators about two weeks to come up with a compromise.

"If these negotiations do not bear fruit in a short period of time, the Senate will vote on gun safety legislation," he said.

With the Senate split 50-50 between the two parties and the Senate filibuster rule mandating that 60 votes are needed for legislation to be considered, any gun safety bill is destined to fail unless it's the product of a compromise between the two parties.

Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who just returned from the site of the mass shooting in his home state, choked up on the Senate floor as he described what he saw there. And even though the New York Times found only four GOP senators who were willing to consider strengthening the background check system for gun purchasers, Cornyn said he was willing to work with Democrats to see if they can come to any agreement.

"I'm not interested in making a political statement," Cornyn said. "I'm not interested in the same old tired talking points. I'm actually interested in what we can do to make the terrible events that occurred in Uvalde less likely in the future."

Some Democrats, however, seem to be smarting over Senate Republicans' refusal to even consider legislation aimed at preventing domestic terrorism.

"Why vote against Domestic Terrorism Prevention?" Rep. Brian Higgins, a Buffalo Democrat, said on Twitter. "Who are the GOP voting to protect?"