ABC News Calls Out Kelly Ayotte For Misleading On Background Checks

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

At town halls across New Hampshire, gun safety advocates are confronting Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) for voting down bipartisan legislation expanding background checks for gun purchases. In April, Ayotte joined 45 senators to oppose the measure, which is supported by more than 90 percent of Americans, claiming that she was trying to protect gun shop owners from the burden of running additional background checks for sales conducted at gun shows or online.

But during a town hall in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire Ayotte offered an additional reason for killing the popular measure and said, falsely, that it could lead to the creation of a national registry. The first-term senator was then “spirited away by her aides” before reporters could ask her about the claim:

When another man rose to ask Ayotte to explain why she voted against expanding background checks, several people in the audience of more than 250 people applauded.

“I know people have strong feelings about this issue,” Ayotte began. She said she voted against the bipartisan compromise on background checks last month because she believed gun owners would face an undue burden and she feared it could lead to a federal gun registry.

She did not tell the crowd here that the legislation called for a felony punishment for gun shop owners who tried to create a permanent registry.

“I thought the focus should be on fixing the current background check system and mental health,” Ayotte said. She declined interview requests, but when asked by ABC News whether she believed her vote was being mischaracterized, she paused and said, “Yes,” before being spirited away by aides.

Indeed, federally licensed gun dealers have conducted background checks for more than 40 years without ever creating a national gun registry, which federal law specifically prohibits. Under the bipartisan amendment offered by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), federal dealers would conduct screenings for private sellers and keep the record; the federal government would not. Then, if a gun is recovered at a violent crime, law enforcement can use the records to track down the perpetrator. All information identifying the buyer generated by the background check would be destroyed by law enforcement within 24 hours.

The Manchin-Toomey amendment explicitly bans the federal government from creating a registry in three different places and treats the misuse of records for the pursue of building a registry as a felony punishable by 15 years in prison.

Since opposing the measure, Ayotte saw her approval ratings plummet by 15 points, leading the National Rifle Association, to start running radio ads in her defense.

GOP Senator: I Voted Against Equal Pay For Women Because We Have Enough Laws

By Ian Millhiser, Josh Israel and Sy Mukherjee/Think Progress

WARREN, NH — Women in full-time year-round jobs earned 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Yet, at a town hall earlier this week, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) claimed that Congress has done enough to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work. Indeed, she justified her vote against legislation intended to prevent employers from dodging federal equal pay lawwith an excuse similar to the National Rifle Association’s explanation for why we do not need any more gun laws — we just need to enforce the ones we have:

QUESTION: My grandmother, who was an extremely intelligent woman, trained many, many men who then became her boss, and so on and so forth. [She] never received a pension, never, um, was really paid what she was worth. And I was disappointed that you voted against the Equal Pay Act, but maybe there was something in the bill that you thought would be detrimental to the economy or whatever. But I was curious if you could explain your philosophy about equal pay and how, maybe, you could suggest something that we could all agree upon so that women would stop making 75 cents for every dollar a man makes . . . .

AYOTTE: We have existing laws — Title VII, um, Lilly Ledbetter, all those existing protections in place — that, I believe, enforce and provide that people doing equal jobs are, certainly in this country, should receive equal pay. So, uh, that bill, in my view, didn’t add — in fact I think it created a lot of additional burdens that would have been hard, um, to make it more difficult for job creators to create jobs. . . . The reason that I voted against that specific bill is that, I looked at it, and there were already existing laws that need to be enforced and can be enforced and I didn’t feel like adding that layer was going to help us better get at the equal pay issue.

Watch it:

 

It should go without saying that, if similarly situated women are not making the same amount as their male colleagues, then we aren’t doing enough to close this pay gap. So Ayotte’s suggestion that our current laws are sufficient cannot be squared with the reality facing women in the workplace. The backbone of modern workplace discrimination law was formed by theEqual Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it is indeed true that the pay gap narrowed significantly in the quarter-century after these workplace protections became law. According to data from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, however, progress on the pay gap stalled in the 1990s, and has been only slightly more than flat ever since:

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which Ayotte refers to in her remarks, overruled an erroneous Supreme Court decision that reduced existing protections for women. It did not expand workers’ rights beyond what they already enjoyed prior to the Supreme Court’s decision to roll back civil rights law.

The bill that Ayotte opposed was the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would hardly “make it more difficult for job creators to create jobs,” as Ayotte suggests. Currently, employers can escape liability under the Equal Pay Act even if they engaged in completely irrational discrimination that impacts a female worker. The Paycheck Fairness Act would change this to ensure that employer’s pay decisions are rooted in legitimate business reasons to pay one employee more than another — reasons like “education, training, or experience” — and not something completely arbitrary. It also provides a few additional protections to women, such as forbidding employers from retaliating against employees who try to discover how their pay compares to that of their colleagues.

So when Ayotte voted against this bill, she stood up for employer’s rights to make completely irrational judgments about how much a female worker should be paid, and their right to retaliate against employees who are trying to figure out if they are being treated fairly.

After Her Poll Numbers Plummet, NRA Runs Ads Thanking Senator For Killing Background Checks Bill

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Earlier this month, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) voted against a bipartisan measure to expand background checks for gun purchases conducted at gun shows and online and saw her approval ratings plummet by 15 points. But now the National Rifle Association, who spent millions lobbying against the popular measure is coming to her defense.

The organization is running radio ads thanking Ayotte for focusing on “meaningful bipartisan solutions” and opposing “misguided gun control laws that would not have prevented Sandy Hook.” The ad does not specifically mention background checks, but notes that Ayotte supports improving the mental health system as “the only way to protect our children” because she is a mother:

Washington is full of politicians out of touch with the problems of our lives. While we worry about keeping our kids safe, too many of them worry about keeping their own power. But Senator Kelly Ayotte is focused on meaningful bipartisan solutions to our nation’s problems. That’s because Kelly Ayotte is not just a senator, she’s also a mom who cares about protecting our kids. She knows that they only way to protect our children from tragedies like Sandy Hook is to fix our broken mental health system. That’s why Kelly Ayotte brought Republicans and Democrats together on a bipartisan solution and it’s why Kelly had the courage to oppose misguided gun control laws that would not have prevented Sandy Hook. Kelly Ayotte is focused on prosecuting law breakers and fixing our broken mental health system. Call her at 202-224-3121 and thank her for focusing on protecting our kids and our New Hampshire values. Paid for by the New Hampshire men and women of the National Rifle Association.

Listen:

Gun safety advocates confronted Ayotte for opposing background checks the day after the vote and asked her to explain her position. The first-term senator didn’t address the need to keep criminals or mentally ill people from obtaining firearms and instead explained that she wanted to protect gun shop owners from the burden of running additional background checks for sales conducted at gun shows or online.

New polling data from Public Policy Polling finds that the five senators from Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, and Ohio who voted against background checks have “seen their approval numbersdecline, and voters say they’re less likely to support them the next time they’re up for reelection.”

Kelly Ayotte's Approval Rating Plunges After Vote Against Gun Background Checks

Ryan Grim and Ariel Edwards-Levy/Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- A new poll has New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) down a total of 15 points from her previous approval rating in a survey that followed her vote against requiring background checks for firearms purchases.

Ayotte's plunge underscores the changing politics around gun control and gun safety. In years past, lawmakers worried that a vote for gun control would bring the anger of the National Rifle Association. In the new reality, votes against gun control also carry a political risk, as the Ayotte poll indicates.

A full three-quarters of New Hampshire voters support such background checks, along with 56 percent of Republicans, according to Public Policy Polling. A WMUR Granite State Poll taken in January and February found that more than 9 in 10 state residents supported implementing background checks at gun shows.

It's not entirely clear yet how opposition to background checks will play out at the polls, but there are signs Ayotte’s vote may have taken a toll.

In October, the last time that PPP surveyed voters about Ayotte, she had a 48-35 approval rating. She has now tumbled underwater, with 46 percent disapproving and 44 percent approving. The 11-point surge in disapproval threatens Ayotte's 2016 reelection, when she could face popular Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan. Ayotte won her 2010 race by 23 points, but in a hypothetical matchup against Hassan trails 46-44.

Forty-five percent of independents in the state disapproved of Ayotte, up 13 points since October. Half of voters said her vote on background checks made them less inclined to vote for her, with only a quarter saying it made them more likely to support her.

Among the critical third of voters who described themselves as moderates, disapproval of Ayotte increased by 21 points, with two-thirds saying her vote against background checks made them less likely to vote for her. Only 13 percent said it made them more likely to back her, an overwhelming 5-1 margin.

Local coverage has not been friendly to Ayotte. Sunday’s Portsmouth Heraldheadlined its editorial: "If you want gun control, vote Ayotte out of office."

"New Hampshire voters who care passionately about sensible gun legislation can contribute to the effort by defeating U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the only senator in New England to vote against the Toomey-Manchin bill. Ayotte justified her vote by parroting the NRA, saying the measure would 'place unnecessary burdens on law-abiding gun owners and allow for potential overreach by the federal government into private gun sales.'"

The Concord Monitor was flooded with angry letters and ran a rough cartoon of her. The editorial page called it a "double abomination." She was hit by a tough ad paid for by Gabby Giffords’ group -- the kind of on-the-ground spending that is helping to alter the political dynamic.

Dean Debnam, president of PPP, sees it as trouble for Ayotte. “New Hampshire is a good bellwether for fallout from the gun vote,” he said. “There’s serious backlash from voters toward Kelly Ayotte for how she handled this issue.”

The PPP poll surveyed 933 New Hampshire voters using automated phone calls between April 19 and 21.

Several GOP Senators Take Credit For Infrastructure Funding They Voted Against

By Pat Garofalo

The House Republican spending plan for the remainder of fiscal year 2011 — H.R. 1 — includes many economically counterproductive cuts that will lead to job loss and stunted growth. One of these is a provision rescinding unobligated money from the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery II, or TIGER II, grant program. The program is designed to deliver competitive grants to states for high-need infrastructure projects.

All but three Republican senators voted for H.R.1when it was before the Senate, and those three only voted no because they wanted even deeper cuts than those included in the bill. But three GOP senators — Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) — are now taking credit for a grant to rebuild the Memorial Bridge that was provided under the TIGER II program they voted to cut:

COLLINS: “I am delighted by today’s announcement that this critical $20 million will be preserved that will help to rehabilitate a vital link for our states’ businesses and people…I particularly appreciate Secretary LaHood’s working so closely with me to expedite the process to guarantee this funding.”

SNOWE: “Snowe said she is grateful the US DOT fulfilled its commitment to the Memorial Bridge project in a timely fashion, and that completion of the bridge overhaul was not jeopardized by ongoing budget debates in Washington, D.C.”

AYOTTE: “Having been called ‘one of the worst bridges in America,’ I am pleased that paperwork issues have been resolved allowing this project to move forward. New Hampshire and Maine have already made a serious commitment to replacing Memorial Bridge, and I am glad that DOT followed through on its commitment.“

After having voted to rescind any funding left for this program, the three New England Republicans lobbied the Department of Transportation to release the funding quickly before the recissions could take place. When H.R. 1 was before the Senate, Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood warned people before the vote that approving those could put projects in peril. “We just want to make sure everybody understands that,” LaHood said.

Overall, H.R 1 “cuts funding for transportation infrastructure by 9 percent, slashing $2.7 billion from rail, $675 million from federal transit investments, and nearly $1 billion from highway investments.” Unfortunately for those trying to use America’s aged and disintegrating infrastructure, not every project will be rushed through to avoid the budget cuts that the GOP wants to implement.