But will he have the stones to do it?
http://www.examiner.com/article/former-senate-secretary-says-blue-slip-may-be-a-key-to-stopping-gun-bill?fb_comment_id=fbc_465453883524158_3787231_465489503520596#f3a0ecafebd8b0eHouse Speaker John Boehner could defeat Senate efforts to enact “universal background check” legislation with a simple procedural maneuver, a former Senate insider says. Elizabeth Letchworth, who spent 26 years in the Senate, rising to United States Senate Officer having been elected as the Secretary for the Majority and United States Senate Secretary for the Minority, and who currently runs the GradeGov.com internet resource for rating and communicating with members of Congress, released a video where she claims “[T]he Speaker of the House can uphold the Constitution and block the gun control bill and immigration reform if he uses the blue slip process.
“Article 1, section 7 of the Constitution -- this is the Origination Clause -- says that all bills … dealing with …raising revenue must originate in the House of Representatives,” Letchworth continues.
If the House believes this has been violated, “they initiate what is called a ‘blue slip process,’” which is debated for one hour and then voted on, she elaborates.
This procedure will undoubtedly comes as news to many, so for those wishing to check into this further, a Congressional Research Service report on the Origination Clause and blue-slipping can be found here.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31399.pdf“When a gun is sold privately, it must then trigger a background check, and when you have a background check, that triggers a fee,” Letchworth explains. “So this gun bill is a Senate-originated bill that has a revenue-raising provision in it. You see, the House of Representatives has not passed a House revenue-raising bill that the Senate might use to attach the gun control bill on. If they attach a fee to the gun control bill, then the House of Representatives can return it by using the blue slip process, and therefore the bill could not become law.”
S. 649, the so-called “Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013,” in its current configuration, specifies “Regulations promulgated under this paragraph may not include any provision placing a cap on the fee licensees may charge to facilitate transfers,” but then goes on to clarify “The Federal Bureau of Investigation shall not charge a user fee for a background check conducted pursuant to this subsection.”
Gun Rights Examiner expressed concerns whether or not such a fee, which goes to a firearms dealer and not to the government, falls under the “revenue” restriction, and has put out inquiries to resolve the question of applicability. The only reply received at this writing, from a source who posed that question to “a well-known international law firm located in DC”, wrote back “If any part of the Manchin-Toomey bill requires additional law-abiding citizens to pay a fee to purchase a gun, then that constitutes the definition of a fee. This was asked to see if the ‘blue slip’ process would apply to S. 649, assuming it ever passes the Senate and makes its way over to the House of Representatives."
