Democrats in the House have been negotiating over and navigating a process for gun control legislation, with a vote likely this upcoming week. The question is whether it will be one vote or multiple.

Pelosi could bundle several gun control bills together in a larger package, but some Democrats in tight races are asking Pelosi to hold a separate vote on each bill. They’d like to vote “no” on some gun-grabbing bills and hope that voters won’t notice the corresponding “yes” votes to restrict second-amendment rights.

Importantly, this won’t be the first time that the 117th Congress has voted on gun control legislation. In March 2021, the House voted on universal background checks and Heritage Action key voted against that flawed bill. How members voted then is an indicator of how they may vote next week.

The Senate is not expected to vote on gun control legislation next week—but bipartisan discussions are happening on some sort of legislative response.

Republican leadership has stated their intention to negotiate for measures that would address mental health and improve school safety while preserving Constitutional rights. Whether a final deal reflects these intentions is yet to be determined, and we should all be paying attention.

Heartbeat Legislation Saves Lives

Heritage Actions supports Rep. Mike Kelly’s Heartbeat Protection Act. The proposal requires doctors to check for a fetal heartbeat before performing an abortion. It also establishes a criminal penalty for any physician who performs an abortion without checking for a heartbeat or aborts a child with a detected heartbeat.

There is a reason states have enacted more than 500 life-affirming policies in the past decade. Congress would do well to remember that 3 in 4 Americans support significantly limiting abortion, and Rep. Kelly’s bill–if enacted–would be in line with this prevailing opinion.

Rebuffing Regulations

There has been a decades-long trend in Washington to circumvent lawmakers and make policy through the administrative state. Congress has been largely complicit as regulatory action allows legislators to dodge hard votes and thereby avoid accountability from voters.

The regulatory process can be complicated, with rules flowing through multiple three and four-letter agencies. The Swamp would like you to think you are powerless to stop their regulatory overreach, but that’s not the case.

Conservatives can use the process to slow a new rule, spread awareness, drive debate, and engage by submitting public comments:

1. Thoughtful comments can raise questions about the legality of a rule—questions that the administration must take time to respond to. Unaddressed and poorly addressed questions provide a legal avenue for conservatives to challenge regulatory rules in the courts.
   
   
2. A flood of public comments can also reveal where public sentiment truly lies. Biden's bureaucrats can get cold feet when they see that the public is against them.

Conservatives need to engage with the regulatory process, because increasingly, it’s where policies that touch our daily lives are being set. For instance:

• Redefining “Sex” to mean “Gender Identity” — Biden is using Title IX and the Department of Education to redefine the meaning of “sex” and put boys in girl’s bathrooms and on their sports teams. The Biden Administration has delayed the introduction of this rule multiple times because of public pressure from Heritage Action and the conservative grassroots. Learn more about this issue.
  
  
• Energy and Inflation — No surprise, but Biden is trying to use financial regulation to set energy policy. If his rule goes into effect, your gas prices will go even higher!
  
  
• Student Loan Forgiveness — Biden has indicated he may use regulatory authority to forgive student debt. Yesterday’s podcast explained why this is shortsighted policy.
  
  

These are just three quick examples—there are dozens more. Biden would love for us to be too distracted to pay attention. But the more conservatives engage and shine a light on what’s happening, the more we will win.

Jessica and the Heritage Action team

Join the fight to advance the conservative agenda.