The Senate voted Wednesday to roll back an Obama administration rule that Republicans have said is a threat to people’s right to own firearms, following a similar House vote last week.
The Senate voted 57-43 to kill the rule following a similar party-line vote in the House this month.
The Obama rule holds that the Social Security Administration must report anyone who requires third-party assistance to manage their Social Security benefits is placed on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. Placement on that list prevents them from buying a gun.
The rule was considered after the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Conn., but the final version of the rule was imposed at the tail end of Obama’s term last year.
Republicans have criticized the rule as an end-run by Democrats to use the SSA as a tool for reducing people’s access to firearms.
“This regulation unfairly stigmatizes people with disabilities,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said this week during debate. “If the regulation is not repealed, it will allow the agency to very unfairly deprive Social Security recipients of their Second Amendment rights.”
“This is essentially a national gun ban list,” he added.
Grassley and other Republicans have said it’s a stretch for the rule to assume that people deemed by SSA to have a vague “mental disorder” and who need help managing their Social Security benefits should be automatically blocked from owning a gun. Grassley pointed out that federal law holds that a person must be “mentally defective,” and the SSA rule doesn’t fit that requirement.
Republicans have the backing of groups like the National Rifle Association. But Democrats have opposed the effort to roll back the rule.
Many Democrats have noted that the SSA rule gives people the option of appealing a decision by the agency to report them to NICS.
“Anyone who thinks that they have been unfairly affected can appeal, and the likelihood is substantial that they are going to win,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
But Republican control of both the House and Senate has made it easy for Republicans to use what had been a rarely used law to repeal some of the Obama administration’s last regulations.
The Congressional Review Act allows Congress to disapprove of recently imposed regulations if majorities in both chambers agree, and if the president signs the resolution.
The House passed the same resolution in early February in a 235-180 vote, and Senate passage of the same language sends it to President Trump for his signature.