WASHINGTON (AP) - Until lawmakers vote on a top-priority gun rights bill, nothing else happens in the Senate. And that includes Congress' prized monthlong vacation.
That's the way Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has toughened up his style in the final days before the August break was to begin, learning from last year to leave no room for gun control advocates to derail legislation limiting lawsuits against the gun industry.
Frist, R-Tenn., used Senate parliamentary procedures Wednesday to keep Democrats from dooming the measure with an amendment that would offend the National Rifle Association.
Last year, the NRA abruptly withdrew its support from a similar bill after Democrats succeeded in adding a measure that would renew the expiring assault weapons ban. Frist took the bill down.
http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20050728/D8BK3Q882.html