I'm doing my citizen lobby schtick in one of the indoor courtyards of the General Assembly Building in Raleigh today after two (2 -- count 'em, 2) meetings with Sen. Kay Hagan's staff this morning. In between those two meetings, Sen. Hagan (and, shockingly, Sen. Richard Burr -- what happened? did he know what he was voting for?) cast a "yea" vote on the Toomey-Manchin bipartisan compromise bill on firearms reform.
It was quite a moment for the group of moms I was with when we got the news. We had just begged Sen. Hagan's staff to let us stop hounding Hagan on a vote for common-sense firearms laws; we've collectively logged in at least 300 hours in the past three weeks calling her offices in Raleigh and DC to coax her through the heeby-jeebies of stepping out to take a stand on an issue that's generating some very hostile debate here in her home state.
Please, we begged, please let us stop having to spend our time calling, writing, and meeting with y'all so that we can concentrate on the whack-a-doodle issues and lawmakers we have to get to in our General Assembly! Do you have no idea the number of fires we're trying to put out here at home? Why are you forcing us to take time from that to lobby the one senator in the entire United States who is perfectly positioned to be the grand poobah of bipartisan compromises?
Well, she's no grand poobah, but in the past three weeks, we've watched our Sen. Hagan make public her support for same-sex marriage, then (a couple days later) for universal background checks, and today for the Toomey-Manchin bill. We're pretty close to taking off her training wheels and watching our senator ride a big person's two-wheeler.
Now we can pour more hours into the whack-a-doodles.
