Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism

Sandy Hook Promise honors GOP leader with high rating from the NRA

  • Politics
  • by Ana Radelat
  • June 14, 2018
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

Washington – A Republican congressional leader who gets high grades from the National Rifle Association gained an unlikely spotlight this week —  guest of honor at the Sandy Hook Promise annual fundraising gala here Wednesday night.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers, a member of the House Republican leadership has a top rating from the NRA for her voting record to expand gun ownership and her effort to weaken federal gun laws.

She was honored as a “Promise Champion” for helping Sandy Hook Promise shepherd a legislative priority through Congress this year, the STOP School Violence Act that aims to improve school safety and prevent gun violence.

That bill, which was passed with bipartisan majorities in the U.S. House and Senate and signed into law by President Donald Trump, provides federal grants to schools, law enforcement and others who seek training to prevent school violence. Sandy Hook Promise, an organization that was created to fight gun violence by parents who lost their children at the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, provides that type of training.

She told the audience at the Sandy Hook Promise gala Wednesday evening that she worries about the safety of her children when she sends them off to school.

“We must have courageous conversations about what programs and solutions are going to work to keep them safe,” McMorris Rodgers said.

“We must have courageous conversations about what programs and solutions are going to work to keep [children] safe,”

U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers

She represents a Washington state congressional district that is home to Freeman High School, the scene of a school shooting last year that resulted in the wounding of three students and the death of another.

As the leader of the House Republican Conference, McMorris Rodgers is also the fourth highest-ranking Republican in that chamber and the highest-ranking Republican woman in Congress.

As part of the GOP House leadership, she has been criticized by gun control groups for opposing any gun control bills to come up for a vote in the U.S. House, other than a “Fix NICs” bill that encouraged better reporting to the FBI’s gun buyer background check system and was supported by the NRA.

“We are not a gun-control organization, we’re a gun-violence prevention organization,” said Nicole Hockley, a co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise who lost her 6-year-old son, Dylan, in the Newtown shooting.

Hockley said Sandy Hook Promise supported gun violence prevention “champions” and McMorris Rodgers qualified for that title because of her efforts on the STOP School Violence Act.

She also said Sandy Hook Promise always honors both a Republican and a Democrat at their galas. “We’re a non-partisan organization,” Hockley said. “We don’t support candidates… we honor people.”

“We’re a non-partisan organization… We don’t support candidates, we honor people.”

Nicole Hockley, Sandy Hook Promise

Hockley also asked “What senator or congressman has a 100 percent perfect  record?”

Sen. Bob Casey , D-Pa., was honored with McMorris Rodgers Wednesday night for sponsoring the “Disarm Hate Act” that aims to keep guns out of the hands of those who commit violent criminal acts based on hate.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy also gave speeches at the gala.

Other Republicans honored as champions by Sandy Hook Promise in the past include Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who crossed party lines after the Newtown shooting to vote for a bill that would expand FBI background checks to purchases at gun shows and to those who buy weapons from individuals over the internet. To the dismay of Newtown families sitting in the Senate gallery that day, the Senate rejected that bill, despite its support by a handful of Republicans.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who is a strong gun rights supporter, was a 2016 gala  honoree, along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Cassidy was the Senate sponsor of the STOP School Violence Act.

Unlike Collins or Toomey, McMorris Rodgers has never voted with Democrats on a gun bill and has long been a staunch gun rights advocate.

A few days after the Valentine’s Day massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., McMorris Rogers was scheduled to be a speaker at a Republican fundraiser that featured the auctioning of an AR-15 rifle — the style of weapon used by the student shooter in Parkland and by Adam Lanza in his rampage that killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown.

Plans to auction off that rifle were dropped after POLITICO ran a story about the event.

McMorris Rogers earned her top grade from the NRA for supporting the gun right’s group’s top legislative priority this year, a bill that would allow those with permits in one state to carry their firearm into another state, and co-sponsoring bills that would loosen restrictions on interstate gun purchases and ban gun registration and trigger lock laws in Washington D.C., which has some of the toughest gun regulations in the nation.

Her record on guns has made McMorris a target of a gun control group founded by Gabby Giffords, a former congresswoman from Arizona who was a victim of a mass shooter. The Giffords political action committee is running ads attacking McMorris Rodgers for “a clear record of opposing gun safety measures that could prevent another mass shooting,” and accepting “tens of thousands” of dollars in contributions from the NRA since 2004.

Sandy Hook Promise, which was co-founded by Mark Barden, who lost his 6-year-old son Daniel in the Newtown shooting, appears to have been successful at raising money. Reports filed with the Internal Revenue Service show that the non-profit group raised about $3.5 million in 2015 and nearly $5.6 million in 2016.

Reports filed with the  Secretary of the Senate show the group has spent $435,000 on lobbyists in Washington since 2013. Those records show the STOP School Violence Act was one of Sandy Hook Promise’s top lobbying priorities.

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ana Radelat Ana has written about politics and policy in Washington, D.C.. for Gannett, Thompson Reuters and UPI. She was a special correspondent for the Miami Herald, and a regular contributor to The New York TImes, Advertising Age and several other publications. She has also worked in broadcast journalism, for CNN and several local NPR stations. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Journalism.

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
Feds will not be placing migrant children in Connecticut
by Mark Pazniokas

The closed Juvenile Training School had been under consideration as a shelter

Lamont closed the restaurants. Now he is their promoter.
by Mark Pazniokas

A year after Gov. Ned Lamont banned indoor dining due to COVID-19, the industry has welcomed him as its savior.

CT lawmakers call for funding to stop ‘mass killing’ of Black and brown children
by Kelan Lyons

Lawmakers identified a $5 billion proposal by the Biden administration, and marijuana and sports-betting legalization efforts, as potential funding.

Lamont faults CDC on J&J vaccine pause: ‘I would have handled it differently’
by Mark Pazniokas

Gov. Ned Lamont and other governors expressed dismay to the White House over pausing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

GOP retains Monroe-Newtown seat in CT House
by Mark Pazniokas

Republican Tony Scott of Monroe won a special election Tuesday in the 112th House District of Monroe and Newtown.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion College students in Connecticut should be vaccinated now
by Dayna Vadala

If the state of Connecticut wants its institutions of higher learning to return to normal in the fall, it’s going to have to get shots into the arms of the students.

Opinion Connecticut, be a International leader against hair discrimination among children
by Faith D. Crittenden, Jade A. Anderson, MD, and Whitney L. Stuard

On March 1, 2020, Connecticut became the eighth state to pass the Crown Act, a national legislative movement that recognizes natural hair and cultural headwear discrimination as a form of racial discrimination in the workplace. While we are  in strong support and advocate for this law, it is important to recognize the limitations of the Crown Act and how it can be improved upon in future policy.

Opinion Three lessons for schools across America from Secretary Cardona’s hometown
by Mark Benigni

Over the past decade, Meriden Public Schools -- where U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona served as assistant superintendent -- has become a unique laboratory for new ideas that push the boundaries of what is possible in public education. And many of those ideas have paid off.

Opinion A healthcare system too broken to fix
by Sosena Kedebe MD

On March 25, the White house announced that it was going to invest over $6 billion in health centers that are funded through the Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in order to expand COVID-19 vaccinations and other health services provided to vulnerable populations. As a chief medical officer for a health center that is strained to reach some of the most disenfranchised patient population in Hartford, this was great news. Yet there was a part of me that took the news with a deep concern. Why you might ask?

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO