MILWAUKEE – Democratic U.S. Senator from Wisconsin Tammy Baldwin says that she would support a “clean bill” requiring background checks for all gun purchases in the United States.
“That’s not the only common sense reform I support, but yeah, if the point is to isolate that policy and get a clean vote on it, I’m totally comfortable with that,” Senator Baldwin told WTMJ.
A “clean bill” is a term that refers to a bill which, “has had any problematic or contentious portions of the legislation or amendments removed in order to consider the contested portions of the issue separately.”
But Republican Senator Ron Johnson has not said whether or not he would support a clean bill on background checks.
Instead, Senator Johnson gave a speech on the floor of the Senate this week, asking for passage of a different bill.
“It’s called the Luke and Alex School Safety Act,” Senator Johnson said. “It’s pretty simple. It just creates a clearinghouse of information for the best practices on school safety.”
“It involves numerous departments… Department of Health and Human Services, Justice, Homeland Security…. They all must approve what these best practices are and ensures that parents, teachers, school officials and other stake-holders have input into what those best practices are.”
But Senator Johnson admitted that even if his bill were to be enacted into law, it would not require any school to make any sort of security changes or upgrades.
“It doesn’t allow the clearinghouse to mandate that any school take any action.”
Senator Baldwin made her comments during an exclusive interview with WTMJ. You can listen to that entire audio in the player above.
WTMJ reached out to Senator Johnson’s office for comment on Wednesday. His quotes for this story were pulled from a speech Senator Johnson gave on the floor of the U.S. Senate. You can watch/listen to that speech by clicking here.
